DANGEROUS AGES

by

ROSE MACAULAY

Author of "Potterism"

Boni and LiverightPublishers New York

1921

TO MY MOTHERDRIVING GAILY THROUGH THEADVENTUROUS MIDDLE YEARS

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

 I. NEVILLE'S BIRTHDAY II. MRS. HILARY'S BIRTHDAY III. FAMILY LIFE IV. ROOTS V. SEAWEED VI. JIM VII. GERDAVIII. NAN IX. THE PACE X. PRINCIPLES XI. THAT WHICH REMAINS XII. THE MOTHERXIII. THE DAUGHTER XIV. YOUTH TO YOUTH XV. THE DREAM XVI. TIMEXVII. THE KEY

'As to that, ' said Mr. Cradock, 'we may say that all ages are dangerousto all people, in this dangerous life we live. '

'Reflecting how, at the best, human life on this minute and perishingplanet is a mere episode, and as brief as a dream. .. . '

_Trivia_: Logan Pearsall Smith. 

CHAPTER I

NEVILLE'S BIRTHDAY

1

Neville, at five o'clock (Nature's time, not man's) on the morning of herbirthday, woke from the dream-broken sleep of summer dawns, hot with theburden of two sheets and a blanket, roused by the multitudinous silvercalling of a world full of birds. They chattered and bickered about thecreepered house, shrill and sweet, like a hundred brooks running togetherdown steep rocky places after snow. And, not like brooks, and strangelyunlike birds, like, in fact, nothing in the world except a cuckoo clock, a cuckoo shouted foolishly in the lowest boughs of the great elm acrossthe silver lawn. 

Neville turned on her face, cupped her small, pale, tanned face in hersunburnt hands, and looked out with sleepy violet eyes. The sharp joy ofthe young day struck into her as she breathed it through the wide window. She shivered ecstatically as it blew coldly onto her bare throat andchest, and forgot the restless birthday bitterness of the night; forgothow she had lain and thought "Another year gone, and nothing done yet. Soon all the years will be gone, and nothing ever will be done. " Done byher, she, of course, meant, as all who are familiar with birthdays willknow. But what was something and what was nothing, neither she nor otherswith birthdays could satisfactorily define. They have lived, they haveeaten, drunk, loved, bathed, suffered, talked, danced in the night andrejoiced in the dawn, warmed, in fact, both hands before the fire oflife, but still they are not ready to depart. For they are behindhandwith time, obsessed with so many worlds, so much to do, the petty done, the undone vast. It depressed Milton when he turned twenty-three; itdepresses all those with vain and ambitious temperaments at least once ayear. Some call it remorse for wasted days, and are proud of it; otherscall it vanity, discontent or greed, and are ashamed of it. It makes nodifference either way. 

Neville, flinging it off lightly with her bedclothes, sprang out of bed, thrust her brown feet into sand shoes, her slight, straight, pyjama-cladbody into a big coat, quietly slipped into the passage, where, behindthree shut doors, slept Rodney, Gerda and Kay, and stole down the backstairs to the kitchen, which was dim and blinded, blue with china andpale with dawn, and had a gas stove. She made herself some tea. She alsogot some bread and marmalade out of the larder, spread two thick chunks, and munching one of them, slipped out of the sleeping house into thedissipated and riotous garden. 

Looking up at the honeysuckle-buried window of the bedroom of Gerda, Neville nearly whistled the call to which Gerda was wont to reply. Nearly, but not quite. On the whole it was a morning to be out alone in. Besides, Neville wanted to forget, for the moment, about birthdays, andGerda would have reminded her. 

Going round by the yard, she fetched Esau instead, who wouldn't remindher, and whose hysterical joy she hushed with a warning hand. 

Across the wet and silver lawn she sauntered, between the monstrousshadows of the elms, her feet in the old sand shoes leaving dark printsin the dew, her mouth full of bread and marmalade, her black plaitbobbing on her shoulders, and Esau tumbling round her. Across the lawn tothe wood, cool and dim still, but not quiet, for it rang with music andrustled with life. Through the boughs of beeches and elms and firs theyoung day flickered gold, so that the bluebell patches were half lit, like blue water in the sun, half grey, like water at twilight. Betweentwo great waves of them a brown path ran steeply down to a deep littlestream. Neville and Esau, scrambling a little way upstream, stopped ata broad swirling pool it made between rocks. Here Neville removed coat, shoes and pyjamas and sat poised for a moment on the jutting rock, aslight and naked body, long in the leg, finely and supplely knit, withlight, flexible muscles--a body built for swiftness, grace and a certainwiry strength. She sat there while she twisted her black plait round herhead, then she slipped into the cold, clear, swirling pool, which in onepart was just over her depth, and called to Esau to come in too, andEsau, as usual, didn't, but only barked. 

One swim round is enough, if not too much, as everyone who knows sunrisebathing will agree. Neville scrambled out, discovered that she hadforgotten the towel, dried herself on her coat, resumed her pyjamas, andsat down to eat her second slice of bread and marmalade. When she hadfinished it she climbed a beech tree, swarming neatly up the smooth trunkin order to get into the sunshine, and sat on a broad branch astride, whistling shrilly, trying to catch the tune now from one bird, now fromanother. 

These, of course, were the moments when being alive was enough. Swimming, bread and marmalade, sitting high in a beech tree in the golden eye ofthe morning sun--that was life. One flew then, like a gay ship with thewind in its sails, over the cold black bottomless waters of misgiving. Many such a June morning Neville remembered in the past. .. . She wonderedif Gerda and if Kay thus sailed over sorrow, too. Rodney, she knew, did. But she knew Rodney better, in some ways, than she knew Gerda and Kay. 

To think suddenly of Rodney, of Gerda and of Kay, sleeping in the stillhouse beyond the singing wood and silver garden, was to founder swiftlyin the cold, dark seas, to be hurt again with the stabbing envy of thenight. Not jealousy, for she loved them all too well for that. But envyof their chances, of their contacts with life. Having her own contacts, she wanted all kinds of others too. Not only Rodney's, Gerda's and Kay's, but those of all her family and friends. Conscious, as one is onbirthdays, of intense life hurrying swiftly to annihilation, she strovedesperately to dam it. It went too fast. She looked at the wet strands ofblack hair now spread over her shoulders to dry in the sun, at herstrong, supple, active limbs, and thought of the days to come, when theblack hair should be grey and the supple limbs refuse to carry her upbeech trees, and when, if she bathed in the sunrise, she would getrheumatism. In those days, what did one do to keep from sinking in theblack seas of regret? One sat by the fire, or in the sunlit garden, oldand grey and full of sleep--yes, one went to sleep, when one could. Whenone couldn't, one read. But one's eyes got tired soon--Neville thought ofher grandmother--and one had to be read aloud to, by someone who couldn'tread aloud. That wouldn't be enough to stifle vain regrets; onlyrejoicing actively in the body did that. So, before that time came, onemust have slain regret, crushed that serpent's head for good and all. 

But did anyone ever succeed in doing this? Rodney, who had his full, successful, useful, interesting life; Rodney, who had made his mark andwas making it; Rodney, the envy of many others, and particularly the envyof Neville, with the jagged ends of her long since broken career stabbingher; Rodney from time to time burned inwardly with scorching ambitions, with jealousies of other men, with all the heats, rancours and troublesof the race that is set before us. He had done, was doing, something, butit wasn't enough. He had got, was getting, far, --but it wasn't farenough. He couldn't achieve what he wanted; there were obstacleseverywhere. Fools hindered his work; men less capable than he got jobs heshould have had. Immersed in politics, he would have liked more time forwriting; he would have liked a hundred other careers besides his own, andcould have but the one. (Gerda and Kay, still poised on the threshold oflife, still believed that they could indeed have a hundred. ) No, Rodneywas not immune from sorrow, but at least he had more with which to keepit at bay than Neville. Neville had no personal achievements; she hadonly her love for Rodney, Gerda and Kay, her interest in the queer, enchanting pageant of life, her physical vigours (she could beat any ofthe rest of them at swimming, walking, tennis or squash) and her activebut wasted brain. A good brain, too; she had easily and with brilliancepassed her medical examinations long ago--those of them for which she hadhad time before she had been interrupted. But now a wasted brain;squandered, atrophied, gone soft with disuse. Could she begin to useit now? Or was she forever held captive, in deep woods, between the twotwilights?

 "I am in deep woods, Between the two twilights. Over valley and hill I hear the woodland wave Like the voice of Time, as slow, The voice of Life, as grave, The voice of Death, as still. .. . "

2

The voices, the young loud clear voices of Gerda and of Kay, shrilleddown from the garden, and Esau yapped in answer. They were calling her. They had probably been to wake her and had found her gone. 

Neville smiled (when she smiled a dimple came in one pale brown cheek)and swung herself down from the beech. Kay and Gerda were of enormousimportance; the most important things in life, except Rodney; but noteverything, because nothing is ever everything in this so complex world. 

When she came out of the wood into the garden, now all golden withmorning, they flung themselves upon her and called her a sneak for nothaving wakened them to bathe. 

"You'll be late for breakfast, " they chanted. "Late on your forty-thirdbirthday. "

They each had an arm round her; they propelled her towards the house. They were lithe, supple creatures of twenty and twenty-one. Between themwalked Neville, with her small, pointed, elfish face, that was sensitiveto every breath of thought and emotion like smooth water wind-stirred. With her great violet eyes brooding in it under thin black brows, andher wet hair hanging in loose strands, she looked like an agelesswood-dryad between two slim young saplings. Kay was a little like her inthe face, only his violet eyes were short-sighted and he wore glasses. Gerda was smaller, fragile and straight as a wand, with a white littleface and wavy hair of pure gold, bobbed round her thin white neck. Andwith far-set blue eyes and a delicate cleft chin and thin straight lips. For all she looked so frail, she could dance all night and return in themorning cool, composed and exquisite, like a lily bud. There was a lookof immaculate sexless purity about Gerda; she might have stood for theangel Gabriel, wide-eyed and young and grave. With this wide innocentlook she would talk unabashed of things which Neville felt revolting. Andshe, herself, was the product of a fastidious generation and class, andas nearly sexless as may be in this besexed world, which however is not, and can never be, saying much. Kay would do the same. They would read anddiscuss Freud, whom Neville, unfairly prejudiced, found both an obscenemaniac and a liar. They might laugh with her at Freud when he expanded onthat complex, whichever it is, by which mothers and daughters hate eachother, and fathers and sons--but they both all the same took seriouslythings which seemed to Neville merely loathsome imbecilities. Gerda andKay didn't, in point of fact, find so many things either funny ordisgusting as Neville did; throwing her mind back twenty years, Nevilletried to remember whether she had found the world as funny and asfrightful when she was a medical student as she did now; on the whole shethought not. Boys and girls are, for all their high spirits, creatures ofinfinite solemnities and pomposities. They laugh; but the twinklingirony, mocking at itself and everything else, of the thirties andforties, they have not yet learnt. They cannot be gentle cynics; theyare so full of faith and hope, and when these are hurt they turn savage. About Kay and Gerda there was a certain splendid earnestness with regardto life. Admirable creatures, thought Neville, watching them withwhimsical tenderness. They had nothing to do with the pre-war, dilettantepast, the sophisticated gaiety of the young century. Their childhood hadbeen lived during the great war, and they had emerged from it hot withelemental things, discussing life, lust, love, politics and socialreform, with cool candour, intelligent thoroughness and Elizabethandirectness. They wouldn't mind having passions and giving them rein; theywouldn't think it vulgar, or even tedious, to lead loose lives. Probably, in fact, it wasn't; probably it was Neville, and the people who had grownup with her, who were overcivilized, too far from the crude stuff oflife, the monotonies and emotionalisms of Nature. And now Nature wastaking her rather startling revenge on the next generation. 

3

Neville ran upstairs, and came down to breakfast dressed in blue cotton, with her damp hair smoothly taken back from her broad forehead thatjutted broodingly over her short pointed face. She had the look ofa dryad at odds with the world, a whimsical and elfish intellectual. 

Rodney and Kay and Gerda had been putting parcels at her place, and apile of letters lay among them. There is, anyhow, that about birthdays, however old they make you. Kay had given her a splendid greatpocket-knife and a book he wanted to read, Gerda an oak box she hadcarved, and Rodney a new bicycle (by the front door) and a Brangwyndrawing (on the table). If Neville envied Kay and Gerda their futurecareers, she envied Rodney his present sphere. Her husband and thefather of Gerda and Kay was a clever and distinguished-looking man offorty-five, and member, in the Labour interest, for a division of Surrey. He looked, however, more like a literary man. How to be useful thoughmarried: in Rodney's case the problem was so simple, in hers socomplicated. She had envied Rodney a little twenty years ago; then shehad stopped, because the bringing up of Kay and Gerda had been a work initself; now she had begun again. Rodney and she were more like each otherthan they were like their children; they had some of the same vanities, fastidiousnesses, humours and withdrawals, and in some respects the sameoutlook on life. Only Rodney's had been solidified and developed by thecontacts and exigencies of his career, and Neville's disembodied, devitalised and driven inwards by her more dilettante life. She "helpedRodney with the constituency" of course, but it was Rodney'sconstituency, not hers; she entertained his friends and hers when theywere in town, but she knew herself a light woman, not a dealer inaffairs. Yet her nature was stronger than Rodney's, larger and moremature; it was only his experience she lacked. 

Rodney was and had always been charming; there could be no doubtabout that, whatever else you might come to think about him. Able, too, but living on his nerves, wincing like a high-strung horse from theannoyances and disappointments of life, such as Quaker oats because thegrape-nuts had come to an end, and the industrial news of the morning, which was as bad as usual and four times repeated in four quite differenttones by the four daily papers which lay on the table. They took fourpapers not so much that there might be one for each of them as that theymight have the entertainment of seeing how different the same news can bemade to appear. One bond of union this family had which few familiespossess; they were (roughly speaking) united politically, so believed thesame news to be good or bad. The chief difference in their politicalattitude was that Kay and Gerda joined societies and leagues, being stillyoung enough to hold that causes were helped in this way. 

"What about to-day?" Rodney asked Neville. "What are you going to do?"

She answered, "Tennis. " (Neville had once been a county player. ) "River. Lying about in the sun. " (It should be explained that it was one of thosenine days of the English summer of 1920 when this was a possibleoccupation. ) "Anything anyone likes. .. . I've already had a good deal ofday and a bathe. .. . Oh, Nan's coming down this afternoon. "

She got that out of a letter. Nan was her youngest sister. They allproceeded to get and impart other things out of letters, in the way offamilies who are fairly united, as families go. 

Gerda opened her lips to impart something, but remembered her father'sdistastes and refrained. Rodney, civilised, sensitive and progressive, had no patience with his children's unsophisticated leaning to aprimitive crudeness. He told them they were young savages. So Gerda kepther news till later, when she and Neville and Kay were lying on rugs onthe lawn after Neville had beaten Kay in a set of singles. 

They lay and smoked and cooled, and Gerda, a cigarette stuck in one sideof her mouth, a buttercup in the other, mumbled "Penelope's baby's come, by the way. A girl. Another surplus woman. "

Neville's brows lazily went up. 

"Penelope Jessop? What's _she_ doing with a baby? I didn't know she'd gotmarried. "

"Oh, she hasn't, of course. .. . Didn't I tell you about Penelope? Shelives with Martin Annesley now. "

"Oh, I see. Marriage in the sight of heaven. That sort of thing. "

Neville was of those who find marriages in the sight of heavenuncivilised and socially reactionary, a reversion, in fact, to Nature, which bored her. Gerda and Kay rightly believed such marriages to havesome advantages over those more visible to the human eye (as being morereadily dissoluble when fatiguing) and many advantages over no marriagesat all, which do not increase the population, so depleted by the GreatWar. When they spoke in this admirably civic sense, Neville was apt tosay "It doesn't want increasing. I waited twenty minutes before I couldboard my bus at Trafalgar Square the other day. It wants more depleting, I should say--a Great Plague or something, " a view which Kay and Gerdathought truly egotistical. 

"I do hope, " said Neville, her thoughts having led her to the statement, "I do very much hope that neither of you will ever perpetrate that sortof marriage. It would be so dreadfully common of you. "

"Impossible to say, " Kay said, vaguely. 

"Considering, " said Gerda, "that there are a million more women than menin this country, it stands to reason that some system of polygamy mustbecome the usual thing in the future. "

"It's always been the usual thing, darling. Dreadfully usual. It's somuch more amusing to be unusual in these ways. "

Neville's voice trailed drowsily away. Polygamy. Sex. Free Love. Love inchains. The children seemed so often to be discussing these. Just as, twenty years ago, she and her friends had seemed always to be discussingthe Limitations of Personality, the Ethics of Friendship, and the Nature, if any, of God. This last was to Kay and Gerda too hypothetical to be astimulating theme. It would have sent them to sleep, as sex did Neville. 

Neville, led by Free Love to a private vision, brooded cynically oversavages dancing round a wood-pile in primeval forests, engaged in whatmissionaries, journalists, and writers of fiction about our colouredbrothers call "nameless orgies" (as if you would expect most orgies toanswer to their names, like the stars) and she saw the steep roads of theround world running back and back and back--on or back, it made nodifference, since the world was round--to this. Saw, too, a thousandstuffy homes wherein sat couples linked by a legal formula so rigid, solasting, so indelible, that not all their tears could wash out a word ofit, unless they took to themselves other mates, in which case theirsecond state might be worse than their first. Free love--love in chains. How absurd it all was, and how tragic too. One might react back to theremaining choice--no love at all--and that was absurder and more tragicstill, since man was made (among other ends) to love. Looking under herheavy lashes at her pretty young children, incredibly youthful, absurdlytheoretical, fiercely clean of mind and frank of speech, their clearnessas yet unblurred by the expediencies, compromise and experimentalcontacts of life, Neville was stabbed by a sharp pang of fear and hopefor them. Fear lest on some fleeting impulse they might founder into thesentimental triviality of short-lived contacts, or into the tedium ofbonds which must out-live desire; hope that, by some fortunate chance, they might each achieve, as she had achieved, some relation which shouldbe both durable and to be endured. As to the third path--no love atall--she did not believe that either Kay or Gerda would tread that. Theywere emotional, in their cool and youthful way, and also believed thatthey ought to increase the population. What a wonderful, noble thing tobelieve, at twenty, thought Neville, remembering the levity of her ownirresponsible youth, when her only interest in the population had beena nightmare fear lest they should at last become so numerous that theywould be driven out of the towns into the country and would be scuttlingover the moors, downs and woods like black beetles in kitchens in thenight. They were better than she had been, these children; morepublic-spirited and more in earnest about life. 

4

Across the garden came Nan Hilary, having come down from town to seeNeville on her forty-third birthday. Nan herself was not so incrediblyold as Neville; (for forty-three _is_ incredibly old, from any reasonablestandpoint). Nan was thirty-three and a half. She represented thethirties; she was, in Neville's mind, a bridge between the remotetwenties and the new, extraordinary forties in which one could hardlybelieve. It seems normal to be in the thirties; the right, ordinary age, that most people are. Nan, who wrote, and lived in rooms in Chelsea, wasrather like a wild animal--a leopard or something. Long and lissome, witha small, round, sallow face and withdrawn, brooding yellow eyes undersulky black brows that slanted up to the outer corners. Nan had a goodtime socially and intellectually. She was clever and lazy; she wouldfritter away days and weeks in idle explorations into the humanities, or curled up in the sun in the country like a cat. Her worst faultwas a cynical unkindness, against which she did not strive becauseinvestigating the less admirable traits of human beings amused her. Shewas infinitely amused by her nephew and her niece, but often spiteful tothem, merely because they were young. To sum up, she was a cynic, a rake, an excellent literary critic, a sardonic and brilliant novelist, and shehad a passionate, adoring and protecting affection for Neville, who wasthe only person who had always been told what she called the darkersecrets of her life. 

She sat down on the grass, her thin brown hands clasped round her ankles, and said to Neville, "You're looking very sweet, aged one. Forty-threeseems to suit you. "

"And you, " Neville returned, "look as if you'd jazzed all night andwritten unkind reviews from dawn till breakfast time. "

"That's just about right, " Nan owned, and flung herself full length onher back, shutting her eyes against the sun. "That's why I've come downhere to cool my jaded nerves. And also because Rosalind wanted to lunchwith me. "

"Have you read my poems yet?" enquired Gerda, who never showed thecustomary abashed hesitation in dealing with these matters. She and Kaysent their literary efforts to Nan to criticise, because they believed(a) in her powers as a critic, (b) in her influence in the literaryworld. Nan used in their behalf the former but seldom the latter, because, in spite of queer spasms of generosity, she was jealous of Gerdaand Kay. Why should they want to write? Why shouldn't they do anythingelse in the world but trespass on her preserves? Not that verse was whatshe ever wrote or could write herself. And of course everyone wrote now, and especially the very young; but in a niece and nephew it was atiresome trick. They didn't write well, because no one of their age everdoes, but they might some day. They already came out in weekly papers andanthologies of contemporary verse. Very soon they would come out inlittle volumes. They'd much better, thought Nan, marry and get out of theway. 

"Read them--yes, " Nan returned laconically to Gerda's question. 

"What, " enquired Gerda, perseveringly, "did you think of them?"

"I said I'd _read_ them, " Nan replied. "I didn't say I'd thought ofthem. "

Gerda looked at her with her wide, candid gaze, with the unrancorousplacidity of the young, who are still used to being snubbed. Nan, sheknew, would tease and baffle, withhold and gibe, but would always saywhat she thought in the end, and what she thought was always worthknowing, even though she was middle-aged. 

Nan, turning her lithe body over on the grass, caught the patient child'slook, and laughed. Generous impulses alternated in her with maliciousmoods where these absurd, solemn, egotistic, pretty children of Neville'swere concerned. 

"All right, Blue Eyes. I'll write it all down for you and send it to youwith the MS. , if you really want it. You won't like it, you know, but Isuppose you're used to that by now. "

Neville listened to them. Regret turned in her, cold and tired andenvious. They all wrote except her. To write: it wasn't much of a thingto do, unless one did it really well, and it had never attracted herpersonally, but it was, nevertheless, something--a little piece ofindividual output thrown into the flowing river. She had never written, even when she was Gerda's age. Twenty years ago writing poetry hadn'tbeen as it is to-day, a necessary part of youth's accomplishment liketennis, French or dancing. Besides, Neville could never have enjoyedwriting poetry, because for her the gulf between good verse and bad wastoo wide to be bridged by her own achievements. Nor novels, because shedisliked nearly all novels, finding them tedious, vulgar, conventional, and out of all relation both to life as lived and to the world ofimagination. What she had written in early youth had been queerimaginative stuff, woven out of her childhood's explorations intofairyland and of her youth's into those still stranger tropical landsbeyond seas where she had travelled with her father. But she hadn'twritten or much wanted to write; scientific studies had always attractedher more than literary achievements. Then she had married Rodney, andthat was the end of all studies and achievements for her, though not theend of anything for Rodney, but the beginning. 

Rodney came out of the house, his pipe in his mouth. He still had thelounging walk, shoulders high and hands in pockets, of the undergraduate;the walk also of Kay. He sat down among his family. Kay and Gerda lookedat him with approval; though they knew his weakness, he was just thefather they would have chosen, and of how few parents can this be said. They were proud to take him about with them to political meetings and soforth, and prouder still to sit under him while he addressed audiences. Few men of his great age were (on the whole) so right in the head andsound in the heart, and fewer still so delightful to the eye. When peopletalked about the Wicked Old Men, who, being still unfortunatelyunrestrained and unmurdered by the Young, make this wicked world whatit is, Kay and Gerda always contended that there were a few exceptions. 

Nan gave Rodney her small, fleeting smile. She had a criticalfriendliness for him, but had never believed him really good enoughfor Neville. 

Gerda and Kay began to play a single, and Nan said, "I'm in a hole. "

"Broke, darling?" Neville asked her, for that was usually it, thoughsometimes it was human entanglements. 

Nan nodded. "If I could have ten pounds. .. . I'd let you have it in afortnight. "

"That's easy, " said Rodney, in his kind, offhand way. 

"Of course, " Neville said. "You old spendthrift. "

"Thank you, dears. Now I can get a birthday present for mother. "

For Mrs. Hilary's birthday was next week, and to celebrate it herchildren habitually assembled at The Gulls, St. Mary's Bay, where shelived. Nan always gave her a more expensive present than she couldafford, in a spasm of remorse for the irritation her mother roused inher. 

"Oh, poor mother, " Neville exclaimed, suddenly remembering that Mrs. Hilary would in a week be sixty-three, and that this must be worse bytwenty years than to be forty-three. 

The hurrying stream of life was loud in her ears. How quickly it wassweeping them all along--the young bodies of Gerda and of Kay leaping onthe tennis court, the clear, analysing minds of Nan and Rodney andherself musing in the sun, the feverish heart of her mother, loving, hating, feeding restlessly on itself by the seaside, the age-calmed soulof her grandmother, who was eighty-four and drove out in a donkeychair by the same sea. 

The lazy talking of Rodney and Nan, the cryings and strikings of Gerdaand Kay, the noontide chirrupings of birds, the cluckings of distant henspretending that they had laid eggs, all merged into the rushing of theinexorable river, along and along and along. Time, like an ever-rollingstream, bearing all its sons away. Clatter, chatter, clatter, does itmatter, matter, matter? They fly forgotten, as a dream dies at theopening day. .. . No, it probably didn't matter at all what one did, howmuch one got into one's life, since there was to be, anyhow, so soon anend. 

The garden became strange and far and flat, like tapestry, or a dream. .. . 

The lunch gong boomed. Nan, who had fallen asleep with the suddenness ofa lower animal, her cheek pillowed on her hand, woke and stretched. Gerdaand Kay, not to be distracted from their purpose, finished the set. 

"Thank God, " said Nan, "that I am not lunching with Rosalind. "

CHAPTER II

MRS. HILARY'S BIRTHDAY

1

They all turned up at The Gulls, St. Mary's Bay, in time for lunch onMrs. Hilary's birthday. It was her special wish that all those of herchildren who could should do this each year. Jim, whom she preferred, couldn't come this time; he was a surgeon; it is an uncertain profession. The others all came; Neville and Pamela and Gilbert and Nan and withGilbert his wife Rosalind, who had no right there because she was only anin-law, but if Rosalind thought it would amuse her to do anything youcould not prevent her. She and Mrs. Hilary disliked one another a gooddeal, though Rosalind would say to the others, "Your darling mother!She's priceless, and I adore her!" She would say that when she hadcaught Mrs. Hilary in a mistake. She would draw her on to say she hadread a book she hadn't read (it was a point of honour with Mrs. Hilarynever to admit ignorance of any book mentioned by others) and then shewould say, "I do love you, mother! It's not out yet; I've only seenGilbert's review copy, " and Mrs. Hilary would say, "In that case Isuppose I am thinking of another book, " and Rosalind would say to Nevilleor Pamela or Gilbert or Nan, "Your darling mother. I adore her!" and Nan, contemptuous of her mother for thinking such trivial pretence worthwhile, and with Rosalind for thinking malicious exposure worth while, would shrug her shoulders and turn away. 

2

All but Neville arrived by the same train from town, the one getting inat 12. 11. Neville had come from Surrey the day before and spent thenight, because Mrs. Hilary liked to have her all to herself for a littletime before the others came. After Jim, Neville was the child Mrs. Hilarypreferred. She had always been a mother with marked preferences. Therewere various barriers between her and her various children; Gilbert, whowas thirty-eight, had annoyed her long ago by taking up literature as aprofession on leaving Cambridge, instead of doing what she described as"a man's job, " and later on by marrying Rosalind, who was fast, and, inMrs. Hilary's opinion, immoral. Pamela, who was thirty-nine and workingin a settlement in Hoxton, annoyed her by her devotion to Frances Carr, the friend with whom she lived. Mrs. Hilary thought them very silly, these close friendships between women. They prevented marriage, and ledto foolish fussing about one another's health and happiness. Nan annoyedher by "getting talked about" with men, by writing books which Mrs. Hilary found both dull and not very nice, in tone, and by her ownirritated reactions to her mother's personality. Nan, in fact, was oftenrude and curt to her. 

But Jim, who was a man and a doctor, a strong, good-humoured person andher eldest son, annoyed her not at all. Nor did Neville, who was hereldest daughter and had given her grandchildren and infinite sympathy. 

Neville, knowing all these things and more, always arrived on theevenings before her mother's birthdays, and they talked all the morning. Mrs. Hilary was at her best with Neville. She was neither irritable nornervous nor showing off. She looked much less than sixty-three. She wasa tall, slight, trailing woman, with the remains of beauty, and her dark, untidy hair was only streaked with grey. Since her husband had died, tenyears ago, she had lived at St. Mary's Bay with her mother. It had beenher old home; not The Gulls, but the vicarage, in the days when St. Mary's Bay had been a little fishing village without an esplanade. Toold Mrs. Lennox it was the same fishing village still, and the people, even the summer visitors, were to her the flock of her late husband, whohad died twenty years ago. 

"A good many changes lately, " she would say to them. "Some people thinkthe place is improving. But I can't say I like the esplanade. "

But the visitors, unless they were very old, didn't know anything aboutthe changes. To them St. Mary's Bay was not a fishing village but aseaside resort. To Mrs. Hilary it was her old home, and had healthy airand plenty of people for her mother to gossip with and was as good aplace as any other for her to parch in like a withered flower now thatthe work of her life was done. The work of her life had been making ahome for her husband and children; she had never had either the desire orthe faculties for any other work. Now that work was over, and she wasrather badly left, as she cared neither for cards, knitting, gardening, nor intellectual pursuits. Once, seven years ago, at Neville'sinstigation, she had tried London life for a time, but it had been nouse. The people she met there were too unlike her, too intelligent and upto date; they went to meetings and concerts and picture exhibitions andread books and talked about public affairs not emotionally but coolly anddrily; they were mildly surprised at Mrs. Hilary's vehemence of feelingon all points, and she was strained beyond endurance by their knowledgeof facts and catholicity of interests. So she returned to St. Mary's Bay, where she passed muster as an intelligent woman, gossiped with hermother, the servants and their neighbours, read novels, brooded over thehappier past, walked for miles alone along the coast, and slipped everynow and then, as she had slipped even in youth, over the edge ofemotionalism into hysterical passion or grief. Her mother was no use atsuch times; she only made her worse, sitting there in the calm of oldage, looking tranquilly at the end, for her so near that nothingmattered. Only Jim or Neville were of any use then. 

Neville on the eve of this her sixty-third birthday soothed one suchoutburst. The tedium of life, with no more to do in it--why couldn't itend? The lights were out, the flowers were dead--and yet the unhappyactors had to stay and stay and stay, idling on the empty, darkenedstage. (That was how Mrs. Hilary, with her gift for picturesque language, put it. ) _Must_ it be empty, _must_ it be dark, Neville uselessly asked, knowing quite well that for one of her mother's temperament it must. Mrs. Hilary had lived in and by her emotions; nothing else had counted. Lifefor her had burnt itself out, and its remnant was like the fag end of acigarette, stale and old. 

"Shall I feel like that in twenty years?" Neville speculated aloud. 

"I hope, " said Mrs. Hilary, "that you won't have lost Rodney. So long asyou have him. .. . "

"But if I haven't. .. . "

Neville looked down the years; saw herself without Rodney, perhapslooking after her mother, who would then have become (strange, incrediblethought, but who could say?) calm with the calm of age; Kay and Gerdamarried or working or both. .. . What then? Only she was better equippedthan her mother for the fag end of life; she had a serviceable brain anda sound education. She wouldn't pass empty days at a seaside resort. Shewould work at something, and be interested. Interesting work andinteresting friends--her mother, by her very nature, could have neither, but was just clever enough to feel the want of them. The thing was tostart some definite work _now_, before it was too late. 

"Did Grandmama go through it?" Neville asked her mother. 

"Oh, I expect so. I was selfish; I was wrapped up in home and all of you;I didn't notice. But I think she had it badly, for a time, when first sheleft the vicarage. .. . She's contented now. "

They both looked at Grandmama, who was playing patience on the sofa andcould not hear their talking for the sound of the sea. Yes, Grandmama was(apparently) contented now. 

"There's work, " mused Neville, thinking of the various links with life, the rafts, rather, which should carry age over the cold seas of tediousregret. "And there's natural gaiety. And intellectual interests. Andcontacts with other people--permanent contacts and temporary ones. Andbeauty. All those things. For some people, too, there's religion. "

"And for all of us food and drink, " said Mrs. Hilary, sharply. "Oh, I suppose you think I've no right to complain, as I've got all thosethings, except work. "

But Neville shook her head, knowing that this was a delusion of hermother's, and that she had, in point of fact, none of them, except thecontacts with people, which mostly either over-strained, irritated orbored her, and that aspect of religion which made her cry. For she wasa Unitarian, and thought the Gospels infinitely sad and the souls of thedeparted most probably so merged in God as to be deprived of allindividuality. 

"It's better to be High Church or Roman Catholic and have services, oran Evangelical and have the Voice of God, " Neville decided. And, indeed, it is probable that Mrs. Hilary would have been one or other of thesethings if it had not been for her late husband, who had disapproved ofsuperstition and had instructed her in the Higher Thought and the LargerHope. 

3

Though heaviness endured for the night, joy came in the morning, as isapt to happen where there is sea air. Mrs. Hilary on her birthday hada revulsion to gaiety, owing to a fine day, her unstable temperament, letters, presents and being made a fuss of. Also Grandmama said, whenshe went up to see her after breakfast, "This new dress suits youparticularly, my dear child. It brings out the colour in your eyes, " andeveryone likes to hear that when they are sixty-three or any other age. 

So, when the rest of her children arrived, Mrs. Hilary was ready forthem. 

They embraced her in turn; Pamela, capable, humorous and intelligent, the very type of the professional woman at her best, but all the timepreferring Frances Carr, anxious about her because she was overworkingand run down; Nan, her extravagant present in her hands, on fire toprotect her mother against old age, depression and Rosalind, yet knowingtoo how soon she herself would be smouldering with irritation; Gilbert, spare and cynical, writer of plays and literary editor of the WeeklyCritic, and with him his wife Rosalind, whom Mrs. Hilary had long sincejudged as a voluptuous rake who led men on and made up unseemly storiesand her lovely face, but who insisted on coming to The Gulls with Gilbertto see his adorable mother. Rosalind, who was always taking upthings--art, or religion, or spiritualism, or young men--and droppingthem when they bored her, had lately taken up psycho-analysis. She wasstudying what she called her mother-in-law's "case, " looking for andfinding complexes in her past which should account for her somewhatunbalanced present. 

"I've never had complexes, " Mrs. Hilary would declare, indignantly, as ifthey had been fleas or worse, and indeed when Rosalind handled them they_were_ worse, much. From Rosalind Mrs. Hilary got the most unpleasantimpression possible (which is to say a good deal) of psycho-analysts. "They have only one idea, and that is a disgusting one, " she wouldassert, for she could only rarely and with difficulty see more than oneidea in anything, particularly when it was a disgusting one. Her mind wasof that sort--tenacious, intolerant, and not many-sided. That was where(partly where) she fell foul of her children, who saw sharply and clearlyall around things and gave to each side its value. They knew Mrs. Hilaryto be a muddled bigot, whose mind was stuffed with concrete instances andinsusceptible of abstract reason. If anyone had asked her what she knewof psycho-analysis, she would have replied, in effect, that she knewRosalind, and that was enough, more than enough, of psycho-analysis forher. She had also looked into Freud, and rightly had been disgusted. 

"A man who spits deliberately onto his friends' stairs, on purpose toannoy the servants . .. That is enough, the rest follows. The man isobviously a loathsome and indecent vulgarian. It comes from being aGerman, no doubt. " Which settled that; and if anyone murmured "AnAustrian, " she would say, "It comes to the same thing, in questions ofbreeding. " Mrs. Hilary, like Grandmama, settled people and things veryquickly and satisfactorily. 

They all sat in the front garden after lunch and looked out over thewonderful shining sea. Grandmama sat in her wheeled chair, Tchekov'sLetters on her knees. She had made Mrs. Hilary get this book from Mudie'sbecause she had read favourable reviews of it by Gilbert and Nan. Grandmama was a cleverish old lady, cleverer than her daughter. 

"Jolly, isn't it, " said Gilbert, seeing the book. 

"Very entertaining, " said Grandmama, and Mrs. Hilary echoed "Most, " atwhich Grandmama eyed her with a twinkle, knowing that it bored her, likeall the Russians. Mrs. Hilary cared nothing for style ("Literature!" saidLady Adela. "Give _me_ something to _read_!"); she liked nice lifelikebooks about people as she believed them to be, and though she was quiteprepared to believe that real Russians were like Russians in books, shefelt that she did not care to meet either of them. But Mrs. Hilary hadlearnt that intelligent persons seldom liked the books which seemed toher to be about real, natural people, any more than they admired thepictures which struck her as being like things as they were. Though shethought those who differed from her profoundly wrong, she never admittedignorance of the books they admired. For she was in a better position todiffer from them about a book if she had nominally read it--and really itdidn't matter if she had actually done so or not, for she knew beforehandwhat she would think of it if she had. So well she knew this, indeed, that the line between the books she had and hadn't read was, even in herown mind, smudgy and vague, not hard and clear as with most people. Oftenwhen she had seen reviews which quoted extracts she thought she had readthe book, just as some people, when they have seen publishers'advertisements, think they have seen reviews, and declare roundly inlibraries that a book is out when it lacks a month of publication. 

Mrs. Hilary, having thus asserted her acquaintance with Tchekov'sLetters, left Gilbert, Grandmama and Neville to talk about it together, and herself began telling the others how disappointed Jim had been thathe could not come for her birthday. 

"He was passionately anxious to come, " she said, in her clear, vibratingvoice, that struck a different note when she mentioned each one ofher children, so that you always knew which she meant. "He nevermisses to-day if he can possibly help it. But he simply couldn't getaway. .. . One of these tremendously difficult new operations, that hardlyanyone can do. His work must come first, of course. He wouldn't be Jim ifit didn't. "

"Fancy knifing people in town a day like this, " said Rosalind, stretchingher large, lazy limbs in the sun. Rosalind was big and fair, andsensuously alive. 

Music blared out from the parade. Gilbert, adjusting his glasses, observed its circumstances, with his air of detached, fastidiousinterest. 

"The Army, " he remarked. "The Army calling for strayed sheep. "

"Oh, " exclaimed Rosalind, raising herself, "wouldn't I love to go out andbe saved! I _was_ saved once, when I was eleven. It was one of my firstthrills. I felt I was blacker in guilt than all creatures before me, andI came forward and found the Lord. Afraid I had a relapse rather soon, though. "

"Horrible vulgarians, " Mrs. Hilary commented, really meaning Rosalind atthe age of eleven. "They have meetings on the parade every morning now. The police ought to stop it. "

Grandmama was beating time with her hand on the arm of her chair to themerry music-hall tune and the ogreish words. 

 "Blood! Blood! Rivers of blood for you, Oceans of blood for me!All that the sinner has got to do Is to plunge into that Red Sea. Clean! Clean! Wash and be clean!Though filthy and black as a sweep you've been, The waves of that sea shall make you clean. .. . "

"That, " Mrs. Hilary asserted, with disgust, "is a _most_ disagreeable wayof worshipping God. " She was addicted to these undeniable statements, taking nothing for granted. 

"But a very racy tune, my dear, " said Grandmama, "though the words arefoolish and unpleasing. "

Gilbert said, "A stimulating performance. If we don't restrain her, Rosalind will be getting saved again. "

He was proud of Rosalind's vitality, whimsies and exuberances. 

Rosalind, who had a fine rolling voice, began reciting "General Boothenters into heaven, " by Mr. Vachell Lindsay, which Mrs. Hilary founddisgusting. 

"A wonderful man, " said Grandmama, who had been reading the General'slife in two large volumes. "Though mistaken about many things. And hisLife would have been more interesting if it had been written by Mr. Lytton Strachey instead of Mr. Begbie; he has a better touch on our greatreligious leaders. Your grandfather, " added Grandmama, "always got onwell with the Army people. He encouraged them. The present vicar doesnot. He says their methods are deplorable and their goal a delusion. "

Rosalind said "Their methods are entrancing and their goal the Lord. Whatmore does he want? Clergymen are so narrow. That's why I had to give upbeing a churchwoman. "

Rosalind had been a churchwoman (high) for nine months some six yearsago, just after planchette and just before flag days. She had decided, after this brief trial, that incense and confessions, though immenselystimulating, did not weigh down the balance against early mass, Lent, andbeing thrown with other churchwomen. 

4

"What about a bathe?" Neville suggested to all of them. "Mother?"

Mrs. Hilary, a keen bather, agreed. They all agreed except Grandmama, whowas going out in her donkey chair instead, as one does at eighty-four. 

They all went down to the beach, where the Army still sang of the RedSea, and where the blue high tide clapped white hands on brown sand. 

One by one they emerged from tents and sprang through the white leapingedge into the rocking blue, as other bathers were doing all round thebay. When Mrs. Hilary came out of her tent, Neville was waiting for her, poised like a slim girl, knee-deep in tumbling waves, shaking the waterfrom her eyes. 

"Come, mother. I'll race you out. "

Mrs. Hilary waded in, a figure not without grace and dignity. Lookingback they saw Rosalind coming down the beach, large-limbed and splendid, like Juno. Mrs. Hilary shrugged her shoulders. 

"Disgusting, " she remarked to Neville. 

So much more, she meant, of Rosalind than of Rosalind's costume. Mrs. Hilary preferred it to be the other way about, for, though she did notreally like either of them, she disliked the costume less than shedisliked Rosalind. 

"It's quite in the fashion, " Neville assured her, and Mrs. Hilary, remarking that she was sure of that, splashed her head and face andpushed off, mainly to escape from Rosalind, who always sat in the foam, not being, like the Hilary family, an active swimmer. 

Already Pamela and Gilbert were far out, swimming steadily against eachother, and Nan was tumbling and turning like an eel close behind them. 

Neville and Mrs. Hilary swam out a little way. 

"I shall now float on my back, " said Mrs. Hilary. "You swim on and catchup with the rest. "

"You'll be all right?" Neville asked, lingering. 

"Why shouldn't I be all right? I bathe nearly every day, you know, evenif I am sixty-three. " This was not accurate; she only bathed as a rulewhen it was warm, and this seldom occurs on our island coasts. 

Neville, saying, "Don't stop in long, will you, " left her and swam outinto the blue with her swift, over-hand stroke. Neville was the bestswimmer in a swimming family. She clove the water like a torpedodestroyer, swift and untiring between the hot summer sun and the coolsummer sea. She shouted to the others, caught them up, raced them andwon, and then they began to duck each other. When the Hilary brothersand sisters were swimming or playing together, they were even as they hadbeen twenty years ago. 

Mrs. Hilary watched them, swimming slowly round, a few feet out of herdepth. They seemed to have forgotten her and her birthday. The only onewho was within speaking distance was Rosalind, wallowing with her bigwhite limbs in tumbling waves on the shore; Rosalind, whom she disliked;Rosalind, who was more than her costume, which was not saying much;Rosalind, before whom she had to keep up an appearance of immenseenjoyment because Rosalind was so malicious. 

"You wonderful woman! I can't think how you _do_ it, " Rosalind was cryingto her in her rich, ripe voice out of the splashing waves. "But fancytheir all swimming out and leaving you to yourself. Why, you might getcramp and sink. _I'm_ no use, you know; I'm hopeless; can't keep up atall. "

"I shan't trouble you, thank you, " Mrs. Hilary called back, and her voiceshook a little because she was getting chilled. 

"Why, you're shivering, " Rosalind cried. "Why don't you come out? You_are_ wonderful, I do admire you. .. . It's no use waiting for the others, they'll be ages. .. . I say, look at Neville; fancy her being forty-three. I never knew such a family. .. . Come and sit in the waves with me, it'slovely and warm. "

"I prefer swimming, " said Mrs. Hilary, and she was shivering more now. She never stayed in so long as this; she usually only plunged in and cameout. 

Grandmama, stopping on the esplanade in her donkey chair, was waving andbeckoning to her. Grandmama knew she had been in too long, and that herrheumatism would be bad. 

"_Come out, dear_, " Grandmama called, in her old thin voice. "_Come out. You've been in far too long. _"

Mrs. Hilary only waved her hand to Grandmama. She was not going to comeout, like an old woman, before the others did, the others, who had swumout and left her alone on her birthday bathe. 

They were swimming back now, first all in a row, then one behind theother; Neville leading, with her arrowy drive, Gilbert and Pamela behind, so alike, with their pale, finely cut, intellectual faces, and theirsharp chins cutting through the sea, and their quick, short, vigorousstrokes, and Nan, still far out, swimming lazily on her back, the sunin her eyes. 

Mrs. Hilary's heart stirred to see her swimming brood, so graceful andstrong and swift and young. They possessed, surely, everything that wasin the heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water over theearth. And she, who was sixty-three, possessed nothing. She could noteven swim with her children. They might have thought of that, and stayedwith her. .. . Neville, anyhow. Jim would have, said Mrs. Hilary toherself, half knowing and half not knowing that she was lying. 

"_Come out, dear!_" called Grandmama from the esplanade. "_You'll beill!_"

Back they came, Neville first. Neville, seeing from afar her mother'sblue face, called "Mother dear, how cold you are! You shouldn't havestayed in so long!"

"I was waiting, " Mrs. Hilary said, "for you. "

"Oh why, dear?"

"Don't know. I thought I would. .. . It's pretty poor fun, " Mrs. Hilaryadded, having failed after trying not to, "bathing all alone on one'sbirthday. "

Neville gave a little sigh, and gently propelled her mother to the shore. She hadn't felt like this on _her_ birthday, when Kay and Gerda had goneoff to some avocation of their own and left her in the garden. Manythings she had felt on her birthday, but not this. It is an undoubtedtruth that people react quite differently to birthdays. 

Rosalind rose out of the foam like Aphrodite, grandly beautiful, thoughall the paint was washed off her face and lips. 

"Wonderful people, " she apostrophised the shore-coming family. "Anyonewould think you were all nineteen. _I_ was the only comfy one. "

Rosalind was always talking about age, emphasizing it, as if it were veryimportant. 

They hurried up to the tents, and last of all came Nan, riding in toshore on a swelling wave and lying full length where it flung her, forthe joy of feeling the wet sand sucking away beneath her. 

5

Grandmama, waiting for them on the esplanade, was angry with Mrs. Hilary. 

"My dear child, didn't you hear me call? You're perfectly blue. You_know_ you never stay in more than five minutes. Neville, you should haveseen that she didn't. Now you'll get your rheumatism back, child, andonly yourself to thank. It's too silly. People of sixty-three carryingon as if they were fifty; I've no patience with it. "

"They all swam out, " said Mrs. Hilary, who, once having succumbed to theimpulse to adopt this attitude, could not check it. "I waited for them. "

Grandmama, who was cross, said "Very silly of you and very selfish of thechildren. Now you'd better go to bed with hot bottles and a posset. "

But Mrs. Hilary, though she felt the red-hot stabbings of an attack ofrheumatism already beginning, stayed up. She was happier now, because thechildren were making a fuss of her, suggesting remedies and so on. Shewould stay up, and show them she could be plucky and cheerful even withrheumatism. A definite thing, like illness or pain, always put her on hermettle; it was so easy to be brave when people knew you had something tobe brave about, and so hard when they didn't. 

They had an early tea, and then Gilbert and Rosalind, who were going outto dinner, caught the 5. 15 back to town. Rosalind's departure made Mrs. Hilary more cheerful still. She soared into her gayest mood, and toldthem amusing stories of the natives, and how much she and Grandmamashocked some of them. 

"All the same, dear, " said Grandmama presently, "you know you often enjoya chat with your neighbours very much. You'd be bored to death with noone to gossip with. "

But Neville's hand, slipping into her mother's, meant "You shall adoptwhat pose you like on your birthday, darling. If you like to be tooclever for anyone else in the Bay so that they bore you to tears and youshock them to fits--well, you shall, and we'll believe you. "

Nan, listening sulkily to what she called to herself "mother's swank, "for a moment almost preferred Rosalind, who was as frank and unposturingas an animal; Rosalind, with her malicious thrusts and her corrupt mindand her frank feminine greediness. For Rosalind, anyhow, didn't pretendto herself, though she did undoubtedly, when for any reason it suitedher, lie to other people. Mrs. Hilary's lying went all through, deepdown; it sprang out of the roots of her being, so that all the time shewas making up, not only for others but for herself, a sham person who didnot exist. That Nan found infinitely oppressive. So did Pamela, butPamela was more tolerant and sympathetic and less ill-tempered than Nan, and observed the ways of others with quiet, ironic humour, saying nothingunkind. Pamela, when she didn't like a way of talking--when Rosalind, forinstance, was being malicious or indecent or both--would skilfully carrythe talk somewhere else. She could be a rapid and good talker, and couldtell story after story, lightly and coolly, till danger points were past. Pamela was beautifully bred; she had _savoir-faire_ as well as kindness, and never lost control of herself. These family gatherings really boredher a little, because her work and interests lay elsewhere, but she wouldnever admit or show it. She was kind even to Rosalind, though cool. Shehad always been kind and cool to Rosalind, because Gilbert was herspecial brother, and when he had married this fast, painted andunHilaryish young woman, she had seen the necessity for taking firm holdof an attitude in the matter and retaining it. No one, not even Neville, not even Frances Carr, had ever seen behind Pamela's guard where Rosalindwas concerned. When Nan abused Rosalind, Pamela would say "Don't be aspitfire, child. What's the use?" and change the subject. For Rosalindwas, in Pamela's view, one of the things which were a pity but didn'treally matter, so long as she didn't make Gilbert unhappy. And Gilbert, so far, was absurdly pleased and proud about her, in spite of occasionaldisapprovals of her excessive intimacies with others. 

But, whatever they all felt about Rosalind, there was no doubt that thefamily party was happier for her departure. The departure of in-laws, even when they are quite nice in-laws, often has this effect on familyparties. Mrs. Hilary had her three daughters to herself--the girls, asshe still called them. She felt cosy and comforted, though in pain, lyingon the sofa by the bay window in the warm afternoon sunshine, whileGrandmama looked at the London Mercury, which had just come by the post, and the girls talked. 

6

Their voices rose and fell against the soft splashing of the sea;Neville's, sweet and light, with pretty cadences, Pamela's, crisp, quickand decided, Nan's, trailing a little, almost drawling sometimes. TheHilary voices were all thin, not rich and full-bodied, like Rosalind's. Mrs. Hilary's was thin, like Grandmama's. 

"Nice voices, " thought Mrs. Hilary, languidly listening. "Nice children. But what nonsense they often talk. "

They were talking now about the Minority Report of some committee, whichhad been drafted by Rodney. Rodney and the Minority and Neville andPamela and Nan were all interested in what Mrs. Hilary called "ThisLabour nonsense which is so fashionable now. " Mrs. Hilary herself, beingunfashionable, was anti-Labour, since it was apparent to her that theworking classes had already more power, money and education than was goodfor them, sons of Belial, flown with insolence and bonuses. Grandmama, being so nearly out of it all, was used only to say, in reply to thesesentiments, "It will make no difference in the end. We shall all be thesame in the grave, and in the life beyond. All these movements are veryinteresting, but the world goes round just the same. " It was all verywell for Grandmama to be philosophical; _she_ wouldn't have to live foryears ruled and triumphed over by her own gardener, which was the wayMrs. Hilary saw it. 

Mrs. Hilary began to get angry, hearing the girls talking in this sillyway. Of course it was natural that Neville should agree with Rodney; butPamela had picked up foolish ideas from working among the poor and livingwith Frances Carr, and Nan was, as usual, merely wrong-headed, childishand perverse. 

Suddenly she broke out, losing her temper, as she often did when shedisagreed with people's politics, for she did not take a calm andtolerant view of these things. 

"I never heard such stuff in my life. I disagree with every word you'veall said. "

She always disagreed in bulk, like that. It seemed simpler than arguingseparate points, and took less time and knowledge. She saw Nevillewrinkling her broad forehead, doubtfully, as if wondering how the subjectcould most easily be changed, and that annoyed her. 

Nan said, "You mean you disagree with the Report. Which clauses of it?"and there was that soft viciousness in her voice which showed that sheknew Mrs. Hilary had not even read the Minority Report, or the MajorityReport either. Nan was spiteful; always trying to prove that her motherdidn't know what she was talking about; always trying to pin her down onpoints of detail. Like the people with whom Mrs. Hilary had failed to geton during her brief sojourn in London; they too had always shunnedgeneral disputes about opinion and sentiment, such as were carried onwith profit in St. Mary's Bay, and pinned the discussion down to hardfacts, about which the Bay's information was inaccurate and incomplete. As if you didn't know when you disagreed with a thing's whole drift, whether you had read it or not. .. . Mrs. Hilary had never had any head forfacts. 

"It's the whole idea, " she said, hotly. "And I detest all these Labourpeople. Vile creatures. .. . Of course I don't mean people like Rodney--theUniversity men. They're merely amateurs. But these dreadful Trades Unionmen, with their walrus moustaches. .. . Why can't they shave, like otherpeople, if they want to be taken for gentlemen?"

Neville told her, chaffingly, that she was a mass of prejudice. 

Grandmama, who had fallen asleep and dropped the London Mercury onto thefloor, diverted the conversation by waking up and remarking that itseemed a less interesting number than usual on the whole, though some ofthe pieces of poetry were pretty, and that Mrs. Hilary ought not to lieunder the open window. 

Mrs. Hilary, who was getting worse, admitted that she had better be inbed. 

"I hope, " said Grandmama, "that it will be a lesson to you, dear, not tostay in the water so long again, even if you do want to show off beforeyour daughter-in-law. " Grandmama, who disliked Rosalind, usually calledher to Mrs. Hilary "your daughter-in-law, " saddling her, so to speak, with the responsibility for Gilbert's ill-advised marriage. To hergrandchildren she would refer to Rosalind as "your sister-in-law, " or"poor Gilbert's wife. "

"The bathe was worth it, " said Mrs. Hilary, swinging up to high spiritsagain. "It was a glorious bathe. But I _have_ got rheumatics. "

So Neville stayed on at The Gulls that night, to massage her mother'sjoints, and Pamela and Nan went back to Hoxton and Chelsea by the eveningtrain. Pamela had supper, as usual, with Frances Carr, and Nan with BarryBriscoe, and they both talked and talked, about all the things you don'ttalk of in families but only to friends. 

7

Neville meanwhile was saying to Grandmama in the drawing-room at TheGulls, after Mrs. Hilary had gone to bed, "I wish mother could get someregular interest or occupation. She would be much happier. Are there nojobs for elderly ladies in the Bay?"

"As many in the Bay, " said Grandmama, up in arms for the Bay, "asanywhere else. Sick-visiting, care committees, boys' and girls' classes, and so on. I still keep as busy as I am able, as you know. "

Neville did know. "If mother could do the same. .. . "

"Mother can't. She's never been a rector's wife, as I have, and shedoesn't care for such jobs. Mother never did care for any kind of workreally, even as a girl. She married when she was nineteen and found theonly work she was fitted for and interested in. That's over, and there'sno other she can turn to. It's common enough, child, with women. Theyjust have to make the best of it, and muddle through somehow till theend. "

"You were different, Grandmama, weren't you? I mean, you were never at aloss for things to do. "

Grandmama's thin, delicate face hardened for a moment into grim lines. 

"At a loss--yes, I was what you call at a loss twenty years ago, whenyour grandfather died. The meaning was gone out of life, you see. I wassixty-four. For two years I was cut adrift from everything, and didnothing but brood and find trivial occupations to pass the time somehow. I lived on memories and emotions; I was hysterical and peevish and bored. Then I realised it wouldn't do; that I might have twenty years and moreof life before me, and that I must do something with it. So I took upagain all of my old work that I could. It was the hardest thing I everdid. I hated it at first. Then I got interested again, and it has kept megoing all these years, though I've had to drop most of it now of course. But now I'm so near the end that it doesn't matter. You can drop work ateighty and keep calm and interested in life. You can't at sixty; it'stoo young. .. . Mother knows that too, but there seems no work she can do. She doesn't care for parish work as I do; she never learnt any art orcraft or handiwork, and doesn't want to; she was never much good atintellectual work of any kind, and what mind she had as a girl--and herfather and I did try to train her to use it--ran all to seed during hermarried life, so it's pretty nearly useless now. She spent herself onyour father and all you children, and now she's bankrupt. "

"Poor darling mother, " Neville murmured. 

Grandmama nodded. "Just so. She's left to read novels, gossip with stupidneighbours, look after me, write to you children, go on walks, and broodover the past. She would have been quite happy like that forty years ago. The young have high spirits, and can amuse themselves without work. Shenever wanted work when she was eighteen. It's the old who need work. They've lost their spring and their zest for life, and need something tohold on to. It's all wrong, the way we arrange it--making the young workand the old sit idle. It should be the other way about. Girls and boysdon't get bored with perpetual holidays; they live each moment of themhard; they would welcome the eternal Sabbath; and indeed I trust we shallall do that, as our youth is to be renewed like eagles. But old age onthis earth is far too sad to do nothing in. Remember that, child, whenyour time comes. "

"Why, yes. But when one's married, you know, it's not so easy, keeping upwith a job. I only wish I could. .. . I don't _like_ being merely a marriedwoman. Rodney isn't merely a married man, after all. .. . But anyhow I'llfind something to amuse my old age, even if I can't work. I'll playpatience or croquet or the piano, or all three, and I'll go to theatresand picture shows and concerts and meetings in the Albert Hall. Motherdoesn't do any of those things. And she _is_ so unhappy so often. "

"Oh very. Very unhappy. Very often. .. . She should come to churchmore. This Unitarianism is depressing. No substance in it. I'd ratherbe a Papist and keep God in a box. Or belong to the Army and singabout rivers of blood. I daresay both are satisfying. All thissermon-on-the-mount-but-no-miracle business is most saddening. Becauseit's about impossibilities. You can receive a sacrament, and you can findsalvation, but you can't live the sermon on the mount. So of course itmakes people discontented. "

Grandmama, who often in the evenings became a fluent though drowsytalker, might have wandered on like this till her bed-time, had not Mrs. Hilary here appeared, in her dressing-gown. She sat down, and said, trying to sound natural and not annoyed and failing. "I heard so muchtalk, I thought I would come down and be in it. I thought you were comingup to me again directly, Neville. I hadn't realised you meant to staydown and talk to Grandmama instead. "

She hated Neville or any of them, but especially Neville, to talkintimately to Grandmama; it made her jealous. She tried and tried not tofeel this, but it was never any use her fighting against jealousy, it wastoo strong for her. 

Grandmama said placidly, "Neville and I were discussing different formsof religion. "

"Is Neville thinking of adopting one of them?" Mrs. Hilary enquired, herjealousy making her sound sarcastic and scornful. 

"No, mother. Not at present. .. . Come back to bed, and I'll sit with you, and we'll talk. I don't believe you should be up. "

"Oh, I see I've interrupted. It was the last thing I meant. No, Neville, I'll go back to my room alone. You go on with your talk with Grandmama. I hate interrupting like this. I hoped you would have let me join. Idon't get much of you in these days, after all. But stay and talk toGrandmama. "

That was the point at which Nan would have sworn to herself and gone downto the beach. Neville did neither. She was gentle and soothing, andGrandmama was infinitely untroubled, and Mrs. Hilary presently picked upher spirits and went back to bed, and Neville spent the evening with her. These little scenes had occurred so often that they left only a slightimpression on those concerned and slightest of all on Mrs. Hilary. 

8

When Mrs. Hilary and Grandmama were both settled for the night (old andelderly people settle for the night--other people go to bed) Neville wentdown to the seashore and lay on the sand, watching the moon rise over thesea. 

Beauty was there, rather than in elderly people. But in elderly peoplewas such pathos, such tragedy, such pity, that they lay like a heavyweight on one's soul. If one could do anything to help. .. . 

To be aimless: to live on emotions and be by them consumed: that waspitiful. To have done one's work for life, and to be in return cast asideby life like a broken tool: that was tragic. 

The thing was to defy life; to fly in the face of the fool nature, breakher absurd rules, and wrest out of the breakage something for oneself bywhich to live at the last. 

Neville flung her challenge to the black sea that slowly brightened underthe moon's rising eye. 

CHAPTER III

FAMILY LIFE

1

If you have broken off your medical studies at London University at theage of twenty-one and resume them at forty-three, you will find them (oneis told) a considerably tougher job than you found them twenty-twoyears before. Youth is the time to read for examinations; youth is usedto such foolishness, and takes it lightly in its stride. At thirty youmay be and probably are much cleverer than you were at twenty; you willhave more ideas and better ones, and infinitely more power of originaland creative thought; but you will not, probably, find it so easy to gripand retain knowledge out of books and reproduce it to order. So the worldhas ordained that youth shall spend laborious days in doing this, andthat middle age shall, in the main, put away these childish things, andact and work on in spite of the information thus acquired. 

Neville Bendish, who was not even in the thirties, but so near the brinkof senile decay as the forties, entered her name once more at the LondonUniversity School of Medicine, and plunged forthwith into her interruptedstudies. Her aim was to spend this summer in reacquiring such knowledgeas should prepare her for the October session. And it was difficultbeyond her imaginings. It had not been difficult twenty-two years ago;she had worked then with pleasure and interest, and taken examinationswith easy triumph. As Kay did now at Cambridge, only more so, because shehad been cleverer than Kay. She was a vain creature, and had believedthat cleverness of hers to be unimpaired by life, until she came to try. She supposed that if she had spent her married life in head work, herhead would never have lost the trick of it. But she hadn't. She had spentit on Rodney and Gerda and Kay, and the interesting, amusing life led bythe wife of a man in Rodney's position, which had brought her always intocontact with people and ideas. Much more amusing than grinding atintellectual work of her own, but it apparently caused the brain toatrophy. And she was, anyhow, tired of doing nothing in particular. Afterforty you must have your job, you must be independent of other people'sjobs, of human and social contacts, however amusing and instructive. 

Rodney wasn't altogether pleased, though he understood. He wanted herconstant companionship and interest in his own work. 

"You've had twenty-two years of it, darling, " Neville said. "Now I mustLive my own Life, as the Victorians used to put it. I must be a doctor;quite seriously I must. I want it. It's my job. The only one I could everreally have been much good at. The sight of human bones or a rabbit'sbrain thrills me, as the sight of a platform and a listening audiencethrills you, or as pen and paper (I suppose) thrill the children. Youought to be glad I don't want to write. Our family seems to run to thatas a rule. "

"But, " Rodney said, "you don't mean ever to _practise_, surely? You won'thave time for it, with all the other things you do. "

"It's the other things I shan't have time for, old man. Sorry, but thereit is. .. . It's all along of mother, you see. She's such an object lessonin how not to grow old. If she'd been a doctor, now. .. . "

"She couldn't have been a doctor, possibly. She hasn't the head. On theother hand, you've got enough head to keep going without the slavery ofa job like this, even when you're old. "

"I'm not so sure. My brain isn't what it was; it may soften altogetherunless I do something with it before it's too late. Then there I shallbe, a burden to myself and everyone else. .. . After all, Rodney, you'veyour job. Can't I have mine? Aren't you a modern, an intellectual and afeminist?"

Rodney, who believed with truth that he was all these things, gave in. 

Kay and Gerda, with the large-minded tolerance of their years, thoughtmother's scheme was all right and rather sporting, if she really likedthe sort of thing, which they, for their part, didn't. 

So Neville recommenced medical study, finding it difficult beyond belief. It made her head ache. 

2

She envied Kay and Gerda, as they all three lay and worked in the garden, with chocolates, cigarettes and Esau grouped comfortably round them. Kaywas reading economics for his Tripos, Gerda was drawing pictures for herpoems; neither, apparently, found any difficulty in concentrating ontheir work when they happened to want to. 

What, Neville speculated, her thoughts, as usual, wandering from herbook, would become of Gerda? She was a clever child at her own things, though with great gaps in her equipment of knowledge, which came fromignoring at school those of her studies which had not seemed to her ofimportance. She had firmly declined a University education; she haddecided that it was not a fruitful start in life, and was also afraid ofgetting an academic mind. But at economic and social subjects, at drawingand at writing, she worked without indolence, taking them earnestly, still young enough to believe it important that she should attainproficiency. 

Neville, on the other hand, was indolent. For twenty-two years she hadpleased herself, done what she wanted when she wanted to, played theflirt with life. And now she had become soft-willed. Now, sitting inthe garden with her books, like Gerda and Kay, she would find that thevolumes had slipped from her knee and that she was listening to thebirds in the elms. Or she would fling them aside and get up and stretchherself, and stroll into the little wood beyond the garden, or down tothe river, or she would propose tennis, or go up to town for some meetingor concert or to see someone, though she didn't really want to, havingquite enough of London during that part of the year when they livedthere. She only went up now because otherwise she would be working. Atthis rate she would never be ready to resume her medical course in theautumn. 

"I will attend. I will. I will, " she whispered to herself, a hand pressedto each temple to constrain her mind. And for five minutes she wouldattend, and then she would drift away on a sea of pleasant indolence, and time fluttered away from her like an escaping bird, and she knewherself for a light woman who would never excel. And Kay's brown headwas bent over his book, and raised sometimes to chaff or talk, and bentover his books again, the thread of his attention unbroken by his easyinterruptions. And Gerda's golden head lay pillowed in her two claspedhands, and she stared up at the blue through the green and did nothingat all, for that was often Gerda's unashamed way. 

Often Rodney sat in the garden too and worked. And his work Neville feltthat she too could have done; it was work needing initiative and creativethought, work suitable to his forty-five years, not cramming in knowledgefrom books. Neville at times thought that she too would stand forparliament one day. A foolish, childish game it was, and probably reallytherefore more in her line than solid work. 

3

Nan came down in July to stay with them. While she was there, BarryBriscoe, who was helping with a W. E. A. Summer school at Haslemere, wouldcome over on Sundays and spend the day with them. Not even the rains ofJuly 1920 made Barry weary or depressed. His eyes were bright behind hisglasses; his hands were usually full of papers, committee reports, agenda, and the other foods he fed on, unsatiated and unabashed. Barrywas splendid. What ardour, what enthusiasm, burning like beacons in awrecked world! So wrecked a world that all but the very best and the veryworst had given it up as a bad job; the best because they hoped on, hopedever, the worst because of the pickings that fall to such as they out ofthe collapsing ruins. But Barry, from the very heart of the ruin, wouldcry "Here is what we must do, " and his eyes would gleam with faith andresolution, and he would form a committee and act. And when he saw howthe committee failed, as committees will, and how little good it all was, he would laugh ruefully and try something else. Barry, as he would tellyou frankly--if you enquired, not otherwise, --believed in God. He was theson of a famous Quaker philanthropist, and had been brought up to seegood works done and even garden cities built. I am aware that this mustprejudice many people against Barry; and indeed many people were annoyedby certain aspects of him. But, as he was intellectually brilliant andpersonally attractive, these people were as a rule ready to overlook whatthey called the Quaker oats. Nan, who overlooked nothing, was frankly atwar with him on some points, and he with her. Nan, cynical, clear-eyed, selfish and blasé, cared nothing for the salvaging of what remained ofthe world out of the wreck, nothing for the I. L. P. , less than nothing forgarden cities, philanthropy, the W. E. A. , and God. And committees shedetested. Take them all away, and there remained Barry Briscoe, and forhim she did not care nothing. 

It was the oddest friendship, thought Neville, observing how, when Barrywas there, all Nan's perversities and moods fell away, leaving her asagreeable as he. Her keen and ironic intelligence met his, and they sounderstood each other that they finished each other's sentences, andothers present could only with difficulty keep up with them. Nevillebelieved them to be in love, but did not know whether they had everinformed one another of the fact. They might still be pretending toone another that their friendship was merely one of those affectionateintellectual intimacies of which some of us have so many and which areso often misunderstood. Or they might not. It was entirely theirbusiness, either way. 

Barry was a chatterbox. He lay on the lawn and rooted up daisies andmade them into ridiculous chains, and talked and talked and talked. Rodney and Neville and Nan talked too, and Kay would lunge in with thecrude and charming dogmatics of his years. But Gerda, chewing a blade ofgrass, lay idle and withdrawn, her fair brows unpuckered by the afternoonsun (because it was July, 1920), her blue eyes on Barry, who was sodifferent; or else she would be withdrawn but not idle, for she would bedrawing houses tumbling down, or men on stilts, fantastic and proud, orgoblins, or geese running with outstretched necks round a green. Or shewould be writing something like this:

 "I Float on the tide, In the rain. I am the starfish vomited up by the retching cod. He thinks That I am he. But I know. That he is I. For the creature is far greater than its god. "

(Gerda was of those who think it is rather chic to have one rhyme in yourpoem, just to show that you can do it. )

"That child over there makes one feel so cheap and ridiculous, jabberingaway. "

That was Barry, breaking off to look at Gerda where she lay on her elbowson a rug, idle and still. "And it's not, " he went on, "that she doesn'tknow about the subject, either. I've heard her on it. "

He threw the daisy chain he had just made at her, so that it alighted onher head, hanging askew over one eye. 

"Just like a daisy bud herself, isn't she, " he commented, and raced on, forgetting her. 

Neat in her person and ways, Gerda adjusted the daisy chain so that itringed her golden head in an orderly circle. Like a daisy bud herself, Rodney agreed in his mind, his eyes smiling at her, his affection, momentarily turned that way, groping for the wild, remote little soul inher that he only vaguely and paternally knew. The little pretty. Andclever, too, in her own queer, uneven way. But what _was_ she, with itall? He knew Kay, the long, sweet-tempered boy, better. For Kayrepresented highly civilized, passably educated, keen-minded youth. Gerdawasn't highly civilized, was hardly passably educated, and keen would bean inapt word for that queer, remote, woodland mind of hers. .. . Rodneyreturned to more soluble problems. 

4

Mrs. Hilary and Grandmama came to Windover. Mrs. Hilary would rather havecome without Grandmama, but Grandmama enjoyed the jaunt, as she calledit. For eighty-four, Grandmama was wonderfully sporting. They arrived onSaturday afternoon, and rested after the journey, as is usually done bypeople of Grandmama's age, and often by people of Mrs. Hilary's. Sundaywas full of such delicate clashings as occur when new people have joineda party. Grandmama was for morning church, and Neville drove her to it inthe pony carriage. So Mrs. Hilary, not being able to endure that theyshould go off alone together, had to go too, though she did not likechurch, morning or other. 

She sighed over it at lunch. 

"So stuffy. So long. And the _hymns_. .. . "

But Grandmama said, "My dear, we had David and Goliath. What more do youwant?"

During David and Goliath Grandmama's head had nodded approvingly, and herthin old lips had half smiled at the valiant child with his swaggeringlies about bears and lions, at the gallant child and the giant. 

Mrs. Hilary, herself romantically sensible, as middle-aged ladies are, ofvalour and high adventure, granted Grandmama David and Goliath, but stillrepined at the hymns and the sermon. 

"Good words, my dear, good words, " Grandmama said to that. For Grandmamahad been brought up not to criticise sermons, but had failed to bring upMrs. Hilary to the same self-abnegation. The trouble with Mrs. Hilarywas, and had always been, that she expected (even now) too much of life. Grandmama expected only what she got. And Neville, wisest of all, had notlistened, for she too _expected_ what she would get if she did. She wasreally rather like Grandmama, in her cynically patient acquiescence, onlybrought up in a different generation, and not to hear sermons. In thegulf of years between these two, Mrs. Hilary's restless, questing passionfretted like unquiet waves. 

5

"This Barry Briscoe, " said Mrs. Hilary to Neville after lunch, as shewatched Nan and he start off for a walk together. "I suppose he's in lovewith her?"

"I suppose so. Something of the kind, anyhow. "

Mrs. Hilary said, discontentedly, "Another of Nan's married men, nodoubt. She _collects_ them. "

"No, Barry's not married. "

Mrs. Hilary looked more interested. "Not? Oh, then it may come tosomething. .. . I wish Nan _would_ marry. It's quite time. "

"Nan isn't exactly keen to, you know. She's got so much else to do. "

"Fiddlesticks. You don't encourage her in such nonsense, I hope, Neville. "

"I? It's not for me to encourage Nan in anything. She doesn't need it. But as to marriage--yes, I think I wish she would do it, sometime, whenever she's ready. It would give her something she hasn't got;emotional steadiness, perhaps I mean. She squanders a bit, now. On theother hand, her writing would rather go to the wall; if she went on withit it would be against odds all the time. "

"What's writing?" enquired Mrs. Hilary, with a snap of her finger andthumb. "_Writing!_"

As this seemed too vague or too large a question for Neville to answer, she did not try to do so, and Mrs. Hilary replied to it herself. 

"Mere showing off, " she explained it. "Throwing your paltry ideas at aworld which doesn't want them. Writing like Nan's I mean. It's not as ifshe wrote really good books. "

"Oh well. Who does that, after all? And what is a good book?" Here weretwo questions which Mrs. Hilary, in her turn, could not answer. Becausemost of the books which seemed good to her did not, as she well knew, seem good to Neville, or to any of her children, and she wasn't going togive herself away. She murmured something about Thackeray and Dickens, which Neville let pass. 

"Writing's just a thing to do, as I see it, " Neville went on. "A job, like another. One must _have_ a job, you know. Not for the money, but forthe job's sake. And Nan enjoys it. But I daresay she'd enjoy marriagetoo. "

"Does she love this man?"

"I don't know. I shouldn't be surprised. She hasn't told me so. "

"Probably she doesn't, as he's single. Nan's so perverse. She will lovethe wrong men, always. "

"You shouldn't believe all Rosalind tells you, mother. Rosalind has a toovivid fancy and a scandalous tongue. "

Mrs. Hilary coloured a little. She did not like Neville to think that shehad been letting Rosalind gossip to her about Nan. 

"You know perfectly well, Neville, that I never trust a word Rosalindsays. I suppose I needn't rely on my daughter-in-law for news about myown daughter's affairs. I can see things for myself. You can't deny thatNan _has_ had compromising affairs with married men. "

"Compromising. " Neville turned over the word, thoughtfully andfastidiously. "Funny word, mother. I'm not sure I know what it means. But I don't think anything ever compromises Nan; she's too free forthat. .. . Well, let's marry her off to Barry Briscoe. It will be a quaintménage, but I daresay they'd pull it off. Barry's delightful. I shouldthink even Nan could live with him. "

"He writes books about education, doesn't he? Education and democracy. "

"Well, he does. But there's always something, after all, against allof us. And it might be worse. It might be poetry or fiction orpsycho-analysis. "

Neville said psycho-analysis in order to start another hare and takeher mother's attention off Nan's marriage before the marriage becamecrystallised out of all being. But Mrs. Hilary for the first time (forusually she was reliable) did not rise. She looked thoughtful, even ashade embarrassed, and said vaguely, "Oh, people must write, of course. If it isn't one thing it will be another. " After a moment she added, "This psycho-analysis, Neville, " saying the word with distaste indeed, but so much more calmly than usual that Neville looked at her insurprise. "This psycho-analysis. I suppose it does make wonderful cures, doesn't it, when all is said?"

"Cures--oh yes, wonderful cures. Shell-shock, insomnia, nervousdepression, lumbago, suicidal mania, family life--anything. " Neville'sattention was straying to Grandmama, who was coming slowly towardsthem down the path, leaning on her stick, so she did not see Mrs. Hilary's curious, lit eagerness. 

"But how _can_ they cure all those things just by talking indecentlyabout sex?"

"Oh mother, they don't. You're so crude, darling. You've got hold ofonly one tiny part of it--the part practised by Austrian professors onViennese degenerates. Many of the doctors are really sane and brilliant. I know of cases. .. . "

"Well, " said Mrs. Hilary, quickly and rather crossly, "I can't talk aboutit before Grandmama. "

Neville got up to meet Grandmama, put a hand under her arm, and conductedher to her special chair beneath the cedar. You had to help and conductsomeone so old, so frail, so delightful as Grandmama, even if Mrs. Hilarydid wish it were being done by any hand than yours. Mrs. Hilary in factmade a movement to get to Grandmama first, but sixty-three does not risefrom low deck chairs so swiftly as forty-three. So she had to watch herdaughter leading her mother, and to note once more with a familiar pangthe queer, unmistakable likeness between the smooth, clear oval face andthe old wrinkled one, the heavily lashed deep blue eyes and the old fadedones, the elfish, close-lipped, dimpling smile and the old, elfish, thin-lipped, sweet one. Neville, her Neville, flower of her flock, herloveliest, first and best, her dearest but for Jim, her pride, and nearerthan Jim, because of sex, which set Jim on a platform to be worshipped, but kept Neville on a level to be loved, to be stormed at when stormsrose, to be clung to when all God's waters went over one's head. OhNeville, that you should smile at Grandmama like that, that Grandmamashould, as she always had, steal your confidence that should have beenall your mother's! That you should perhaps even talk over your motherwith Grandmama (as if she were something further from each of you thaneach from the other), pushing her out of the close circle of yourintimacy into the region of problems to be solved. .. . Oh God, how bittera thing to bear!

The garden, the summer border of bright flowers, swam in tears. .. . Mrs. Hilary turned away her face, pretending to be pulling up daisies from thegrass. But, unlike the ostrich, she well knew that they always saw. Tothe children, as to Grandmama, they were an old story, those hot, facile, stinging tears of Mrs. Hilary's that made Neville weary with pity, andNan cold with scorn, and Rosalind happy with lazy malice, and Pamelabright and cool and firm, like a woman doctor. Only Grandmama took themunmoved, for she had always known them. 

6

Grandmama, settled in her special chair, remarked on the unusual (forJuly) fineness of the day, and requested Neville to read them the chiefitems of news in the Observer, which she had brought out with her. SoNeville read about the unfortunate doings of the Supreme Council at Spa, and Grandmama said "Poor creatures, " tolerantly, as she had said whenthey were at Paris, and again at San Remo; and about General Dyer andthe Amritsar debate, and Grandmama said "Poor man. But one mustn't treatone's fellow creatures as he did, even the poor Indian, who, I quitebelieve, is intolerably provoking. I see the Morning Post is getting upa subscription for him, contributed to by Those Who Remember Cawnpore, Haters of Trotzky, Montague and Lansbury, Furious English-woman, and manyother generous and emotional people. That is kind and right. We shouldnot let even our more impulsive generals starve. "

Then Neville read about Ireland, which was just then in a disturbedstate, and Grandmama said it certainly seemed restless, and mentionedwith what looked like a gleam of hope that they would never return, thather friends the Dormers were there. Mrs. Hilary shot out, with stillaverted face, that the whole of Ireland ought to be sunk to the bottomof the sea, it was more bother than it was worth. This was her usual andonly contribution towards a solution of the Irish question. 

Then Mr. Churchill and Russia had their turn (it was the time of theGolovin trouble) and Grandmama said people seemed always to get sovery sly, as well as so very much annoyed and excited, whenever Russiawas mentioned, and that seemed like a sign that God did not mean us, in this country, to mention it much, perhaps not even to think of it. She personally seldom did. Then Neville read a paragraph about theAnglo-Catholic Congress, and about that Grandmama was for the first timea little severe, for Grandpapa had not been an Anglo-Catholic, and indeedin his day there were none of this faith. You were either High Church, Broad Church or Evangelical. (Unless, of course, you had been led astrayby Huxley and Darwin and were nothing whatever. ) Grandpapa had beenBroad, with a dash of Evangelical; or perhaps it was the other way round;but anyhow Grandpapa had not been High Church, or, as they called it inhis time, Tractarian. So Grandmama enquired, snippily, "Who _are_ theseAnglo-Catholics, my dear? One seems to hear so much of them in thesedays. I can't help thinking they are rather _noisy_. .. . " as she mighthave spoken of Bolshevists, or the Labour Party, or the National Party, or Sinn Fein, or any other of the organisations of which Grandpapa hadbeen innocent. "There are so many of these new things, " said Grandmama, "I daresay modern young people like Gerda and Kay are quite in with itall. "

"I'm afraid, " said Neville, "that Gerda and Kay are secularists atpresent. "

"Poor children, " Grandmama said gently. Secularism made her think ofthe violent and vulgar Mr. Bradlaugh. It was, in her view, a noisierthing even than Anglo-Catholicism. "Well, they have plenty of time toget over it and settle down to something quieter. " Broad-Evangelical shemeant, or Evangelical-Broad; and Neville smiled at the idea of Gerda, in particular, being either of these. She believed that if Gerda were toturn from secularism it would either be to Anglo-Catholicism or to Rome. Or Gerda might become a Quaker, or a lone mystic contemplating in woods, but a Broad-Evangelical, no. There was a delicate, reckless extravaganceabout Gerda which would prohibit that. If you came to that, what girl orboy did, in these days, fall into any of the categories which Grandmamaand Grandpapa had known, whether religiously or politically? You might aswell suggest that Gerda and Kay should be Tories or Whigs. 

And by this time they had given Mrs. Hilary so much time to recover herpoise that she could join in, and say that Anglo-Catholics were veryostentatious people, and only gave all that money which they had, undoubtedly, given at the recent Congress in order to make a splashand show off. 

"Tearing off their jewellery in public like that, " said Mrs. Hilary, indisgust, as she might have said tearing off their chemises, "and goldwatches lying in piles on the collection table, still ticking. .. . " Shefelt it was indecent that the watches should have still been ticking; itmade the thing an orgy, like a revival meeting, or some cannibal rite atwhich victims were offered up still breathing. .. . 

So much for the Anglo-Catholic Congress. The Church Congress was better, being more decent and in order, though Mrs. Hilary knew that the wholeestablished Church was wrong. 

And so they came to literature, to a review of Mr. Conrad's new noveland a paragraph about a famous annual literary prize. Grandmama thoughtit very nice that young writers should be encouraged by cash prizes. "Not, " as she added, "that there seems any danger of any of them beingdiscouraged, even without that. .. . But Nan and Kay and Gerda ought to goin for it. It would be a nice thing for them to work for. "

Then Grandmama, settling down with her pleased old smile to somethingwhich mattered more than the news in the papers, said "And now, dear, I want to hear all about this friendship of Nan's and this nice youngMr. Briscoe. "

So Neville again had to answer questions about that. 

7

Mrs. Hilary, abruptly leaving them, trailed away by herself to the house. Since she mightn't have Neville to herself for the afternoon she wouldn'tstay and share her. But when she reached the house and looked out at themthrough the drawing-room windows, their intimacy stabbed her with a pangso sharp that she wished she had stayed. 

Besides, what was there to do indoors? No novels lay about that lookedreadable, only "The Rescue" (and she couldn't read Conrad, he was sonautical) and a few others which looked deficient in plot and as if theywere trying to be clever. She turned them over restlessly, and put themdown again. She wasn't sleepy, and hated writing letters. She wantedsomeone to talk to, and there was no one, unless she rang for thehousemaid. Oh, this dreadful ennui. .. . Did anyone in the world know itbut her? The others all seemed busy and bright. That was because theywere young. And Grandmama seemed serene and bright. That was because shewas old, close to the edge of life, and sat looking over the gulf intospace, not caring. But for Mrs. Hilary there was ennui, and the dim, empty room in the cold grey July afternoon. The empty stage; no audience, no actors. Only a lonely, disillusioned actress trailing about it, hungryfor the past. .. . A book Gerda had been reading lay on the table. "TheBreath of Life, " it was called, which was surely just what Mrs. Hilarywanted. She picked it up, opened it, turned the pages, then, tucking itaway out of sight under her arm, left the room and went upstairs. 

"Many wonderful cures, " Neville had said. And had mentioned depressionas one of the diseases cured. What, after all, if there was something inthis stuff which she had never tried to understand, had always dismissed, according to her habit, with a single label? "Labels don't help. Labelsget you nowhere. " How often the children had told her that, finding herterse terminology that of a shallow mind, endowed with inadequatemachinery for acquiring and retaining knowledge, as indeed it was. 

8

Gerda, going up to Mrs. Hilary's room to tell her about tea, found herasleep on the sofa, with "The Breath of Life" fallen open from her hand. A smile flickered on Gerda's delicate mouth, for she had heard hergrandmother on the subject of psycho-analysis, and here she was, havingtaken to herself the book which Gerda was reading for her Freud circle. Gerda read a paragraph on the open page. 

"It will often be found that what we believe to be unhappiness is really, in the secret and unconscious self, a joy, which the familiar process ofinversion sends up into our consciousness in the form of grief. If, forinstance, a mother bewails the illness of her child, it is because herunconscious self is experiencing the pleasure of importance, of beingcondoled and sympathised with, as also that of having her child (if it isa male) entirely for the time dependent on her ministrations. If, on theother hand, the sick child is her daughter, her grief is in reality ahope that this, her young rival, may die, and leave her supreme in theaffections of her husband. If, in either of these cases, she can bebrought to face and understand this truth, her grief will invert itselfagain and become a conscious joy. .. . "

"I wonder if Grandmother believes all that, " speculated Gerda, who did. 

Then she said aloud, "Grandmother" (that was what Gerda and Kay calledher, distinguishing her thus from Great-Grandmama), "tea's ready. "

Mrs. Hilary woke with a start. "The Breath of Life" fell on the floorwith a bang. Mrs. Hilary looked up and saw Gerda and blushed. 

"I've been asleep. .. . I took up this ridiculous book of yours to look at. The most absurd stuff. .. . How can you children muddle your minds with it?Besides, it isn't at all a _nice_ book for you, my child. I came onseveral very queer things. .. . "

But the candid innocence of Gerda's wide blue eyes on hers transcended"nice" and "not nice. ". .. You might as well talk like that to a woodanemone, or a wild rabbit. .. . If her grandmother had only known, Gerda attwenty had discussed things which Mrs. Hilary, in all her sixty-threeyears, had never heard mentioned. Gerda knew of things of which Mrs. Hilary would have indignantly and sincerely denied the existence. Gerda'syoung mind was a cess-pool, a clear little dew-pond, according to how youlooked at it. Gerda and Gerda's friends knew no inhibitions of speech orthought. They believed that the truth would make them free, and the truthabout life is, from some points of view, a squalid and gross thing. Butbetter look it in the face, thought Gerda and her contemporaries, thanpretend it isn't there, as elderly people do. 

"I don't want you to pretend anything isn't there, darling, " Neville, between the two generations, had said to Gerda once. "Only it seems to methat some of you children have one particular kind of truth too heavilyon your minds. It seems to block the world for you. "

"You mean sex, " Gerda had told her, bluntly. "Well, it runs all throughlife, mother. What's the use of hiding from it? The only way to get evenwith it is to face it. And _use_ it. "

"Face it and use it by all means. All I meant was, it's a question ofemphasis. There _are_ other things. .. . "

Of course Gerda knew that. There was drawing, and poetry, and beauty, anddancing, and swimming, and music, and politics, and economics. Of coursethere were other things; no doubt about that. They were like songs, likecolour, like sunrise, like flowers, these other things. But the basis oflife was the desire of the male for the female and of the female for themale. And this had been warped and smothered and talked down and made afurtive, shameful thing, and it must be brought out into the day. .. . 

Neville smiled to hear all this tripping sweetly off Gerda's lips. 

"All right, darling, don't mind me. Go ahead and bring it out into theday, if you think the subject really needs more airing than it alreadygets. I should have thought myself it got lots, and always had. "

And there they were; they talked at cross purposes, these two, across thegulf of twenty years, and with the best will in the world could not hopeto understand, either of them, what the other was really at. And now herewas Gerda, in Mrs. Hilary's bedroom, looking across a gulf of forty yearsand saying nothing at all, for she knew it would be of no manner of use, since words don't carry as far as that. 

So all she said was "Tea's ready, Grandmother. "

And Mrs. Hilary supposed that Gerda hadn't, probably, noticed orunderstood those very queer things she had come upon while reading "TheBreath of Life. "

They went down to tea. 

CHAPTER IV

ROOTS

1

It was a Monday evening, late in July. Pamela Hilary, returning from aCare Committee meeting, fitted her latch-key into the door of the roomsin Cow Lane which she shared with Frances Carr, and let herself into thehot dark passage hall. 

A voice from a room on the right called "Come along, my dear. Your pap'sready. "

Pamela entered the room on the right. A pleasant, Oxfordish room, with the brown paper and plain green curtains of the college days ofthese women, and Dürer engravings, and sweet peas in a bowl, and FrancesCarr stirring bread and milk over a gas ring. Frances Carr was smalland thirty-eight, and had a nice brown face and a merry smile. Pamelawas a year older and tall and straight and pale, and her ash-brown hairswept smoothly back from a broad white forehead. Her grey eyes regardedthe world shrewdly and pleasantly through pince-nez. Pamela wasdistinguished-looking, and so well-bred that you never got through herguard; she never hurt the feelings of others or betrayed her own. Competent she was, too, and the best organizer in Hoxton, which is to saya great deal, Hoxton needing and getting, one way and another, a gooddeal of organisation. Some people complained that they couldn't get toknow Pamela, the guard was too complete. But Frances Carr knew her. 

Frances Carr had piled cushions in a deep chair for her. 

"Lie back and be comfy, old thing, and I'll give you your pap. "

She handed Pamela the steaming bowl, and proceeded to take off herfriend's shoes and substitute moccasin slippers. It was thus that she andPamela had mothered one another at Somerville eighteen years ago, andever since. They had the maternal instinct, like so many women. 

"Well, how went it? How was Mrs. Cox?"

Mrs. Cox was the chairwoman of the Committee. All committee members knowthat the chairman or woman is a ticklish problem, if not a sore burden. 

"Oh well. .. . " Pamela dismissed Mrs. Cox with half a smile. "Might havebeen worse. .. . Oh look here, Frank. About the library fund. .. . "

The front door-bell tingled through the house. 

Frances Carr said "Oh hang. All right, I'll see to it. If it's Care orContinuation or Library, I shall send it away. You're not going to do anymore business to-night. "

She went to the door, and there, her lithe, drooping slimness outlinedagainst the gas-lit street, stood Nan Hilary. 

"Oh, Nan. .. . But what a late call. Yes, Pamela's just in from acommittee. Tired to death; she's had neuralgia all this week. She mustn'tsit up late, really. But come along in. "

2

Nan came into the room, her dark eyes blinking against the gaslight, hersmall round face pale and smutty. She bent to kiss Pamela, then curledherself up in a wicker chair and yawned. 

"The night is damp and dirty. No, no food, thanks. I've dined. Afterdinner I was bored, so I came along to pass the time. .. . When are youtaking your holidays, both of you? It's time. "

"Pamela's going for hers next week, " said Frances Carr, handing Nan acigarette. 

"On the contrary, " said Pamela, "Frances is going for _hers_ next week. Mine is to be September this year. "

"Now, we've had all this out before, Pam, you know we have. Youfaithfully promised to take August if your neuralgia came on again, andit has. Tell her she is to, Nan. "

"She wouldn't do it the more if I did, " Nan said, lazily. Thesecompetitions in unselfishness between Pamela and Frances Carr alwaysbored her. There was no end to them. Women are so terrificallyself-abnegatory; they must give, give, give, to someone all thetime. Women, that is, of the mothering type, such as these. They mustbe forever cherishing something, sending someone to bed with bread andmilk, guarding someone from fatigue. 

"It ought to be their children, " thought Nan, swiftly. "But they pour itout on one another instead. "

Having put her hand on the clue, she ceased to be interested in theexhibition. It was, in fact, no more and no less interesting than if it_had_ been their children. Most sorts of love were rather dull, to thespectator. Pamela and Frances were all right; decent people, not sloppy, not gushing, but fine and direct and keen, though rather boring when theybegan to talk to each other about some silly old thing that had happenedin their last year at Oxford, or their first year, or on some readingparty. Some people re-live their lives like this; others pass on theirway, leaving the past behind. They were all right, Pamela and Frances. But all this mothering. .. . 

Yet how happy they were, these two, in their useful, competent work anddevoted friendship. They had achieved contacts with life, permanentcontacts. Pamela, in spite of her neuralgia, expressed calm and entirelyunbumptious attainment, Nan feverish seeking. For Nan's contacts withlife were not permanent, but suddenly vivid and passing; the links brokeand she flew off at a tangent. Nan had lately been taken with a desperatefear of becoming like her mother, when she was old and couldn't write anymore, or love any more men. Horrible thought, to be like Mrs. Hilary, roaming, questing, feverishly devoured by her own impatience of life. .. . 

In here it was cool and calm, soft and blurred with the smoke of theircigarettes. Frances Carr left them to talk, telling them not to be late. When she had gone, Pamela said "I thought you were still down atWindover, Nan. "

"Left it on Saturday. .. . Mother and Grandmama had been there a week. I couldn't stick it any longer. Mother was outrageously jealous, ofcourse. "

"Neville and Grandmama? Poor mother. "

"Oh yes, poor mother. But it gets on my nerves. Neville's an angel. Ican't think how she sticks it. For that matter, I never know how she putsup with Rodney's spoilt fractiousness. .. . And altogether life was a bitof a strain . .. No peace. And I wanted some peace and solitude, to makeup my mind in. "

"Are you making it up now?" Pamela, mildly interested, presumed it was aman. 

"Trying to. It isn't made yet. That's why I roam about your horribleslums in the dark. I'm considering; getting things into focus. Seeingthem all round. "

"Well, that sounds all right. "

"Pam. " Nan leant forward abruptly, her cigarette between two brownfingers. "Are you happy? Do you enjoy your life?"

Pamela withdrew, lightly, inevitably, behind guards. 

"Within reason, yes. When committees aren't too tiresome, and theaccounts balance, and. .. . "

"Oh, give me a straight answer, Pam. You dependable, practical people arealways frivolous about things that matter. Are you happy? Do you feelright-side-up with life?"

"In the main--yes. " Pamela was more serious this time. "One's doing one'sjob, after all. And human beings are interesting. "

"But I've got that too. My job, and human beings. .. . Why do I feel alltossed about, like a boat on a choppy sea? Oh, I know life's furiouslyamusing and exciting--of course it is. But I want something solid. You'vegot it, somehow. "

Nan broke off and thought "It's Frances Carr she's got. That's permanent. That goes on. Pamela's anchored. All these people I have--these men andwomen--they're not anchors, they're stimulants, and how different thatis!"

They looked at each other in silence. Pamela said then, "You don't lookwell, child. "

"Oh--" Nan threw her cigarette end impatiently into the grate. "I'm allright. I'm tired, and I've been thinking too much. That never suitsme. .. . Thanks, Pam. You've helped me to make up my mind. I like you, Pam, " she added dispassionately, "because you're so gentlewomanly. Youdon't ask questions, or pry. Most people do. "

"Surely not. Not most decent people. "

"Most people aren't decent. You think they are. You've not lived in myset--nor in Rosalind's. You're still fresh from Oxford--stuck all overwith Oxford manners and Oxford codes. You don't know the raddled gossipwho fishes for your secrets and then throws them about for fun, liketennis balls. "

"I know Rosalind, thank you, Nan. "

"Oh, Rosalind's not the only one, though she'll do. Anyhow I've trappedyou into saying an honest and unkind thing about her, for once; that'ssomething. Wish you weren't such a dear old fraud, Pammie. "

Frances Carr came back, in her dressing gown, looking about twenty-three, her brown hair in two plaits. 

"Pamela, you _mustn't_ sit up any more. I'm awfully sorry, Nan, but herhead. .. . "

"Right oh. I'm off. Sorry I've kept you up, Pammie. Good-night. Good-night, Frances. Yes, I shall get the bus at the corner. Good-night. "

The door closed after Nan, shutting in the friends and their friendshipand their anchored peace. 

3

Off went Nan on the bus at the corner, whistling softly into the night. Like a bird her heart rose up and sang, at the lit pageant of Londonswinging by. Queer, fantastic, most lovely life! Sordid, squalid, grotesque life, bitter as black tea, sour as stale wine! Gloriouslyfunny, brilliant as a flower-bed, bright as a Sitwell street in hell--

 "(Down in Hell's gilded street Snow dances fleet and sweet, Bright as a parakeet. .. . )"

unsteady as a swing-boat, silly as a drunkard's dream, tragic as a poemby Massfield. .. . To have one's corner in it, to run here and there aboutthe city, grinning like a dog--what more did one want? Human adventures, intellectual adventures, success, even a little fame, men and women, jokes, laughter and love, dancing and a little drink, and the fields andmountains and seas beyond--what more did one want?

Roots. That was the metaphor that had eluded Nan. To be rooted andgrounded in life, like a tree. Someone had written something about that. 

 "Let your manhood be Forgotten, your whole purpose seem The purpose of a simple tree Rooted in a quiet dream. .. . "

Roots. That was what Neville had, what Pamela had; Pamela, with hersensible wisdom that so often didn't apply because Pamela was so farremoved from Nan's conditions of life and Nan's complicated, unstabletemperament. Roots. Mrs. Hilary's had been torn up out of the ground. .. . 

"I'm like mother. " That was Nan's nightmare thought. Not intellectually, for Nan's brain was sharp and subtle and strong and fine, Mrs. Hilary'swas an amorphous, undeveloped muddle. But where, if not from Mrs. Hilary, did Nan get her black fits of melancholy, her erratic irresponsiblegaieties, her passionate angers, her sharp jealousies and egoisms? Theclever young woman saw herself in the stupid elderly one; saw herselfslipping down the years to that. That was why, where Neville and Pamelaand their brothers pitied, Nan, understanding her mother's bad moodsbetter than they, was vicious with hate and scorn. For she knew thesethings through and through. Not the sentimentality; she didn't know that, being cynical and cool except when stirred to passion. And not theposing, for Nan was direct and blunt. But the feverish angers and theblack boredom--they were hers. 

Nevertheless Nan's heart sang into the night. For she had made up hermind, and was at peace. 

She had held life at arm's length, pushed it away, for many months, hiding from it, running from it because she didn't with the whole of her, want it. Again and again she had changed a dangerous subject, headed forsafety, raced for cover. The week-end before this last, down at Windover, it had been like a game of hide and seek. .. . And then she had come away, without warning, and he, going down there this last week-end, had notfound her, because she couldn't meet him again till she had decided. Andnow she had decided. 

How unsuited a pair they were, in many ways, and what fun they wouldhave! Unsuited . .. What did it matter? His queer, soft, laughing voicewas in her ears, his lean, clever, merry face swam on the rushing tidesof night. His untidy, careless clothes, the pockets bulging with books, papers and tobacco, his glasses, that left a red mark on either side ofthe bridge of his nose, his easily ruffled brown hair--they all mergedfor her into the infinitely absurd, infinitely delightful, infinitelyloved Barry, who was going to give her roots. 

She was going away, down into Cornwall, in two days. She would stay inrooms by herself at Marazion and finish her book and bathe and climb, andlie in the sun (if only it came out) and sleep and eat and drink. Therewas nothing in the world like your own company; you could be purelyanimal then. And in a month Gerda and Kay were coming down, and they weregoing to bicycle along the coast, and she would ask Barry to come too, and when Barry came she would let him say what he liked, with no morefencing, no more cover. Down by the green edge of the Cornish sea theywould have it out--"grip hard, become a root . .. " become men as treeswalking, rooted in a quiet dream. Dream? No, reality. This was the dream, this world of slipping shadows and hurrying gleams of heartbreakingloveliness, through which one roamed, a child chasing butterflies whichever escaped, or which, if captured, crumbled to dust in one's clutchinghands. Oh for something strong and firm to hold. Oh Barry, Barry, thesefew more weeks of dream, of slipping golden shadows and wavering lights, and then reality. Shall I write, thought Nan, "Dear Barry, you may ask meto marry you now. " Impossible. Besides, what hurry was there? Better tohave these few more gay and lovely weeks of dream. They would be thelast. 

Has Barry squandered and spilt his love about as I mine? Likely enough. Likely enough not. Who cares? Perhaps we shall tell one another all thesethings sometime; perhaps, again, we shan't. What matter? One loves, andpasses on, and loves again. One's heart cracks and mends; one cracks thehearts of others, and these mend too. That is--_inter alia_--what life isfor. If one day you want the tale of my life, Barry, you shall have it;though that's not what life is for, to make a tale about. So thrilling inthe living, so flat and stale in the telling--oh let's get on and livesome more of it, lots and lots more, and let the dead past bury its dead. 

Between a laugh and a sleepy yawn, Nan jumped from the bus at the cornerof Oakley Street. 

CHAPTER V

SEAWEED

1

"Complexes, " read Mrs. Hilary, "are of all sorts and sizes. " Andthere was a picture of four of them in a row, looking like netted cherrytrees whose nets have got entangled with each other. So that was whatthey were like. Mrs. Hilary had previously thought of them as being moreof the nature of noxious insects, or fibrous growths with infiniteramifications. Slim young trees. Not so bad, then, after all. 

"A complex is characterised, and its elements are bound together bya specific emotional tone, experienced as feeling when the complexis aroused. Apart from the mental processes and corresponding actionsdepending on purely rational mental systems, it is through complexes thatthe typical mental process (the specific response) works, the particularcomplex representing the particular set of mental elements involved inthe process which begins with perception and cognition and ends with thecorresponding conation. "

Mrs. Hilary read it three times, and the third time she understood it, if possible, less than the first. Complexes seemed very difficultthings, and she had never been clever. Any of her children, or even hergrandchildren, would understand it all in a moment. If you have suchthings--and everyone has, she had learnt--you ought to be able tounderstand them. Yet why? You didn't understand your bodily internalgrowths; you left them to your doctor. There were doctors who explainedyour complexes to you. .. . What a revolting idea! It would surely makethem worse, not better. (Mrs. Hilary still vaguely regarded these growthsas something of the nature of cancer. )

Sometimes she imagined herself a patient, interviewing one of these odddoctors. A man doctor, not a woman; she didn't trust woman doctors of anykind; she had always been thankful that Neville had given it up andmarried instead. 

"Insomnia, " she would say, in these imaginary interviews, because thatwas so easy to start off with. 

"You have something on your mind, " said the doctor. "You suffer fromdepression. "

"Yes, I know that. I was coming to that. That is what you must cure forme. "

"You must think back. .. . What is the earliest thing you can remember?Perhaps your baptism? Possibly even your first bath? It has beendone. .. . "

"You may be right. I remember some early baths. One of them may have beenthe first of all, who knows? What of it, doctor?"

But the doctor, in her imaginings, would at this point only make notes ina big book and keep silence, as if he had thought as much. Perhaps, nomore than she, he did not know what of it. 

Mrs. Hilary could hear herself protesting. 

"I am _not_ unhappy because of my baptism, which, so far as I know, wentoff without a hitch. I am _not_ troubled by my first bath, nor by anylater bath. Indeed, indeed you must believe me, it is not that at all. "

"The more they protest, " the psycho-analyst would murmur, "the more it isso. " For that was what Dr. Freud and Dr. Jung always said, so that therewas no escape from their aspersions. 

"Why do _you_ think you are so often unhappy?" he would ask her, todraw her out and she would reply, "Because my life is over. Because Iam an old discarded woman, thrown away onto the dust-heap like a brokenegg-shell. Because my husband is gone and my children are gone, and theydo not love me as I love them. Because I have only my mother to livewith, and she is calm and cares for nothing but only waits for the end. Because I have nothing to do from morning till night. Because I amsixty-three, and that is too old and too young. Because life is emptyand disappointing, and I am tired, and drift like seaweed tossed to andfro by the waves. "

It sounded indeed enough, and tears would fill her eyes as she said it. The psycho-analyst would listen, passive and sceptical but intelligent. 

"Not one of your reasons is the correct one. But I will find the truereason for you and expose it, and after that it will trouble you no more. Now you shall relate to me the whole history of your life. "

What a comfortable moment! Mrs. Hilary, when she came to it in herimagined interview, would draw a deep breath and settle down and begin. The story of her life! How absorbing a thing to relate to someone whoreally wanted to hear it! How far better than the confessional--forpriests, besides requiring only those portions and parcels of thedreadful past upon which you had least desire to dwell, had almostcertainly no interest at all in hearing even these, but only did itbecause they had to, and you would be boring them. They might even say, as one had said to Rosalind during the first confession which hadinaugurated her brief ecclesiastical career, and to which she had lookedforward with some interest as a luxurious re-living of a stimulatingpast--"No details, please. " Rosalind, who had had many details ready, had come away disappointed, feeling that the Church was not all shehad hoped. But the psycho-analyst doctor would really want to heardetails. Of course he would prefer the kind of detail which Rosalindwould have been able to furnish out of her experience, for that waswhat psycho-analysts recognised as true life. Mrs. Hilary's experienceswere pale in comparison; but psycho-analysts could and did make much outof little, bricks without clay. She would tell him all about thechildren--how sweet they were as babies, how Jim had nearly died ofcroup, Neville of bronchitis and Nan of convulsions, whereas Pamela hadalways been so well, and Gilbert had suffered only from infant debility. She would relate how early and how unusually they had all given signs ofintelligence; how Jim had always loved her more than anything in theworld, until his marriage, and she him (this was a firm article in Mrs. Hilary's creed); how Neville had always cherished and cared for her, andhow she loved Neville beyond anything in the world but Jim; how Gilberthad disappointed her by taking to writing instead of to a man's job, andthen by marrying Rosalind; how Nan had always been tiresome and perverse. And before the children came--all about Richard, and their courtship, andtheir young married life, and how he had loved and cared for her beyondanything, incredibly tenderly and well, so that all those who saw it hadwondered, and some had said he spoilt her. And back before Richard, togirlhood and childhood, to parents and nursery, to her brother andsister, now dead. How she had fought with her sister because they hadboth always wanted the same things and got in one another's way! Thejealousies, the bitter, angry tears!

To pour it all out--what comfort! To feel that someone was interested, even though it might be only as a case. The trouble about most people wasthat they weren't interested. They didn't mostly, even pretend they were. 

2

She tried Barry Briscoe, the week-end he came down and found Nan gone. Barry Briscoe was by way of being interested in people and things ingeneral; he had that kind of alert mind and face. 

He came up from the tennis lawn, where he had been playing a single withRodney, and sat down by her and Grandmama in the shade of the cedar, hotand friendly and laughing and out of breath. Now Neville and Rodney wereplaying Gerda and Kay. Grandmama's old eyes, pleased behind theirglasses, watched the balls fly and thought everyone clever who got oneover the net. She hadn't played tennis in her youth. Mrs. Hilary's moreeager, excited eyes watched Neville driving, smashing, volleying, returning, and thought how slim and young a thing she looked, to have allthat power stored in her. She was fleeter than Gerda, she struck harderthan Kay, she was trickier than all of them, the beloved girl. That wasthe way Mrs. Hilary watched tennis, thinking of the players, not of theplay. It is the way some people talk, thinking of the talkers, not ofwhat they are saying. It is the personal touch, and a way some womenhave. 

But Barry Briscoe, watching cleverly through his bright glasses, wasthinking of the strokes. He was an unconscious person. He lived inmoments. 

"Well done, Gerda, " Grandmama would call, when Gerda, cool andnonchalant, dropped, a sitter at Rodney's feet, and when Rodney smashedit back she said, "But father's too much for you. "

"Gerda's a _scandal_, " Barry said. "She doesn't care. She can hit allright when she likes. She thinks about something else half the time. "

His smile followed the small white figure with its bare golden head thatgleamed in the grey afternoon. An absurd, lovable, teasable child, hefound her. 

Grandmama's maid came to wheel her down to the farm. Grandmama hadpromised to go and see the farmer's wife and new baby. Grandmama alwayssaw wives and new babies. They never palled. You would think that byeighty-four she had seen enough new babies, more than enough, that shehad seen through that strange business and could now take it for granted, the stream of funny new life cascading into the already so full world. But Grandmama would always go and see it, handle it, admire it, peer atit with her smiling eyes that had seen so many lives come and go and thatmust know by now that babies are born to trouble as naturally as thesparks fly upward. 

So off Grandmama rode in her wheeled chair, and Mrs. Hilary and BarryBriscoe were left alone. Mrs. Hilary and this pleasant, brown, friendlyyoung man, who cared for Workers' Education and Continuation Schools, andPenal Reform, and Garden Cities, and Getting Things Done by Acts ofParliament, about all which things Mrs. Hilary knew and cared nothing. But vaguely she felt that they sprang out of and must include a care forhuman beings as such, and that therefore Barry Briscoe would listen ifshe told him things. 

So (it came out of lying on grass, which Barry was doing) she told himabout the pneumonia of Neville as a child, how they had been staying inCornwall, miles from a doctor, and without Mr. Hilary, and Mrs. Hilaryhad been in despair; how Jim, a little chap of twelve, had ridden off onhis pony in the night to fetch the doctor, across the moors. A longstory; stories about illnesses always are. Mrs. Hilary got worked up andexcited as she told it; it came back to her so vividly, the dreadfulnight. 

"He was a Dr. Chalmers, and so kind. When he saw Neville he washorrified; by that time she was delirious. He said if Jim hadn't gonestraight to him but had waited till the morning, it might have been toolate. .. . "

"Too late: quite. . .. " Barry Briscoe had an understanding, sympatheticgrip of one's last few words. So much of the conversation of otherseludes one, but one should hold fast the last few words. 

"Oh played, Gerda: did you that time, Bendish. .. . "

Gerda had put on, probably by accident, a sudden, absurd twist that hadmade a fool of Rodney. 

That was what Barry Briscoe was really attending to, the silly game. Thisalert, seemingly interested, attentive young man had a nice manner, thatled you on, but he didn't really care. He lived in the moment: he caredfor prisoners and workers, and probably for people who were ill _now_, but not that someone had been ill all those years ago. He only pretendedto care; he was polite. He turned his keen, pleasant face up to her whenhe had done shouting about the game, and said "How splendid that he gotto you in time!" but he didn't really care. Mrs. Hilary found that womenwere better listeners than men. Women are perhaps better trained; theythink it more ill-mannered not to show interest. They will listen tostories about servants, or reports of the inane sayings of infants, they will hear you through, without the flicker of a yawn, but withejaculations and noddings, while you tell them about your children'sdiseases. They are well-bred; they drive themselves on a tight rein, and endure. They are the world's martyrs. 

But men, less restrained, will fidget and wander and sigh and yawn, andchange the subject. 

To trap and hold the sympathy of a man--how wonderful! Who wanted a packof women? What you really wanted was some man whose trade it was tolisten and to give heed. Some man to whom your daughter's pneumonia, ofhowever long ago, was not irrelevant, but had its own significance, ashaving helped to build you up as you were, you, the problem, with yourwonderful, puzzling temperament, so full of complexes, inconsistenciesand needs. Some man who didn't lose interest in you just because you weregrey-haired and sixty-three. 

"I'm afraid I've been taking your attention from the game, " said Mrs. Hilary to Barry Briscoe. 

Compunction stabbed him. Had he been rude to this elderly lady, who hadbeen telling him a long tale without a point while he watched the tennisand made polite, attentive sounds?

"Not a bit, Mrs. Hilary. " He sat up, and looked friendlier than ever. "I've been thrilled. " A charming, easy liar Barry was, when he deemed itnecessary. His Quaker parents would have been shocked. But there wastruth in it, after all. For people were so interested in themselves, thatone was, in a sense, interested in the stories they told one, evenstories about illness. Besides, this was the mother of Nan; Nan, who wasso abruptly and inexplicably not here to-day, whose absence was hurtinghim, when he stopped to think, like an aching tooth; for he was not sure, yet feared, what she meant by it. 

"Tell me, " he said, half to please Nan's mother and half on his ownaccount, "some stories of Nan when she was small. I should think she wasa fearful child. .. . "

He was interested, thought Mrs. Hilary, in Nan, but not in her. That wasnatural, of course. No man would ever again want to hear stories of _her_childhood. The familiar bitterness rose and beat in her like a wave. Nanwas thirty-four and she was sixty-three. She could talk only of far-offthings, and theories about conduct and life which sounded all right atfirst but were exposed after two minutes as not having behind them thebackground of any knowledge or any brain. That hadn't mattered when shewas a girl; men would often rather they hadn't. But at sixty-three youhave nothing. .. . The bitter emptiness of sixty-three turned her sick withfrustration. Life was over, over, over, for her and she was to tellstories of Nan, who had everything. 

Then the mother in her rose up, to claim and grasp for her child, evenfor the child she loved least. 

"Nan? Nan was always a most dreadfully sensitive child, andtemperamental. She took after me, I'm afraid; the others were more liketheir father. I remember when she was quite a little thing. .. . "

Barry had asked for it. But he hadn't known that, out of the brilliant, uncertain Nan, exciting as a Punch and Judy show, anything so tediouscould be spun. .. . 

3

Mrs. Hilary was up in town by herself for a day's shopping. The saleswere on at Barker's and Derry and Tom's. Mrs. Hilary wandered about theseshops, and even Ponting's and bought little bags, and presents foreveryone, remnants, oddments, underwear, some green silk for a frock forGerda, a shady hat for herself, a wonderful cushion for Grandmama with apicture of the sea on it, a silk knitted jumper for Neville, of the samepurplish blue as her eyes. She was happy, going about like a bee fromflower to flower, gathering this honey for them all. She had come upalone; she hadn't let Neville come with her. She had said she was goingto be an independent old woman. But what she really meant was that shehad proposed herself for tea with Rosalind in Campden Hill Square, andwanted to be alone for that. 

Rosalind had been surprised, for Mrs. Hilary seldom favoured her with avisit. She had found the letter on the hall table when she and Gilberthad come in from a dinner party two evenings ago. 

"Your mother's coming to tea on Thursday, Gilbert. Tea with me. She saysshe wants a talk. I feel flattered. She says nothing about wanting to seeyou, so you'd better leave us alone, anyhow for a bit. "

Rosalind's beautiful bistre-brown eyes smiled. She enjoyed her talks withher mother-in-law; they furnished her with excellent material, to beworked up later by the raconteuse's art into something too deliciousand absurd. She enjoyed, too, telling Mrs. Hilary the latest scandals;she was so shocked and disgusted; and it was fun dropping littleaccidental hints about Nan, and even about Gilbert. Anyhow, what atreasure of a relic of the Victorian age! And how comic in her jealousy, her ingenuous, futile boasting, her so readily exposed deceits! And howshe hated Rosalind herself, the painted, corrupt woman who was draggingGilbert down!

"Whatever does she want a talk about?" Rosalind wondered. "It must besomething pretty urgent, to make her put up with an hour of my company. "

4

At four o'clock on Thursday afternoon Rosalind went upstairs and put onan extra coating of powder and rouge. She also blackened her eyelashesand put on her lips salve the colour of strawberries rather than of thehuman mouth. She wore an afternoon dress with transparent black sleevesthrough which her big arms gleamed, pale and smooth. She looked a superband altogether improper creature, like Lucrezia Borgia or a Titianmadonna. She came down and lay among great black and gold satin cushions, and lit a scented cigarette and opened a new French novel. Black and goldwas her new scheme for her drawing-room; she had had it done this spring. It had a sort of opulent and rakish violence which suited her ripemagnificence, her splendid flesh tints, her brown eyes and corn-goldhair. Against it she looked like Messalina, and Gilbert like rather adecadent and cynical pope. The note of the room was really too pronouncedfor Gilbert's fastidious and scholarly eloquence; he lost vitality in it, and dwindled to the pale thin casket of a brain. 

And Mrs. Hilary, when she entered it, trailing in, tall and thin, in hersagging grey coat and skirt, her wispy grey hair escaping from under herfloppy black hat, and with the air of having till a moment ago been hungabout with parcels (she had left them in the hall), looked altogetherunsuited to her environment, like a dowdy lady from the provinces, as shewas. 

Rosalind came forward and took her by the hands. 

"Well, mother dear, this is an unusual honour. .. . _How_ long is it sincewe last had you here?"

Rosalind, enveloping her mother-in-law in extravagant fragrance, kissedher on each cheek. The kiss of Messalina! Mrs. Hilary glanced at thegreat mirror over the fireplace to see whether it had come off on hercheeks, as it might well have done. 

Rosalind placed her on a swelling, billowy, black and gold chair, piledcushions behind her shoulders, made her lie back at an obtuse angle, agrey, lank, elderly figure, strange in that opulent setting, her longdusty black feet stretched out before her on the golden carpet. 

Desperately uncomfortable and angular Rosalind made you feel, pettingyou and purring over you and calling you "mother dear, " with that glintalways behind her golden-brown eyes which showed that she was up to nogood, that she knew you hated her and was only leading you on that shemight strike her claws into you the deeper. The great beautiful cat: thatwas what Rosalind was. You didn't trust her for a moment. 

She was pouring out tea. 

"Lemon? But how dreadfully stupid of me! I'd forgotten you takemilk . .. Oh yes, and sugar. .. . "

She rang, and ordered sugar. Mothers take it; not the mothers ofRosalind's world, but mothers' meetings, and school treats, andmothers-in-law up from the seaside. 

"Are you up for shopping? How thrilling! Where have you been?. .. Oh, HighStreet. Did you _find_ anything there?"

Mrs. Hilary knew that Rosalind would see her off, hung over with dozensof parcels, and despise them, knowing that if they were so many they mustalso be cheap. 

"Oh, there's not much to be got there, of course, " she said. "I got afew little things--chiefly for my mother to give away in the parish. Shelikes to have things. .. . "

"But how noble of you both! I'm afraid I never rise to that. It's all Ican manage to give presents to myself and nearest rellies. And you cameup to town just to get presents for the parish! You're wonderful, mother!"

"Oh, I take a day in town now and then. Why not? Everyone does. "

Extraordinary how defiant Rosalind made one feel, prying and questioningand trying to make one look absurd. 

"Why, of course! It freshens you up, I expect; makes a change. .. . Butyou've come up from Windover, haven't you, not the seaside?"

Rosalind always called St. Mary's Bay the seaside. To her our islandcoasts were all one; the seaside was where you went to bathe, and shehardly distinguished between north, south, east and west. 

"How are they down at Windover? I heard that Nan was there, with thatyoung man of hers who performs good works. So unlike Nan herself! I hopeshe isn't going to be so silly as to let it come to anything; they'dboth be miserable. But I should think Nan knows better than to marry asquare-toes. I daresay _he_ knows better too, really. .. . And how's poorold Neville? I think this doctoring game of hers is simply a scream, thepoor old dear. "

To hear Rosalind discussing Neville. .. . Messalina coarsely patronising awood-nymph . .. The cat striking her claws into a singing bird. .. . Andpoor--and old! Neville was, indeed, six years ahead of Rosalind, but shelooked the younger of the two, in her slim activity, and didn't need topaint her face either. Mrs. Hilary all but said so. 

"It is a great interest to Neville, taking up her medical studies again, "was all she could really say. (What a hampering thing it is to be alady!) "She thoroughly enjoys it, and looks younger than ever. She isplaying a lot of tennis, and beats them all. "

How absurdly her voice rang when she spoke of Neville or Jim! It alwaysmade Rosalind's lip curl mockingly. 

"Wonderful creature! I do admire her. When I'm her age I shall be too fatto take any exercise at all. I think it's splendid of women who keep itup through the forties. .. . _She_ won't be bored, even when she's sixty, will she?"

That was a direct hit, which Mrs. Hilary could bear better than hits atNeville. 

"I see no reason, " said Mrs. Hilary, "why Neville should ever be bored. She has a husband and children. Long before she is sixty she will haveKay's and Gerda's children to be interested in. "

"No, I suppose one can't well be bored if one has grandchildren, canone, " Rosalind said, reflectively. 

There was a silence, during which Mrs. Hilary's eyes, coldly meetingRosalind's with their satirical comment, said "I know you are too selfisha woman ever to bear children, and I thank God for it. Little Hilarys whoshould be half yours would be more than I could endure. "

Rosalind, quite understanding, smiled her slow, full-mouthed, curlingsmile, and held out to her mother-in-law the gold case with scentedcigarettes. 

"Oh no, you don't, do you. I never can remember that. It's so unusual. "

Her eyes travelled over Mrs. Hilary, from her dusty black shoes to herpale, lined face. They put her, with deliberation, into the class withcompanions, house-keepers, poor relations. Having successfully done that(she knew it was successful, by Mrs. Hilary's faint flush) she said "Youdon't look up to much, mother dear. Not as if Neville had been lookingafter you very well. "

Mrs. Hilary, seeing her chance, swallowed her natural feelings and tookit. 

"The fact is, I sleep very badly. Not particularly just now, butalways. .. . I thought. .. . That is, someone told me . .. That there havebeen wonderful cures for insomnia lately . .. Through that new thing. .. . "

"Which new thing? Sedobrol? Paraldehyd? Gilbert keeps getting absurdpowders and tablets of all sorts. Thank God, I always sleep like a top. "

"No, not those. The thing _you_ practice. Psycho-analysis, I mean. "

"Oh, psycho. But you wouldn't touch that, surely? I thought it wasanathema. "

"But if it really does cure people. .. . "

Rosalind's eyes glittered and gleamed. Her strawberry-red mouth curledjoyfully. 

"Of course it has. .. . Not that insomnia is always a case for psycho, youknow. It's sometimes incipient mania. "

"Not in my case. " Mrs. Hilary spoke sharply. 

"Why no, of course not. .. . Well, I think you'd be awfully wise to getanalysed. Whom do you want to go to?"

"I thought you could tell me. I know no names. .. . A _man_, " Mrs. Hilaryadded quickly. 

"Oh, it must be a man? I was going to say, I've a vacancy myself for apatient. But women usually want men doctors. They nearly all do. It'ssupposed to be part of the complaint. .. . Well, I could fix you up apreliminary interview with Dr. Claude Evans. He's very good. He turns youright inside out and shows you everything about yourself, from your firstinfant passion to the thoughts you think you're keeping dark from him asyou sit in the consulting room. He's great. "

Mrs. Hilary was flushed. Hope and shame tingled in her together. 

"I shan't want to keep anything dark. I've no reason. "

Rosalind's mocking eyes said "That's what they all say. " Her lips said"The foreconscious self always has its reasons for hiding up the thingsthe unconscious self knows and feels. "

"Oh, all that stuff. .. . " Mrs. Hilary was sick of it, having read too muchabout it in "The Breath of Life. " "I hope this Dr. Evans will talk to mein plain English, not in that affected jargon. "

"He'll use language suited to you, I suppose, " said Rosalind, "as far ashe can. But these things can't always be put so that just anyone cangrasp them. They're too complicated. You should read it up beforehand, and try if you can understand it a little. "

Rosalind, who had no brains herself, insulting Mrs. Hilary's, was rathermore than Mrs. Hilary could bear. Rosalind she knew for a fool, so far asintellectual matters went, for Nan had said so. Clever enough at clothes, and talking scandal, and winning money at games, and skating over thinice without going through--but when it came to a book, or an idea, or apolitical question, Rosalind was no whit more intelligent than she was, in fact much less. She was a rotten psycho-analyst, all her in-laws weresure. 

Mrs. Hilary said, "I've been reading a good deal about it lately. Itdoesn't seem to me very difficult, though exceedingly foolish in parts. "

Rosalind was touchy about psycho-analysis; she always got angry if peoplesaid it was foolish in any way. She was like that; she could see no weakpoints in anything she took up; it came from being vain, and not having abrain. She said one of the things angry people say, instead of discussingthe subject rationally. 

"I don't suppose the amount of it you've been able to read _would_ seemdifficult. If you came to anything difficult you'd probably stop, yousee. Anyhow, if it seems to you so foolish why do you want to beanalysed?"

"Oh, one may as well try things. I've no doubt there's something in itbesides the nonsense. "

Mrs. Hilary spoke jauntily, with hungry, unquiet, seeking eyes that wouldnot meet Rosalind's. She was afraid that Rosalind would find out that shewanted to be cured of being miserable, of being jealous, of havinginordinate passions about so little. Rosalind, in some ways a greatstupid cow, was uncannily clever when it came to being spiteful andknowing about you the things you didn't want known. It must be horribleto be psycho-analysed by Rosalind, who had no pity and no reticence. Thethings about you would not only be known but spread abroad among allthose whom Rosalind met. A vile, dreadful tongue. 

"You wouldn't, I expect, like _me_ to analyse you, " said Rosalind. "Not acourse, I mean, but just once, to advise you better whom to go to. It'dhave the advantage, anyhow, that I'd do it free. Anyone else will chargeyou three guineas at the least. "

"I don't think, " said Mrs. Hilary, "that relations--or connections--oughtto do one another. No, I'd better go to someone I don't know, if you'llgive me the name and address. "

"I thought you'd probably rather, " Rosalind said in her slow, soft, cruelvoice, like a cat's purr. "Well, I'll write down the address for you. It's Dr. Evans: he'll probably pass you on to someone down at theseaside, if he considers you a suitable case for treatment. "

He would; of course he would. Mrs. Hilary felt no doubt as to that. 

Gilbert came in from the British Museum. He looked thin and nervous andsallow amid all the splendour. He kissed his mother, thinking how queerand untidy she looked, a stranger and pilgrim in Rosalind's drawing-room. He too might look there at times a stranger and pilgrim, but at least, ifnot voluptuous, he was neat. He glanced proudly and yet ironically fromhis mother to his magnificent wife, taking in and understanding thesupra-normal redundancies of her make-up. 

"Rosalind, " said Mrs. Hilary, knowing that it would be less thanuseless to ask Rosalind to keep her secret, "has been recommending me apsycho-analyst doctor. I think it is worth while trying if I can get myinsomnia cured that way. "

"My dear mother! After all your fulminations against the tribe! Well, Ithink you're quite right to give it a trial. Why don't you get Rosalindto take you on?"

The fond pride in his voice! Yet there was in his eyes, as they restedfor a moment on Rosalind, something other than fond pride; something morelike mockery. 

Mrs. Hilary got up to go, and fired across the rich room the one shot inher armoury. 

"I believe, " she said, "that Rosalind prefers chiefly to take menpatients. She wouldn't want to be bored with an old woman. "

The shot drove straight into Gilbert's light-strung sensitiveness. Shell-shocked officers; any other officers; anything male, presentableand passably young; these were Rosalind's patients; he knew it, andeveryone else knew it. For a moment his smile was fixed into thedeliberate grin of pain. Mrs. Hilary saw it, saw Gilbert far back downthe years, a small boy standing up to punishment with just that brave, nervous grin. Sensitive, defiant, vulnerable, fastidiously proud--soGilbert had always been and always would be. 

Remorsefully she clung to him. 

"Come and see me out, dearest boy" (so she called him, though Jim wasreally that)--and she ignored Rosalind's slow, unconcerned protestagainst her last remark. "Why, mother, you know I _asked_ to doyou" . .. But she couldn't prevent Rosalind from seeing her out too, hanging her about with all the ridiculous parcels, kissing her on bothcheeks. 

Gilbert was cool and dry, pretending she hadn't hurt him. He wouldalways take hurts like that, with that deadly, steely lightness. By itsdeadliness, its steeliness, she knew that it was all true (and much morebesides) that she had heard about Rosalind and her patients. 

5

She walked down to the bus with hot eyes. Rosalind had yawned softly andlargely behind her as she went down the front steps. Wicked, monstrouscreature! Lying about Gilbert's clever, nervous, eager life in great softfolds, and throttling it. If Gilbert had been a man, a real male man, instead of a writer and therefore effeminate, decadent, he would havebeaten her into decent behaviour. As it was she would ruin him, and hewould go under, not able to bear it, but cynically grinning still. Perhaps the sooner the better. Anything was better than the way Rosalindwent on now, disgracing him and getting talked about, and making him hatehis mother for disliking her. He hadn't even come with her to the bus, tocarry her parcels for her. .. . That wasn't like Gilbert. As a rule he hadexcellent manners, though he was not affectionate like Jim. 

Jim, Jim, Jim. Should she go to Harley Street? What was the use? Shewould find only Margery there; Jim would be out. Margery had no seriousfaults except the one, that she had taken the first place in Jim'saffections. Before Margery, Neville had had this place, but Mrs. Hilaryhad been able, with Neville's never failing and skilful help, to disguisethis from herself. You can't disguise a wife's place in her husband'sheart. And Jim's splendid children too, whom she adored--they looked ather with Margery's brown eyes instead of Jim's grey-blue ones. And theypreferred really (she knew it) their maternal grandmother, the jolly ladywho took them to the theatres. 

Mrs. Hilary passed a church. Religion. Some people found help there. Butit required so much of you, was so exhausting in its demands. Besides, itseemed infinitely far away--an improbable, sad, remote thing, that gaveyou no human comfort. Psycho-analysis was better; that opened gates intoa new life. "Know thyself, " Mrs. Hilary murmured, kindling at theprospect. Most knowledge was dull, but never that. 

"I will ring up from Waterloo and make an appointment, " she thought. 

CHAPTER VI

JIM

1

The psycho-analyst doctor was little and dark and while he was talking helooked not at Mrs. Hilary but down at a paper whereon he drew or wrotesomething she tried to see and couldn't. She came to the conclusion aftera time that he was merely scribbling for effect. 

"Insomnia, " he said. "Yes. You know what _that_ means?"

She said, foolishly, "That I can't sleep, " and he gave her a glance ofcontempt and returned to his scribbling. 

"It means, " he told her, "that you are afraid of dreaming. Yourunconscious self won't _let_ you sleep. .. . Do you often recall yourdreams when you wake?"

"Sometimes. "

"Tell me some of them, please. "

"Oh, the usual things, I suppose. Packing; missing trains; meetingpeople; and just nonsense that means nothing. All the usual things, thateveryone dreams about. "

At each thing she said he nodded, and scribbled with his pencil. "Quite, "he said, "quite. They're bad enough in meaning, the dreams you'vementioned. I don't suppose you'd care at present to hear what theysymbolise. .. . The dreams you haven't mentioned are doubtless worse. Andthose you don't even recall are worst of all. Your unconscious is, verynaturally and properly, frightened of them. .. . Well, we must end allthat, or you'll never sleep as you should. Psycho-analysis will curethese dreams; first it will make you remember them, then you'll talkthem out and get rid of them. "

"Dreams, " said Mrs. Hilary. "Well, they may be important. But it's mywhole life. .. . "

"Precisely. I was coming to that. Of course you can't cure sleeplessnessuntil you have cured the fundamental things that are wrong with yourlife. Now, if you please, tell me all you can about yourself. "

Here was the wonderful moment. Mrs. Hilary drew a long breath, and toldhim. A horrid (she felt that somehow he was rather horrid) little manwith furtive eyes that wouldn't meet hers--(and he wasn't quite agentleman, either, but still, he wanted to hear all about her) he waslistening attentively, drinking it in. Not watching tennis while shetalked, like Barry Briscoe in the garden. Ah, she could go on and on, never tired; it was like swimming in warm water. 

He would interrupt her with questions. Which had she preferred, herfather or her mother? Well, perhaps on the whole her father. He nodded;that was the right answer; the other he would have quietly put aside asone of the deliberate inaccuracies so frequently practised by hispatients. "You can leave out the perhaps. There's no manner of doubtabout it, you know. " Lest he should say (instead of only looking it)that she had been in love with her good father and he with her, Mrs. Hilary hurried on. She had a chaste mind, and knew what these Freudianswere. It would, she thought (not knowing her doctor and how it wouldhave come to the same thing, only he would have thought her a morepronounced case, because of the deception), have been wiser to have saidthat she had preferred her mother, but less truthful, and what she wasenjoying now was an orgy of truth-telling. She got on to her marriage, and how intensely Richard had loved her. He tried for a moment to beindecent about love and marriage, but in her deep excitement she hardlynoticed him, but swept on to the births of the children, and Jim's croup. 

"I see, " he said presently, "that you prefer to avoid discussing certainaspects of life. You obviously have a sex complex. "

"Of course, of course. Don't you find that in all your patients? Surelywe may take that for granted. .. . " She allowed him his sex complex, knowing that Freudians without it would be like children deprived of aprecious toy; for her part she was impatient to get back to Jim, herlife's chief passion. The Oedipus complex, of course he would say itwas; what matter, if he would let her talk about it? And Neville. It wasstrange to have a jealous passion for one's daughter. But that would, hesaid, be an extension of the ego complex--quite simple really. 

She came to the present. 

"I feel that life has used me up and flung me aside like a broken tool. I have no further relation to life, nor it to me. I have spent myself andbeen spent, and now I am bankrupt. Can you make me solvent again?"

She liked that as she said it. 

He scribbled away, like a mouse scrabbling. 

"Yes. Oh yes. There is no manner of doubt about it. None whatever. If youare perfectly frank, you can be cured. You can be adjusted to life. Everyage in human life has its own adjustment to make, its own relation to itsenvironment to establish. All that repressed libido must be released anddiverted. .. . You have some bad complexes, which must be sublimated. .. . "

It sounded awful, the firm way he said it, like teeth or appendixes whichmust be extracted. But Mrs. Hilary knew it wouldn't be like that really, but delightful and luxurious, more like a Turkish bath. 

"You must have a course, " he told her. "You are an obvious case for acourse of treatment. St. Mary's Bay? Excellent. There is a practisingpsycho-analyst there now. You should have an hour's treatment twicea week, to be really effective. .. . You would prefer a man, I take it?"

He shot his eyes at her for a moment, in statement, not in enquiry. Wellhe knew how much she would prefer a man. She murmured assent. He rose. The hour was over. 

"How much will the course be?" she asked. 

"A guinea an hour, Dr. Cradock charges. He is very cheap. "

"Yes, I see. I must think it over. And you?"

He told her his fee, and she blenched, but paid it. She was not rich, butit had been worth while. It was a beginning. It had opened the door intoa new and richer life. St. Mary's Bay was illumined in her thoughts, instead of being drab and empty as before. Sublimated complexes twinkledover it like stars. Freed libido poured electrically about it. And Dr. Cradock, she felt, would be more satisfactory as a doctor than this man, who affected her with a faint nausea when he looked at her, though heseldom did so. 

2

Windover too was illumined. She could watch almost calmly Neville talkingto Grandmama, wheeling her round the garden to look at the borders, forGrandmama was a great gardener. 

Then Jim came down for a week-end, and it was as if the sun had risen onSurrey. He sat with Mrs. Hilary in the arbour. She told him about Dr. Evans and the other psycho-analyst doctor at St. Mary's Bay. He frownedover Dr. Evans, who lived in the same street as he did. 

"Rosalind sent you to him; of course; she would. Why didn't you ask me, mother? He's a desperate Freudian, you know, and they're not nearly sogood as the others. Besides, this particular man is a shoddy scoundrel, I believe. .. . Was he offensive?"

"I wouldn't let him be, Jim. I was prepared for that. I . .. I changed theconversation. "

Jim laughed, and did his favourite trick with her hand, straightening thethin fingers one by one as they lay across his sensitive palm. How happyit always made her!

"Well, " he said, "I daresay this man down at the Bay is all right. I'llfind out if he's any good or not. .. . They talk a lot of tosh, you know, mother; you'll have to sift the grain from the chaff. "

But he saw that her eyes were interested, her face more alert than usual, her very poise more alive. She had found a new interest in life, likekeeping a parrot, or learning bridge, or getting religion. It was whatthey had always tried to find for her in vain. 

"So long, " he said, "as you don't believe more than half what they tellyou. .. . Let me know how it goes on, won't you, and what this man is like. If I don't approve I shall come and stop it. "

She loved that from Jim. 

"Of course, dearest. Of course I shall tell you about it. And I know onemust be careful. "

It was something to have become an object for care; it put one more inthe foreground. She would have gone on willingly with the subject, butJim changed her abruptly for Neville. 

"Neville's looking done up. "

She felt the little sharp pang which Neville's name on Jim's lips hadalways given her. His very pronunciation of it hurt her--"Nivvle, " hesaid it, as if he had been an Irishman. It brought all the past back;those two dear ones talking together, studying together, going offtogether, bound by a hundred common interests, telling each other thingsthey never told her. 

"Yes. It's this ridiculous work of hers. It's so absurd: a married womanof her age making her head ache working for examinations. "

In old days Jim and Neville had worked together. Jim had been proud ofNeville's success; she had been quicker than he. Mrs. Hilary, who hadwelcomed Neville's marriage as ending all that, foresaw a renewal of thehurtful business. 

But Jim looked grave and disapproving over it. 

"It is absurd, " he agreed, and her heart rose. "And of course she can'tdo it, can't make up all that leeway. Besides, her brain has lost itsgrip. She's not kept it sharpened; she's spent her life on people. Youcan't have it both ways--a woman can't, I mean. Her work's beendifferent. She doesn't seem to realise that what she's trying to learn upagain now, in the spare moments of an already full life, demands a wholelifetime of hard work. She can't get back those twenty years; no onecould. And she can't get back the clear, gripping brain she had beforeshe had children. She's given some of it to them. That's nature's way, unfortunately. Hard luck, no doubt, but there it is; you can't get roundit. Nature's a hybrid of fool and devil. "

He was talking really to himself, but was recalled to his mother by thetears which, he suddenly perceived, were distorting her face. 

"And so, " she whispered, her voice choked, "we women get left. .. . "

He looked away from her, a little exasperated. She cried so easily and sosuperfluously, and he knew that these tears were more for herself thanfor Neville. And she didn't really come into what he had been saying atall; he had been talking about brains. 

"It's all right as far as most women are concerned, " he said. "Most womenhave no brains to be spoilt. Neville had. Most women could do nothing atall with life if they didn't produce children; it's their only possiblejob. _They've_ no call to feel ill-used. "

"Of course, " she said, unsteadily, struggling to clear her voice oftears, "I know you children all think I'm a fool. But there was a timewhen I read difficult books with your father . .. He, a man with afirst-class mind, cared to read with me and discuss with me. .. . "

"Oh yes, yes, mother, I know. "

Jim and all of them knew all about those long-ago difficult books. Theyknew too about the clever friends who used to drop in and talk. .. . Ifonly Mrs. Hilary could have been one of the nice, jolly, refreshingpeople who own that they never read and never want to. All this fussabout reading, and cleverness--how tedious it was! As if being stupidmattered, as if it was worth bothering about. 

"Of course we don't think you a fool, mother dear; how could we?"

Jim was kind and affectionate, never ironic, like Gilbert, or impatient, like Nan. But he felt now the need for fresh air; the arbour was toosmall for him and Mrs. Hilary, who was as tiring to others as to herself. 

"I think I shall go and interrupt Neville over her studies, " said Jim, and left the arbour. 

Mrs. Hilary looked after him, painfully loving his square, straight back, his fine dark head, just flecked with grey, the clean line of hisprofile, with the firm jaw clenched over the pipe. To have producedJim--wasn't that enough to have lived for? Mrs. Hilary was one of thosemothers who apply the Magnificat to their own cases. She always felt abond of human sympathy between herself and that lady called the VirginMary, whom she thought over-estimated. 

3

Neville raised heavy violet eyes, faintly ringed with shadows, to Jim ashe came into the library. She looked at him for a moment absently, thensmiled. He came over to her and looked at the book before her. 

"Working? Where've you got to? Let's see how much you know. "

He took the book from her and glanced at it to see what she had beenreading. 

"Now we'll have an examination; it'll be good practice for you. "

He put a question, and she answered it, frowning a little. 

"H'm. That's not very good, my dear. "

He tried again; this time she could not answer at all. At the thirdquestion she shook her head. 

"It's no use, Jimmy. My head's hopeless this afternoon. Another time. "

He shut the book. 

"Yes. So it seems. .. . You're overdoing it, Neville. You can't go on likethis. "

She lay back and spread out her hands hopelessly. 

"But I must go on like this if I'm ever going to get through my exams. "

"You're not going to, old thing. You're quite obviously unfitted to. It'snot your job any more. It's absurd to try; really it is. "

Neville shut her eyes. 

"Doctors . .. Doctors. They have it on the brain, --the limitations of thefeminine organism. "

"Because they know something about it. But I'm not speaking of thefeminine organism just now. I should say the same to Rodney if _he_thought of turning doctor now, after twenty years of politics. "

"Rodney never could have been a doctor. He hates messing about withbodies. "

"Well, you know what I think. I can't stop you, of course. It's only aquestion of time, in any case. You'll soon find out for yourself thatit's no use. "

"I think, " she answered, in her small, unemotional voice, "that it'sexceedingly probable that I shall. "

She lay inertly in the deep chair, her eyes shut, her hands opened, palmsdownwards, as if they had failed to hold something. 

"What then, Jim? If I can't be a doctor what can I be? Besides Rodney'swife, I mean? I don't say besides the children's mother, because that'sstopped being a job. They're charming to me, the darlings, but they don'tneed me any more; they go their own way. "

Jim had noticed that. 

"Well, after all, you do a certain amount of political work--publicspeaking, meetings, and so on. Isn't that enough?"

"That's all second-hand. I shouldn't do it but for Rodney. I'm notpublic-spirited enough. If Rodney dies before I do, I shan't go on withthat. .. . Shall I just be a silly, self-engrossed, moping old woman, nouse to anyone and a plague to myself?"

The eyes of both of them strayed out to the garden. 

"Who's the silly moping old woman?" asked Mrs. Hilary's voice in thedoorway. And there she stood, leaning a little forward, a strained smileon her face. 

"Me, mother, when I shall be old, " Neville quickly answered her, smilingin return. "Come in, dear. Jim's telling me how I shall never be adoctor. He gave me a _viva voce_ exam. , and I came a mucker over it. "

Her voice had an edge of bitterness; she hadn't liked coming a mucker, nor yet being told she couldn't get through exams. She had plenty ofvanity; so far everyone and everything had combined to spoil her. Shewas determined, in the face of growing doubt, to prove Jim wrong yet. 

"Well, " Mrs. Hilary said, sitting down on the edge of a chair, notsettling herself, but looking poised to go, so as not to seem to intrudeon their conversation, "well, I don't see why you want to be a doctor, dear. Everyone knows women doctors aren't much good. _I_ wouldn't trustone. "

"Very stupid of you, mother, " Jim said, trying to pretend he wasn'tirritated by being interrupted. "They're every bit as good as men. "

"Fancy being operated on by a woman surgeon. I certainly shouldn't riskit. "

"_You_ wouldn't risk it . .. _you_ wouldn't trust them. You're sodesperately personal, mother. You think that contributes to a discussion. All it does contribute to is your hearers' knowledge of your limitations. It's uneducated, the way you discuss. "

He smiled at her pleasantly, taking the sting out of his words, turningthem into a joke, and she smiled too, to show Neville she didn't mind, didn't take it seriously. Jim might hurt her, but if he did no one shouldknow but Jim himself. She knew that at times she irritated even his goodtemper by being uneducated and so on, so that he scolded her, but hescolded her kindly, not venomously, as Nan did. 

"Well, I've certainly no right to be uneducated, " she said, "and I can'tsay I'm ever called so, except by my children. .. . Do you remember thediscussions father and I used to have, half through the night?"

Jim and Neville did remember and thought "Poor father, " and were silent. 

"I should think, " said Mrs. Hilary, "there was very little we didn'tdiscuss. Politics, books, trades unions, class divisions, moralquestions, votes for women, divorce . .. We thrashed everything out. We both thoroughly enjoyed it. "

Neville said "I remember. " Familiar echoes came back to her out of theagitated past. 

"Those lazy men, all they want is to get a lot of money for doing nowork. "

"I like the poor well enough in their places, but I cannot abide themwhen they try to step into ours. "

"Let women mind their proper business and leave men's alone. "

"I'm certainly not going to be on calling terms with my grocer's wife. "

"I hate these affected, posing, would-be clever books. Why can't peoplewrite in good plain English?". .. 

Richard Hilary, a scholar and a patient man, blinded by conjugal love, had met futilities with arguments, expressions of emotional distaste withfacts, trying to lift each absurd wrangle to the level of a discussion;and at last he died, leaving his wife with the conviction that she hadbeen the equal mate of an able man. Her children had to face and conquer, with varying degrees of success, the temptation to undeceive her. 

"But I'm interrupting, " said Mrs. Hilary. "I know you two are having aprivate talk. I'll leave you alone. .. . "

"No, no, mother. " That was Neville, of course. "Stay and defend me fromJim's scorn. "

How artificial one had to be in family life! What an absurd thing theseemotions made of it!

Mrs. Hilary looked happier, and more settled in her chair. 

"Where are Kay and Gerda?" Jim asked. 

Neville told him "In Guildford, helping Barry Briscoe with W. E. A. Meetings. They're spending a lot of time over that just now; they're bothas keen as mustard. Nearly as keen as he is. He sets people on fire. It'svery good for the children. They're bringing him up here to spend Sunday. I think he hopes every time to find Nan back again from Cornwall, poorBarry. He was very down in the mouth when she suddenly took herself off. "

"If Nan doesn't mean to have him, she shouldn't have encouraged him, "said Mrs. Hilary. "He was quite obviously in love with her. "

"Nan's always a dark horse, " Neville said. "She alone knows what shemeans. "

Jim said "She's a flibberty-gibbet. She'd much better get married. She'snot much use in the world at present. Now if _she_ was a doctor . .. Ordoing something useful, like Pamela. .. . "

"Don't be prejudiced, Jimmy. Because you don't read modern novelsyourself you think it's no use their being written. "

"I read some modern novels. I read Conrad, in spite of the rather absurdattitude some people take up about him; and I read good detectivestories, only they're so seldom good. I don't read Nan's kind. Peopletell me they're tremendously clever and modern and delightfully writtenand get very well reviewed, I daresay. I very seldom agree withreviewers, in any case. Even about Conrad they seem to me (when I readthem--I don't often) to pick out the wrong points to admire and to missthe points I should criticise. "

Mrs. Hilary said "Well, I must say I can't read Nan's books myself. Simply, I don't think them good. I dislike all her people so much, andher style. "

"You're a pair of old Victorians, " Neville told them, pleasing Mrs. Hilary by coupling them together and leaving Jim, who knew why she didit, undisturbed. Neville was full of graces and tact, a possession Jimhad always appreciated in her. 

"And there, " said Neville, who was standing at the window, "are BarryBriscoe and the children coming in. "

Jim looked over her shoulder and saw the three wheeling their bicycles upthe drive. 

"Gerda, " he remarked, "is a prettier thing every time I see her. "

CHAPTER VII

GERDA

1

It rained so hard, so much harder even than usual, that Sunday, that onlyBarry and Gerda went to walk. Barry walked in every kind of weather, evenin the July of 1920. 

To-day after lunch Barry said "I'm going to walk over the downs. Anyonecoming?" and Gerda got up silently, as was her habit. Kay stretchedhimself and yawned and said "Me for the fireside. I shall have to walkevery day for three weeks after to-day, " for he was going to-morrow on areading-party. Rodney and Jim were playing a game of chess that hadlasted since breakfast and showed every sign of lasting till bed-time;Neville and Mrs. Hilary were talking, and Grandmama was upstairs, havingher afternoon nap. 

2

They tramped along, waterproofed and bare-headed, down the sandy road. The rain swished in Gerda's golden locks, till they clung dank and limpabout her cheeks and neck; it beat on Barry's glasses, so that he tookthem off and blinked instead. The trees stormed and whistled in thesoutherly wind that blew from across Merrow Downs. Barry tried to whistledown it, but it caught the sound from his puckered lips and whirled itaway. 

Through Merrow they strode, and up onto the road that led across thedowns, and there the wind caught them full, and it was as if buckets ofwater were being flung into their faces. The downs sang and roared; thepurple-grey sky shut down on the hill's shoulder like a tent. 

"Lord, what fun, " said Barry, as they gasped for breath. 

Gerda was upright and slim as a wand against the buffeting; her whitelittle face was stung into shell-pink; her wet hair blew back like yellowseaweed. 

Barry thought suddenly of Nan, who revelled in storms, and quickly shuthis mind on the thought. He was schooling himself to think away from Nan, with her wild animal grace and her flashing mind and her cruel, carelessindifference. 

Gerda would have walked like this forever. Her wide blue eyes blinkedaway the rain; her face felt stung and lashed, yet happy and cold; hermouth was stiff and tight. She was part of the storm; as free, as fierce, as singing; though outwardly she was all held together and silent, onlysmiling a little with her shut mouth. 

As they climbed the downs, the wind blew more wildly in their faces. Gerda swayed against it, and Barry took her by the arm and half pushedher. 

So they reached Newlands Corner, and all southern Surrey stormed belowthem, and beyond Surrey stormed Sussex, and beyond Sussex the angry, unseen sea. 

They stood looking, and Barry's arm still steadied Gerda against thegale. 

Gerda thought "It will end. It will be over, and we shall be sitting attea. Then Sunday will be over, and on Monday he will go back to town. "The pain of that end of the world turned her cold beneath the glow of thestorm. Then life settled itself, very simply. She must go too, and workwith him. She would tell him so on the way home, when the wind would letthem talk. 

They turned their backs on the storm and ran down the hill towardsMerrow. Gerda, light as a leaf on the wind, could have run all the wayback; Barry, fit and light too, but fifteen years ahead of her, fellafter five minutes into a walk. 

Then they could talk a little. 

"And to-morrow I shall be plugging in town, " sighed Barry. 

Gerda always went straight to her point. 

"May I come into your office, please, and learn the work?"

He smiled down at her. Splendid child!

"Why, rather. Do you mean it? When do you want to come?"

"To-morrow?"

He laughed. "Good. I thought you meant in the autumn. . .. To-morrowby all means, if you will. As a matter of fact we're frightfullyshort-handed in the office just now. Our typist has crocked, and wehaven't another yet, so people have to type their own letters. "

"I can do the typing, " said Gerda, composedly. "I can type quite well. "

"Oh, but that'll be dull for you. That's not what you want, is it?Though, if you want to learn about the work, it's not a bad way . .. Youget it all passing through your hands. .. . Would you really take on thatjob for a bit?"

Gerda nodded. 

They were rapid and decided people; they did not beat about the bush. Ifthey wanted to do a thing and there seemed no reason why not, they didit. 

"That's first-class, " said Barry. "Give it a trial, anyhow. .. . Of courseyou'll be on trial too; we may find it doesn't work. If so, there areplenty of other jobs to be done in the office. But that's what we mostwant at the moment. "

Barry had a way of assuming that people would want, naturally, to do thething that most needed doing. 

Gerda's soul sang and whistled down the whistling wind. It wasn't over, then: it was only beginning. The W. E. A. Was splendid; work was splendid;Barry Briscoe was splendid; life was splendid. She was sorry for Kay atCambridge, Kay who was just off on a reading party, not helping in theworld's work but merely getting education. Education was inspiring inconnection with Democracy, but when applied to oneself it was dull. 

The rain was lessening. It fell on their heads more lightly; the wind waslike soft wet kisses on their backs, as they tramped through Merrow, andup the lane to Windover. 

3

They all sat round the tea-table, and most of them were warm and sleepyfrom Sunday afternoon by the fire, but Barry and Gerda were warm andtingling from walking in the storm. Some people prefer one sensation, some the other. 

Neville thought "How pretty Gerda looks, pink like that. " She was gladto know that she too looked pretty, in her blue afternoon dress. Itwas good, in that charming room, that they should all look agreeableto the eye. Even Mrs. Hilary, with her nervous, faded grace, marred byself-consciousness and emotion. And Grandmama, smiling and shrewd, withher old in-drawn lips; and Rodney, long and lounging and clever; Jim, square-set, sensible, clean-cut, beautiful to his mother and to his womenpatients, good for everyone to look at; Barry, brown and charming, withhis quick smile; the boy Kay, with his pale, rounded, oval face, hisviolet eyes like his mother's, only short-sighted, so that he had a trickof screwing them up and peering, and a mouth that widened into a happysweetness when he smiled. 

They were all right: they all fitted in with the room and with eachother. 

Barry said "I've not been idle while walking. I've secured a secretary. Gerda says she's coming to work at the office for us for a bit. Now, atonce. "

He had not Gerda's knack of silence. Gerda would shut up tight over herplans and thoughts, like a little oyster. She was no babbler; she didthings and never talked. But Barry's plans brimmed up and over. 

Neville said "You sudden child! And in July and August, too. .. . Butyou'll have only a month before you join Nan in Cornwall, won't you?"

Gerda nodded, munching a buttered scone. 

Grandmama, like an old war-horse scenting the fray, thought "Is it goingto be an affair? Will they fall in love? And what of Nan?" Then rebukedherself for forgetting what she really knew quite well, having beentold it often, that men and girls in these days worked together anddid everything together, with no thought of affairs or of falling inlove. .. . Only these two were very attractive, the young Briscoe and thepretty child, Gerda. 

Neville, who knew Gerda, and that she was certainly in love again (ithappened so often with Gerda), thought "Shall I stop it? Or shall I letthings take their course? Oh, I'll let them alone. It's only one ofGerda's childish hero-worships, and he'll be kind without flirting. It'lldo Gerda good to go on with this new work she's so keen on. And she knowshe cares for Nan. I shall let her go. "

Neville very nearly always let Gerda and Kay go their own way nowthat they were grown-up. To interfere would have been the part of themiddle-aged old-fashioned mother, and for that part Neville had noliking. To be her children's friend and good comrade, that was her rôlein life. 

"It's good of you to have her, " she said to Barry. "I hope you won't besorry. .. . She's very stupid sometimes--regular Johnny Head-in-air. "

"I should be a jolly sight more use, " Kay remarked. "But I can't come, unfortunately. She can't spell, you know. And her punctuation is weird. "

"She'll learn, " said Barry, cheerfully, and Gerda smiled serenely at themover her tea-cup. 

4

Barry in the office was quick, alert, cheerful, and business-like, andvery decided, sometimes impatient. Efficient: that was the word. He wouldskim the correspondence and dictate answers out of his head, walkingabout the room, interrupted all the time by the telephone and by peoplecoming in to see him. Gerda's hero-worship grew and grew; her soulswelled with it; she shut it down tight and remained calm and cool. Whenhe joked, when he smiled his charming smile, her heart turned over withinher. When he had signed the typed letters, she would sometimes put herhand for a moment where his had rested on the paper. He was stern withher sometimes, spoke sharply and impatiently, and that, in a queer way, she liked. She had felt the same pleasure at school, when the head of theschool, whom she had greatly and secretly venerated, had had her up tothe sixth form room and rowed her. Why? That was for psycho-analysts todiscover; Gerda only knew the fact. And Barry, after he had spokensharply to her, when he had got over his anger, would smile and be evenkinder than usual, and that was the best of all. 

There were other people in the office, of course; men and women, busy, efficient, coming in and out, talking, working, organising. They werekind, pleasant people. Gerda liked them, but they were shadowy. 

And behind them all, and behind Barry, there was the work. The work wasenormously interesting. Gerda, child of her generation and of herparents, was really a democrat, really public-spirited, outside thelittle private cell of her withdrawn reserves. Beauty wasn't enough;making poetry and pictures wasn't enough; one had to give everyone hisand her chance to have beauty and poetry and pictures too. In spiteof having been brought up in this creed, Gerda and Kay held to it, hadnot reacted from it to a selfish aristocracy, as you might think likely. Their democracy went much further than that of their parents. Theyhad been used ardently to call themselves Bolshevists until such time asit was forced upon them that Bolshevism was not, in point of fact, ademocratic system. They and some of their friends still occasionally usedthat label, in moments rather of after-dinner enthusiasm than of theprecise thinking that is done in morning light. For, after all, even Mr. Bertrand Russell, even Mrs. Philip Snowden, might be wrong in theirhurried jottings down of the results of a cursory survey of so intricatea system. And, anyhow, Bolshevism had the advantage that it had not yetbeen tried in this country, and no one, not even the most imaginative andclear-sighted political theorist, could forecast the precise form intowhich the curious British climate might mould it if it should ever adoptit. So that to believe in it was, anyhow, easier than believing inanything which _had_ been tried (and, like all things which are tried, found wanting) such as Liberalism, Toryism, Socialism, and so forth. 

But the W. E. A. Was a practical body, which went in for practicaladventure. Dowdy, schoolmarmish, extension-lectureish, it might beand doubtless was. But a real thing, with guts in it, really doingsomething; and after all, you can't be incendiarising the politicaland economic constitution all your time. In your times off you cando something useful, something which shows results, and for which suchan enormous amount of faith and hope is not required. Work for theRevolution--yes, of course, one did that; one studied the literature ofthe Internationals; one talked. .. . But did one help the Revolution onmuch, when all was said? Whereas in the W. E. A. Office one really gotthings done; one typed a letter and something happened because of it;more adult classes occurred, more workers got educated. Gerda, too youngand too serious to be cynical, believed that this must be right and good. 

5

A clever, strange, charming child Barry found her, old and young beyondher twenty years. Her wide-set blue eyes seemed to see horizons, and toooften to be blind to foregrounds. She had a slow, deliberating habit ofwork, and of some things was astonishingly ignorant, with the ignoranceof those who, when at school, have worked at what they preferred andquietly disregarded the rest. If he let her compose a letter, its wordingwould be quaint. Her prose was, in fact, worse than her verse, and thatwas saying a good deal. But she was thorough, never slipshod. Her brainground slowly, but it ground exceeding small; there were no blurred edgesto her apprehension of facts; either she didn't know a thing or she did, and that sharp and clear distinction is none too common. She would fileand index papers with precision, and find them again, slow and sure, whenthey were required. Added to these secretarial gifts, such as they were, she had vision; she saw always the dream through or in spite of thebusiness; she was like Barry himself in that. She was a good companion, too, though she had no wit and not very much humour, and none of Nan'sgifts of keen verbal brilliance, frequent ribaldry and quick response;she would digest an idea slowly, and did not make jokes; her clear mindhad the quality of a crystal rather than of a flashing diamond. Therising generation; the woman citizen of to-morrow: what did not rest onher, and what might she not do and be? Nan, on the other hand, was thewoman citizen of to-day. And Nan did not bother to use her vote becauseshe found all the parties and all the candidates about equally absurd. Barry had argued with Nan about that, but made no impression on hercynical indifference; she had met him with levity. To Gerda there was awrong and a right in politics, instead of only a lot of wrongs; touchingyoung faith, Nan called it, but Barry, who shared it, found it cheering. 

This pretty little white pixyish person, with her yellow hair cutstraight across her forehead and waving round her neck like the curled, shining petals of a celandine, with her straight-thinking mind and herqueer, secret, mystic thoughts--she was the woman of the future, acitizen and a mother of citizens. She and the other girls and boys wereout to build the new heaven and the new earth, and their children wouldcarry it on. This responsibility of Gerda's invested her with a specialinterest in the eyes of Barry, who lived and worked for the future, andwho, when he saw an infant mewling and puking in a pram, was apt to think"The hope for the world, " and smile at it encouragingly, overlooking itspresent foolishness of aspect and habit. If ever he had children . .. IfNan would marry him . .. But Nan would always lightly slide away when hegot near her. .. . He could see her now, with the cool, amused smiletilting her lips, always sliding away, eluding him. .. . Nan, like a wildanimal for grace, brilliant like blown fire, cool like the wind, stabbingherself and him with her keen wit. .. . 

Gerda, looking up from her typewriter to say "How do you spellcomparatively?" saw his face in its momentary bitterness as he frowned, pen in hand, out of the window. He was waiting to sign the lettersbefore he went out to a committee meeting, and she thought she wasannoying him by her slowness. She spelt comparatively anyhow, and withthe wholehearted wrongness to which she and the typewriter, both badspellers, often attained in conjunction, hastily finished and laidthe letters before him. Called back to work and actuality, Barry wasagain cheerful and kind, and he smilingly corrected comparatively. 

"You might ask me, " he suggested, "instead of experimenting, when I dohappen to be at hand. Otherwise a dictionary, or Miss Pinner in the nextroom. .. ?"

Gerda was happy, now that the shadow was off his face. Raillery andrebuke she did not mind; only the shadow, which fell coldly on her hearttoo. 

He left the office then for the day, as he often did, but it was warm andalive with his presence, and she was doing his work, and she would seehim again in the morning. 

6

Gerda went home only for week-ends now; it was too slow a journey to makeevery morning and evening. She stayed during the week at a hotel calledthe Red House, in Magpie Alley, off Bouverie Street. It was a hotel keptby revolutionary souls exclusively for revolutionary souls. Gerda, whohad every right there, had gained admittance through friends of hers wholodged there. Every evening at six o'clock she went back through therain, as she did this evening, and changed her wet clothes and sat downto dinner, a meal which all the revolutionary souls ate together so thatit was sacramental, a breaking of common bread in token of a commonfaith. 

They were a friendly party. At one end of the table Aunt Phyllispresided. Aunt Phyllis, who was really the aunt of only one young man, kept this Red House. She was a fiery little revolutionary in the lateforties, small, and thin and darting, full of faith and fire. She was onthe staff of the British Bolshevist, and for the rest, wrote leaflets, which showered from her as from trees in autumn gales. So did the Rev. Anselm Digby. Mr. Digby had also the platform habit, he would go roundthe country denouncing and inciting to revolution in the name of Christand of the Third International. Though grizzled, he belonged to theLeague of Youth, as well as to many other eager fraternities. He wasunbeneficed, having no time for parish work. This ardent clergyman satat the other end of Aunt Phyllis's table, as befitted his years. 

The space between the two ends was filled by younger creatures. It wasspring with them; their leaflets were yet green and unfallen; all thatfell from them was poetry, pathetic in its sadness, bitter in its irony, free of metrical or indeed of any other restraints, and mainly eitherabout how unpleasant had been the trenches in which they had spent theyears of the great war and those persons over military age who had notbeen called upon to enter them, or about freedom; free love, free thoughtand a free world. Yes, both these subjects sound a little old-fashioned, but the Red House was concerned with these elemental changeless things. And some of them also wrote fiction, quiet, grey, a little tired, aboutunhappy persons to whom nothing was very glad or very sad, and certainlyneither right nor wrong, but only rough or smooth of surface, bright ordark of hue, sweet or bitter of taste or smell. Most of those in the roombelonged to a Freudian circle at their club, and all were anti-Christian, except an Irish Roman Catholic, who had taken an active part in theEaster uprising of 1916, since when he had been living in exile; AuntPhyllis, who believed in no churches but in the Love of God; and ofcourse, Mr. Digby. All these people, though they did not always get onvery well together, were linked by a common aim in life, and by commonhatreds. 

But, in spite of hate, the Red House lodgers were a happy set ofrevolutionaries. Real revolutionaries; having their leaflets printed bysecret presses; members of societies which exchanged confidential letterswith the more eminent Russians, such as Litvinoff and Trotzky, collectedfor future publication secret circulars, private strike-breaking orders, and other _obiter dicta_ of a rash government, and believed themselves tobe working to establish the Soviet government over Europe. They had beenangry all this summer because the Glasgow conference of the I. L. P. Hadbroken with the Third International. They spoke with acerbity of Mr. Ramsay Macdonald and Mr. And Mrs. Philip Snowden. But now, in August, they had little acerbity to spare for anything but the government'sconduct of Irish affairs. 

7

But, though these were Gerda's own people, the circle in which she feltat home, she looked forward every night to the morning, when there wouldbe the office again, and Barry. 

Sometimes Barry took her out to dinner and a theatre. They went to the"Beggar's Opera, " "The Grain of Mustard Seed, " "Mary Rose" (which theyfound sentimental), and to the "Beggar's Opera" again Gerda had her ownideas, very definite and critical, about dramatic merit. Barry enjoyeddiscussing the plays with her, listening to her clear little silver voicepronouncing judgment. Gerda might be forever mediocre in any form ofartistic expression, but she was an artist, with the artist's love ofmerit and scorn of the second-rate. 

They went to "Mary Rose" with some girl cousins of Barry's, two jollygirls from Girton. Against their undiscriminating enthusiasm, Gerda andher fastidious distaste stood out sharp and clear, like some delicateetching among flamboyant pictures. That fastidiousness she had from bothher parents, with something of her own added. 

Barry went home with her. He wondered how her fastidiousness stood thegrimy house in Magpie Alley and its ramshackle habit of life, after thedistinctions and beauty of Windover, but he thought it was probably verygood for her, part of the experience which should mould the citizen. Gerda shrank from no experience. At the corner of Bouverie Street theymet a painted girl out for hire, strayed for some reason into thisunpropitious locality. For the moment Gerda had fallen behind and Barryseemed alone. The girl stopped in his path, looked up in his faceenquiringly, and he pushed his way, not urgently, past her. The nextmoment Gerda's hand caught his arm. 

"Stop, Barry, stop. "

"Stop? What for?"

"The woman. Didn't you see?"

"My dear child, I can't do anything for her. "

Like the others of her generation, Gerda was interested in persons ofthat profession; he knew that already; only they saw them through adistorting mist. 

"We can find out where she works, what wages she gets, why she's on thestreets. She's probably working for sweated wages somewhere. We _ought_to find out. "

"We can't find out about every woman of that kind we meet. The thing isto attack the general principle behind the thing, not each individualcase. .. . Besides, it would be so frightfully impertinent of us. Howwould you like it if someone stopped you in the street and asked youwhere you worked and whether you were sweated or not, and why you wereout so late?"

"I shouldn't mind, if they wanted to know for a good reason. One _ought_to find out how things are, what people's conditions are. "

It was what Barry too believed and practised, but he could only say"It's the wrong way round. You've got to work from the centre to thecircumference. .. . And don't fall into the sentimental mistake of thinkingthat all prostitution comes from sweated labour. A great deal does, ofcourse, but a great deal because it seems to some women an easy andattractive way of earning a living. .. . Oh, hammer away at sweatedlabour for all you're worth, of course, for that reason and every other;but you won't stop prostitution till you stop the demand for it. That'sthe poisonous root of the thing. So long as the demand goes on, you'llget the supply, whatever economic conditions may be. "

Gerda fell silent, pondering on the strange tastes of those who desiredfor some reason the temporary company of these unfortunate females, sounpleasing to the eye, to the ear, to the mind, to the smell; desired itso much that they would pay money for it. _Why?_ Against that riddle thenon-comprehension of her sex beat itself, baffled. She might put it theother way round, try to imagine herself desiring, paying for, thetemporary attentions of some dirty, common, vapid, and patchouli-scentedman--and still she got no nearer. For she never could desire it. .. . Well, anyhow, there the thing was. Stop the demand? Stop that desire of men forwomen? Stop the ready response of women to it? If that was the only way, then there was indeed nothing for it but education--and was eveneducation any use for that?

"Is it love, " she asked of Barry, "that the men feel who want thesewomen?"

Barry laughed shortly. "Love? Good Lord, no. "

"What then, Barry?"

"I don't know that it can be explained, exactly. .. . It's a passingtaste, I suppose, a desire for the company of another sex from one'sown, just because it _is_ another sex, though it may have no otherattractions. .. . It's no use trying to analyse it, one doesn't getanywhere. But it's not love. "

"What's love, then? What's the difference?"

"Have I to define love, walking down Magpie Alley? You could do it aswell as I could. Love has the imagination in it, and the mind. I supposethat's the difference. And, too, love wants to give. This is allplatitude. No one can ever say anything new about love, it's all beensaid. Got your latch-key?"

Gerda let herself into the Red House and went up to bed and lay wakeful. Very certainly she loved Barry, with all her imagination and all hermind, and she would have given him more than all that was hers. Verysurely and truly she loved him, even if after all he was to be her uncleby marriage, which would make their family life like that in one of LouisCouperus's books. But why unhappy like that? Was love unhappy? If shemight see him sometimes, talk to him, if Nan wouldn't want all of him allthe time--and it would be unlike Nan to do that--she could be happy. Onecould share, after all. Women must share, for there were a million morewomen in England than men. 

But probably Nan didn't mean to marry him at all. Nan never marriedpeople. .. . 

8

Next morning at the office Barry said he had heard from Nan. She hadasked him to come too and bicycle in Cornwall, with her and Gerda andKay. 

"You will, won't you, " said Gerda. 

"Rather, of course. "

A vaguely puzzled note sounded in his voice. But he would come. 

Cornwall was illuminated to Gerda. The sharing process would begin there. But for a week more she had him to herself, and that was better. 

CHAPTER VIII

NAN

1

Nan at Marazion bathed, sailed, climbed, walked and finished her book. She had a room at St. Michael's Café, at the edge of the little town, just above the beach. Across a space of sea at high tide, and of wetsand and a paved causeway slimy with seaweed at the ebb, St. Michael'sMount loomed, dark against a sunset sky, pale and unearthly in the dawn, an embattled ship riding anchored on full waters, or stranded on drownedsands. 

Nan stayed at the empty little town to be alone. But she was not aloneall the time, for at Newlyn, five miles away, there was the artistcolony, and some of these artists were her friends. (In point of fact, itis impossible to be alone in Cornwall; the place to go to for that wouldbe Hackney, or some other district of outer London, where inner Londonersdo not go for holidays. ) Had she liked she could have had friends to playwith all day, and talk and laughter and music all night, as in London. She did not like. She went out by herself, worked by herself; and all thetime, in company, or alone, talking or working, she knew herselfwithdrawn really into a secret cove of her own which was warm and goldenas no actual coves in this chill summer were warm and golden; a cove onwhose good brown sand she lay and made castles and played, while at herfeet the great happy sea danced and beat, the great tumbling sea on whichshe would soon put out her boat. 

She would count the days before Barry would be with her. 

"Three weeks now. Twenty days; nineteen, eighteen. .. " desiring neither tohurry nor to retard them, but watching them slip behind her in a deepcontent. When he came, he and Gerda and Kay, they would spend one nightand one day in this fishing-town, lounging about its beach, and inNewlyn, with its steep crooked streets between old grey walls hung withshrubs, and beyond Newlyn, in the tiny fishing hamlets that hung abovethe little coves from Penzance to Land's End. They were going to bicycleall along the south coast. But before that they would have had it out, she and Barry; probably here, in the little pale climbing fishing-town. No matter where, and no matter how; Nan cared nothing for scenicarrangements. All she had to do was to convey to Barry that she wouldsay yes now to the question she had put off and off, let him ask it, give her answer, and the thing would be done. 

2

Meanwhile she wrote the last chapters of her book, sitting on the beachamong drying nets and boats, in some fishing cove up the coast. TheNewlyn shore she did not like, because the artist-spoilt children crowdedround her, interrupting. 

"Lady, lady! Will you paint us?"

"No. I don't paint. "

"Then what _are_ you doing?"

"Writing. Go away. "

"May we come with you to where you're staying?"

"No. Go away. "

"Last year a lady took us to her studio and gave us pennies. And whenshe'd gone back to London she sent us each a doll. "

Silence. 

"Lady, if we come with you to your studio, will you give us pennies?"

"No. Why should I?"

"You might because you wanted to paint us. You might because you likedus. "

"I don't do either. Go away now. "

They withdrew a little and turned somersaults, supposing her to bewatching. The artistic colony had a lot to answer for, Nan thought; theywere making parasites and prostitutes of the infant populace. Childrencould at their worst be detestable in their vanity, their posing, theiraffectation, their unashamed greed. 

"Barry's and mine, " she thought (I suppose we'll have some), "shall atleast not pose. They may break all the commandments, but if they turnsomersaults to be looked at I shall drop them into a public crèche andabandon them. "

The prettiest little girl looked sidelong at the unkind lady, andbelieved her half-smile to denote admiration. Pretty little girls oftenmake this error. 

Stephen Lumley came along the beach. It was lunch time, and after lunchthey were going out sailing. Stephen Lumley was the most important artistjust now in Newlyn. He had been in love with Nan for some months, and didnot get on with his wife. Nan liked him; he painted brilliantly, and wasan attractive, clever, sardonic person. Sailing with him was fun. Theyunderstood each other; they had rather the same cynical twist to them. They understood each other really better than Nan and Barry did. Neitherof them needed to make any effort to comprehend each other's point ofview. And each left the other where he was. Whereas Barry filled Nan, beneath her cynicism, beneath her levity, with something quite new--aqueer desire, to put it simply, for goodness, for straight living andgenerous thinking, even, within reason, for usefulness. More and more heflooded her inmost being, drowning the old landmarks, like the sea athigh tide. Nan was not a Christian, did not believe in God, but she camenear at this time to believing in Christianity as possibly a fine andadventurous thing to live. 

3

Echoes of the great little world so far off came to the Cornish coasts, through the Western Mercury and the stray, belated London papers. Rumoursof a projected coal strike, of fighting in Mesopotamia, of politicalprisoners on hunger strike, of massacres in Ireland, and typists murderedat watering-places; echoes of Fleet Street quarrels, of Bolshevik gold("Not a bond! Not a franc! Not a rouble!") and, from the religiousworld, of fallen man and New Faiths for Old. And on Sundays one bought apaper which had for its special star comic turn the reminiscences of theexpansive wife of one of our more patient politicians. The world went onjust the same, quarrelling, chattering, lying; sentimental, busy andrichly absurd; its denizens tilting against each other's politics, murdering each other, trying and always failing to swim across thechannel, and always talking, talking, talking. Marazion and Newlyn, andevery other place were the world in little, doing all the same things intheir own miniature way. Each human soul was the world in little, withall the same conflicts, hopes, emotions, excitements and intrigues. ButNan, swimming, sailing, eating, writing, walking and lounging, browningin salt winds and waters, was happy and remote, like a savage on anisland who meditates exclusively on his own affairs. 

4

Nan met them at Penzance station. The happy three; they would be good tomake holiday with. Already they had holiday faces, though not yet brownedlike Nan's. 

Barry's hand gripped Nan's. He was here then, and it had come. Her headswam; she felt light, like thistledown on the wind. 

They came up from the station into quiet, gay, warm Penzance, and had teaat a shop. They were going to stay at Marazion that night and the next, and spend the day bicycling to Land's End and back. They were all fourfull of vigour, brimming with life and energy that needed to be spent. But Gerda looked pale. 

"She's been overworking in a stuffy office, " Barry said. "And not, exceptwhen she dined with me, getting proper meals. What do you think sheweighs, Nan?"

"About as much as that infant there, " Nan said, indicating a stout personof five at the next table. 

"Just about, I daresay. She's only six stone. What are we to do aboutit?"

His eyes caressed Gerda, as they might have caressed a child. He would bea delightful uncle by marriage, Nan thought. 

They took the road to Marazion. The tide was going out. In front of themthe Mount rose in a shallowing violet sea. 

"My word!" said Barry, and Kay, screwing up his eyes, murmured, "Good oldMount. " Gerda's lips parted in a deep breath; beauty always struck herdumb. 

Into the pale-washed, straggling old village they rode, stabled theirbicycles, and went down to the shining evening sands, where now the pavedcauseway to the Mount was all exposed, running slimy and seaweedy betweenrippled wet sands and dark, slippery rocks. Bare-footed they trod it, Gerda and Kay in front, Barry and Nan behind, and the gulls talking andwheeling round them. 

Nan stopped, the west in her eyes. "Look. "

Point beyond point they saw stretching westward to Land's End, dim anddark beyond a rose-flushed sea. 

"Isn't it clear, " said Nan. "You can see the cliff villages ever so faralong . .. Newlyn, Mousehole, Clement's Island off it--and the point ofLamorna. "

Barry said "We'll go to Land's End by the coast road to-morrow, shan'twe, not the high road?"

"Oh, the coast road, yes. It's about twice the distance, with the ups anddowns, and you can't ride all the way. But we'll go by it. "

For a moment they stood side by side, looking westward over the bay. 

Nan said, "Aren't you glad you came?"

"I should say so!"

His answer came, quick and emphatic. There was a pause after it. Nansuddenly turned on him the edge of a smile. 

Barry did not see it. He was not looking at her, nor over the bay, butin front of him, to where Gerda, a thin little upright form, movedbare-legged along the shining causeway to the moat. 

Nan's smile flickered out. The sunset tides of rose flamed swiftly overher cheeks, her neck, her body, and receded as sharply, as if someone hadhit her in the face. Her pause, her smile, had been equivalent, as shesaw them, to a permission, even to an invitation. He had turned awayunnoticing, a queer, absent tenderness in his eyes, as they followedGerda . .. Gerda . .. Walking light-footed up the wet causeway. .. . Well, ifhe had got out of the habit of wanting to make love to her, she would notoffer him chances again. When he got the habit back, he must make his ownchances as best he could. 

"Come on, " said Nan. "We must hurry. "

She left no more pauses, but talked all the time, about Newlyn, about theartists, about the horrid children, the fishing, the gulls, the weather. 

"And how's the book?" he asked. 

"Nearly done. I'm waiting for the end to make itself. "

He smiled and looking round at him she saw that he was not smiling ather or her book, but at Gerda, who had stepped off the causeway and waswading in a rock pool. 

He must be obsessed with Gerda; he thought of her, apparently, all thetime he was talking about other things. It was irritating for an aunt tobear. 

They joined Kay and Gerda on the island. Kay was prowling about, lookingfor a way by which to enter the forbidden castle. Kay always trespassedwhen he could, and was so courteous and gentle when he was caught at itthat he disarmed comment. But this time he could not manage to evade thepolite but firm eye of the fisherman on guard. They crossed over toMarazion again all together and went to the café for supper. 

5

It was a merry, rowdy meal they had; ham and eggs and coffee in an upperroom, with the soft sea air blowing in on them through open windows. Nanand Barry chattered, and Kay took his cheerful part; only Gerda sparse ofword, was quiet and dreamy, with her blue eyes opened wide against sleep, for she had not slept until late last night. 

"High time she had a holiday, " Barry said of her. "Four weeks' grind inAugust--it's beginning to tell now. "

Fussy Barry was about the child. As bad as Frances Carr with Pamela. Gerda was as strong as a little pony really, though she looked such asmall, white, brittle thing. 

They got out maps and schemed out roads and routes over their cigarettes. Then they strolled about the little town, exploring its alleys and narrowbyways that gave on the sea. The moon had risen now, and Marazion was cutsteeply in shadow and silver light, and all the bay lay in shadow andsilver too, to where the lights of Penzance twinkled like a great litchurch. 

Barry thought once, as he had often thought in the past, "How brilliantNan is, and how gay. No wonder she never needed me. She needs no one, "and this time it did not hurt him to think it. He loved to listen to her, to talk and laugh with her, to look at her, but he was free at last; hedemanded nothing of her. Those restless, urging, disappointed hopes andlongings lay dead in him, dead and at peace. He could not have put hisfinger on the moment of their death; there had been no moment; like goodsoldiers they had never died, but faded away, and till to-night he hadnot known that they had gone. He would show Nan now that she need fearno more pestering from him; she need not keep on talking without pausewhenever they were alone together, which had been her old way of defence, and which she was beginning again now. They could drop now intoundisturbed friendship. Nan was the most stimulating of friends. It wasrefreshing to talk things out with her again, to watch her quick mindflashing and turning and cutting its way, brilliant, clear, sharp, likea diamond. 

They went to bed; Barry and Kay to the room they had got above a publichouse, Nan and Gerda to Nan's room at the café, where they squeezed intoone bed. 

Gerda slept, lying very straight and still, as was her habit in sleep. Nan lay wakeful and restless, watching the moonlight steal across thefloor and lie palely on the bed and on Gerda's waxen face and yellowhair. The pretty, pale child, strange in sleep, like a little mermaidenlost on earth. Nan, sitting up in bed, one dark plait hanging over eachshoulder, watched her with brooding amber eyes. How young she was, howvery, very young. It was touching to be so young. Yet why, when youthwas, people said, the best time? It wasn't really touching to be young;it was touching not to be young, because you had less of life left. Touching to be thirty; more touching to be forty; tragic to be fifty andheartbreaking to be sixty. As to seventy, as to eighty, one would feel asone did during the last dance of a ball, tired but fey in the palingdawn, desperately making the most of each bar of music before one wenthome to bed. That was touching; Mrs. Hilary and Grandmama were touching. Not Gerda and Kay, with their dance just beginning. 

A bore, this sharing one bed. You couldn't sleep, however small and quietyour companion lay. They must get a bed each, when they could, duringthis tour. One must sleep. If one didn't one began to think. Every timeNan forced herself to the edge of sleep, a picture sprang sharply beforeher eyes--the flaming sky and sea, herself and Barry standing together onthe causeway. 

"Aren't you glad you came?" Her own voice, soft, encouraging. 

"I should say so!" The quick, matter-of-fact answer. 

Then a pause and she turning on him the beginnings of a smile. Anallowing, inviting . .. Seductive . .. Smile. 

And he, smiling too, but not at her, looking away to where Gerda and Kaywalked bare-legged to the Mount. 

Flame scorched her again. The pause each time she saw it now becamelonger, more deliberate, more inviting, more emptily unfilled. Her smilebecame more luring, his more rejecting. As she saw it now, in the cruel, distorting night, he had seen her permission and refused it. By day shehad known that simple Barry had seen nothing; by day she would know itagain. Between days are set nights of white, searing flame, two in a bedso that one cannot sleep. Damn Gerda, lying there so calm and cool. Ithad been a mistake to ask Gerda to come; if it hadn't been for Gerda theywouldn't have been two in a bed. 

"Barry's a good deal taken up with her just now, " said Nan to herself, putting it into plain, deliberate words, as was her habit with life'ssituations. "He does get taken up with pretty girls, I suppose, when he'sthrown with them. All men do, if you come to that. For the moment he'sthinking about her, not about me. That's a bore. It will bore me to deathif it goes on. .. . I wonder how long it will go on? I wonder how soonhe'll want to make love to me again?"

Having thus expressed the position in clear words, Nan turned her mindelsewhere. What do people think of when they are seeking sleep? It isworse than no use to think of what one is writing; that wakes one up, goads every brain-cell into unwholesome activity. No use thinking ofpeople; they are too interesting. Nor of sheep going through gates; theytumble over one another and make one's head ache. Nor of the coming day;that is too difficult: nor of the day which is past; that is too near. Wood paths, quiet seas, running streams--these are better. 

 "Any lazy man can swim Down the current of a stream. "

Or the wind in trees, or owls crying, or waves beating on warm shores. The waves beat now; ran up whisperingly with the incoming tide, broke, and sidled back, dragging at the wet sand. .. . Nan, hearing them, driftedat last into sleep. 

CHAPTER IX

THE PACE

1

The coast road to Land's End is like a switchback. You climb a mountainand are flung down to sea level like a shooting star, and climb amountain again. Sometimes the road becomes a sandy cliff path and youhave to walk. 

But at last, climbing up and being shot down and walking, Nan and Barryand Gerda and Kay reached Land's End. They went down to Sennan Cove tobathe, and the high sea was churning breakers on the beach. Nan divedthrough them with the arrowy straightness of a fish or a submarine, cameup behind them, and struck out to sea. The others behind her, lessskilful, floundered and were dashed about by the waves. Barry and Kaystruggled through them somehow, bruised and choked; Gerda, giving itup--she was no great swimmer--tranquilly rolled and paddled in the surfby herself. 

Kay called to her, mocking. 

"Coward. Sensualist. Come over the top like a man. "

Nan, turning to look at her from the high crest of a wave, thought"Gerda's afraid in a high sea. She is afraid of things: I remember. "

Nan herself was afraid of very little. She had that kind of buoyantphysical gallantry which would take her into the jaws of danger witha laugh. When in London during the air raids she had walked about thestreets to see what could be seen; in France with the Fannys she haddriven cars over shelled roads with a cool composure which distinguishedher even among that remarkably cool and composed set of young women; asa child she had ridden unbroken horses and teased and dodged savage bullsfor the fun of it; she would go sailing in seas that fishermen refused togo out in; part angry dogs which no other onlooker would touch; sleep outalone in dark and lonely woods, and even on occasion brave pigs. The kindof gay courage she had was a physical heritage which can never beacquired. What can be acquired, with blood and tears, is the courage ofthe will, stubborn and unyielding, but always nerve-racked, proudly andtensely strung up. Nan's form of fearlessness, combined as it was withthe agility of a supple body excellently trained, would carry her lightlythrough all physical adventures, much as her arrowy strength and skillcarried her through the breakers without blundering or mishap and let hernow ride buoyantly on each green mountain as it towered. 

Barry, emerging spluttering from one of these, said "All very jolly foryou, Nan. You're a practised hand. We're being drowned. I'm going out ofit, " and he dived through another wave for the shore. Kay, a clumsierswimmer, followed him, and Nan rode her tossing horses, laughing at them, till she was shot onto the beach and dug her fingers deep into thesucking sand. 

"A very pretty landing, " said Barry, generously, rubbing his bruisedlimbs and coughing up water. 

Gerda rose from the foam where she had been playing serenely imperviousto the tauntings of Kay. 

Barry said "Happy child. She's not filled up with salt water and batteredblack and blue. "

Nan remarked that neither was she, and they went to their rockcrannies to dress. They dressed and undressed in a publicity, a mixedshamelessness that was almost appalling. 

They rode back to Marazion after tea along the high road, more soberlythan they had come. 

"Tired, Gerda?" Barry said, at the tenth mile, as they pulled up a hill. "Hold on to me. "

Gerda refused to do so mean a thing. She had her own sense of honour, andbelieved that everyone should carry his or her own burden. But when theyhad to get off and walk up the hill she let him help to push her bicycle. 

"Give us a few days, Nan, " said Barry, "and we'll all be as fit as you. At present we're fat and scant of breath from our sedentary and usefullife. "

"Our life"--as if they had only the one between them. 

At Newlyn Nan stopped. She said she was going to supper with someonethere and would come on later. She was, in fact, tired of them. Shedropped into Stephen Lumley's studio, which was, as usual after paintinghours, full of his friends, talking and smoking. That was the only way tospend the evening, thought Nan, talking and smoking and laughing, neverpausing. Anyhow that was the way she spent it. 

She got back to Marazion at ten o'clock and went to her room at thelittle café. Looking from its window, she saw the three on the shore bythe moonlit sea. Kay was standing on the paved causeway, and Barry andGerda, some way off, were wading among the rocks, bending over the pools, as if they were looking for crabs. 

Nan went to bed. When Gerda came in presently, she lay very still andpretended to be asleep. 

It was dreadful, another night of sharing a bed. Dreadful to lie soclose one to the other; dreadful to touch accidentally; touching peoplereminded you how alive they are, with their separate, conscious throbbinglife so close against yours. 

2

Next morning they took the road eastward. They were going to ride alongthe coast to Talland Bay, where they were going to spend a week. Theywere giving themselves a week to get there, which would allow plenty oftime for bathing by the way. It is no use hurrying in Cornwall, the hillsare too steep and the sea too attractive, and lunch and tea, when orderedin shops, so long in coming. The first day they only got round the Lizardto Cadgwith, where they dived from steep rocks into deep blue water. Nandived from a high rock with a swoop like a sea bird's, a pretty thing towatch. Barry was nearly as good; he too was physically proficient. TheBendishes were less competent; they were so much younger, as Barry said. But they too reached the water head first, which is, after all, the mainthing in diving. And as often as Nan dived, with her arrowy swoop, Gerdatumbled in too, from the same rock, and when Nan climbed a yet higherrock and dived again, Gerda climbed too, and fell in sprawling after her. Gerda to-day was not to be outdone, anyhow in will to attempt, whateverher achievement might lack. Nan looked up from the sea with a kind ofmocking admiration at the little figure poised on the high shelf of rock, slightly unsteady about the knees, slightly blue about the lips, thinwhite arms pointing forward for the plunge. 

The child had pluck. .. . It must have hurt, too, that slap on the nearlyflat body as she struck the sea. She hadn't done it well. She came upwith a dazed look, shaking the water out of her eyes, coughing. 

"You're too ambitious, " Barry told her. "That was much too high for you. You're also blue with cold. Come out. "

Gerda looked up at Nan, who was scrambling nimbly onto the highest ledgeof all, crying "I must have one more. "

Barry said to Gerda "No, you're not going after her. You're coming out. It's no use thinking you can do all Nan does. None of us can. "

Gerda gave up. The pace was too hard for her. She couldn't face thathighest rock; the one below had made her feel cold and queer and shaky asshe stood on it. Besides, why was she trying, for the first time in herlife, to go Nan's pace, which had always been, and was now more than everbefore, too hot and mettlesome for her? She didn't know why; only thatNan had been, somehow, all day setting the pace, daring her, as it were, to make it. It was becoming, oddly, a point of honour between them, andneither knew how or why. 

3

On the road it was the same. Nan, with only the faintest, if anyapplication of brakes, would commit herself to lanes which leapedprecipitously downwards like mountain streams, zig-zagging like adog's-tooth pattern, shingled with loose stones, whose unseen end mightbe a village round some sharp turn, or a cove by the sea, or a field pathrunning to a farm, or merely the foot of one hill and the beginning ofthe steep pull up the next. Coast roads in Cornwall are like that--oftenuncertain in their ultimate goal (for map-makers, like bicyclists, areapt to get tired of them, and, tiring, break them off, so to speak, inmid-air, leaving them suspended, like snapped ends of string). Buthowever uncertain their goal may be, their form is not uncertain atall; it can be relied on to be that of a snake in agony leaping down ahill or up; or, if one prefers it, that of a corkscrew plunging downwardsinto a cork. 

Nan leaped and plunged with them. She was at the bottom while the otherswere still jolting, painfully brake-held, albeit rapidly, half-way down. And sometimes, when the slope was more than usually like the steep roofof a house, the zig-zags more than usually acute, the end even less thanusually known, the whole situation, in short, more dreadful and perilous, if possible, than usual, the others surrendered, got off and walked. Theycouldn't really rely on their brakes to hold them, supposing somethingshould swing round on them from behind one of the corners; they couldn'tbe sure of turning with the road when it turned at its acutest, and suchfailure of harmony with one's road is apt to meet with a dreadfulretribution. Barry was adventurous, and Kay and Gerda were calm, but toall of them life was sweet and limbs and bicycles precious; none of themdesired an untimely end. 

But Nan laughed at their prognostications of such an end. "It will befound impossible to ride down these hills, " said their road book, and Nanlaughed at that too. You can, as she observed, ride down anything; it isriding up that is the difficulty. Anyhow, she, who had ridden buckinghorses and mountainous seas, could ride down anything that wore thesemblance of a road. Only fools, Nan believed, met with disasters whilebicycling. And jamming on the brakes was bad for the wheels and tiring tothe hands. So brakeless, she zig-zagged like greased lightning to thebottom. 

It was on the second day, on the long hill that runs from Manaccan downto Helford Ferry, that Gerda suddenly took her brakes off and shot afterher. That hill is not a badly spiralling one, but it is long and steepand usually ridden with brakes. And just above Helford village it has onevery sharp turn to the left. 

Nan, standing waiting for the others on the bridge, looked round and sawGerda shooting with unrestrained wheels and composed face round the lastbend. She had nearly swerved over at the turn, but not quite. She got offat the bridge. 

"Hullo, " said Nan. "Quicker than usual, weren't you?" She had ahalf-grudging, half-ironic grin of appreciation for a fellow sportsman, the same grin with which she had looked up at her from the sea atCadgwith. Nan liked daring. Though it was in her, and she knew that itwas in her, to hate Gerda with a cold and deadly anger, the sportsmanin her gave its tribute. For what was nothing and a matter of ordinaryroutine to her, might be, she suspected, rather alarming to the quiet, white-faced child. 

Then the demon of mischief leapt in her. If Gerda meant to keep the pace, she should have a pace worth keeping. They would prove to one anotherwhich was the better woman, as knights in single combat of old proved it, or fighters in the ring to-day. As to Barry, he should look on at it, whether he liked it or not. 

Barry and Kay rushed up to them, and they went through the littlethatched rose-sweet hamlet to the edge of the broad blue estuary andshouted for the ferry. 

4

After that the game began in earnest. Nan, from being casually andunconsciously reckless, became deliberately dare-devil and always with abackward, ironic look for Gerda, as if she said "How about it? Will thisbeat you?"

"A bicycling tour with Nan isn't nearly so safe as the front trenches ofmy youth used to be, " Barry commented. "Those quiet, comfortable olddays!"

There, indeed, one was likely to be shot, or blown to pieces, or buried, or gassed, and that was about all. But life now was like the ApostlePaul's; they were in journeyings often, in weariness often, in perils ofwaters, in perils by their own countrymen, in perils on the road, in thewilderness, in the sea, in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness. Inperils too, so Gerda believed, of cattle; for these would stray inbellowing herds about narrow lanes, and they would all charge straightthrough them, missing the lowered horns by some incredible fluke offortune. If this seems to make Gerda a coward, it should be rememberedthat she showed none of these inward blenchings, but went on her way withthe rest, composed as a little wax figure at Madame Tussaud's. She was, in fact, of the stuff of which martyrs are made, and would probably havegone to the stake for a conviction. But stampeding cattle, and high seas, and brakeless lightning descents, she did not like, however brave a faceshe was sustained by grace to meet them with. After all she was onlytwenty, an age when some people still look beneath their beds beforeretiring. 

Bulls, even, Gerda was called upon to face, in the wake of two unafraidmales and a reckless aunt. What young female of twenty, always exceptingthose who have worked on the land, and whose chief reward is familiaritywith its beasts, can with complete equanimity face bulls? One day a paththey were taking down to the sea ran for a while along the top of astone hedge, about five feet high and three feet wide. Most peoplewould have walked along this, leading their bicycles. Nan, naturally, bicycled, and Barry and Kay, finding it an amusing experiment, bicycledafter her. Gerda, in honour bound, bicycled too. She accepted stoicallythe probability that she would very soon bicycle off the hedge into thefield and be hurt. In the fields on either side of them, cows stared atthem in mild surprise and some disdain, coming up close to look. So, ifone bicycled off, it would be into the very jaws, onto the very horns, ofcattle. Female cattle, indeed, but cattle none the less. 

Then Kay chanted "Fat bulls of Basan came round about me on either side, "and it was just like that. One fat bull at least trotted up to the hedge, waving his tail and snorting, pawing and glaring, evincing, in short, all the symptoms common to his kind. 

So now if one bicycled off it would be into the very maw of an angrybull. 

"You look out you don't fall, Gerda, " Kay flung back at her over hisshoulder. "It will be to a dreadful death, as you see. Nobody'll saveyou; nobody'll dare. "

"Feeling unsteady?" Barry's gentler voice asked her from behind. "Get offand walk it. I will too. "

But Gerda rode on, her eyes on Nan's swift, sure progress ahead. Barryshould not see her mettle fail; Barry, who had been through the war andwould despise cowards. 

They reached the end of the hedge, and the path ran off it into a field. And between this field and the last one there was an open gap, throughwhich the bull of Basan lumbered with fierce eyes and stood waiting forthem to descend. 

"I don't like that creature, " Kay said. "I'm afraid of him. Aren't you, Barry?"

"Desperately, " Barry admitted. "Anyone would be, except Nan, of course. "

Nan was bicycling straight along the field path, and the bull stoodstaring at her, his head well down, in readiness, as Gerda saw, tocharge. But he did not charge Nan. Bulls and other ferocious beasts thinkit waste of time to charge the fearless; they get no fun out of anunfrightened victim. He waited instead for Gerda, as she knew he woulddo. 

Kay followed Nan, still chanting his psalm. Gerda followed Kay. As shedropped from the hedge onto the path she turned round once and metBarry's eyes, her own wide and grave, and she was thinking "I canbear anything if he is behind me and sees it happen. I couldn't bearit if I were the last and no one saw. " To be gored all alone, none tocare . .. Who could bear that?

The next moment Barry was no longer behind her, but close at her side, bicycling on the grass by the path, between her and the bull. Did he knowshe was frightened? She hadn't shown it, surely. 

"The wind, " said Gerda, in her clear, small crystalline voice, "has goneround more to the south. Don't you think so?" And reminded Barry of aFrench aristocrat demoiselle going with calm and polite conversation tothe scaffold. 

"I believe it has, " he said, and smiled. 

And after all the bull, perhaps not liking the look of the bicycles, didn't charge at all, but only ran by their sides with snorting noisesuntil they left him behind at the next gate. 

"Did you, " enquired Gerda, casually, "notice that bull? He was an awfullyfine one, wasn't he?"

"A remarkably noble face, I thought, " Kay returned. 

They scrambled down cliffs to the cove and bathed. 

5

Nan, experienced in such things, as one is at the age of thirty-three ifone has led a well-spent life, knew now beyond peradventure what hadhappened to Barry and what would never happen again between him and her. So that was that, as she put it, definite and matter-of-fact to herselfabout it. He had stopped wanting her. Well then, she must stop wantinghim, as speedily as might be. It took a little time. You could not shootdown the hills of the emotions with the lightning rapidity with which youshot down the roads. Also, the process was excruciatingly painful. Youhad to unmake so many plans, unthink so many thoughts. .. . Oh, but thatwas nothing. You had to hear his voice softened to someone else, see thesmile in his eyes caressing someone else, feel his whole mind, his wholesoul, reaching out in protecting, adoring care to someone else's charmand loveliness . .. As once, as so lately, they had reached out toyours. .. . That was torture for the bravest, far worse than any bulls orseas or precipices could be to Gerda. Yet it had to be gone through, asGerda had to leap from towering cliffs into wild seas and ride calmlyamong fierce cattle. .. . When Nan woke in the night it was like toothache, a sharp, gnawing, searing hell of pain. Memory choked her, bitterself-anger for joy once rejected and then forever lost took her by thethroat, present desolation drowned her soul in hard, slow tears, jealousyscorched and seared. 

But, now every morning, pride rose, mettlesome and gallant, making herlaugh and talk, so that no one guessed. And with pride, a more recklessphysical daring than usual; a kind of scornful adventurousness, thatcourted danger for its own sake, and wordlessly taunted the weaker spiritwith "Follow if you like and can. If you don't like, if you can't, I amthe better woman in that way, though you may be the beloved. " And themore the mettle of the little beloved rose to meet the challenge, thehotter the pace grew. Perhaps they both felt, without knowing they feltit, that there was something in Barry which leaped instinctively out toapplaud reckless courage, some element in himself which responded to iteven while he called it foolhardy. You could tell that Barry was of thattype, by the quick glow of his eyes and smile. But the rivalry in daringwas not really for Barry; Barry's choice was made. It was at bottom thelast test of mettle, the ultimate challenge from the loser to the winner, in the lists chosen by the loser as her own. It was also--for Nan wassomething of a bully--the heckling of Gerda. She might have won one game, and that the most important, but she should be forced to own herselfbeaten in another, after being dragged painfully along rough anddangerous ways. And over and above and beyond all this, beyond rivalryand beyond Gerda, was the eternal impatience for adventure as such, forquick, vehement living, which was the essence of Nan. She found thingsmore fun that way: that summed it. 

6

The long strange days slid by like many-coloured dreams. The steeptumbling roads tilted behind them, with their pale, old, white and slatehamlets huddled between fields above a rock-bound sea. Sometimes theywould stop early in the day at some fishing village, find rooms there forthe night, and bathe and sail till evening. When they bathed, Nan wouldswim far out to sea, striking through cold, green, heaving waters, slipping cleverly between currents, numbing thought with bodily action, drowning emotion in the sea. 

Once they were all caught in a current and a high sea and swept out, andhad to battle for the shore. Even Nan, even Barry, could not get to thecove from which they had bathed; all they could try for was the jut ofrocks to westward toward which the seas were sweeping, and to reach thismeant a tough fight. 

"Barry!"

Nan, looking over her shoulder, saw Gerda's bluing face and wide staringeyes and quickening, flurried strokes. Saw, too, Barry at once at herside, heard his "All right, I'm here. Catch hold of my shoulder. "

In a dozen strokes Nan reached them, and was at Gerda's other side. 

"Put one hand on each of us and strike for all you're worth with yourlegs. That's the way. .. . "

Numbly Gerda's two hands gripped Barry's right shoulder and Nan's left. Between them they pulled her, her slight weight dragging at them heavily, helping the running sea against them. They were being swept westwardtowards the rocks, but swept also outwards, beyond them; they strucknorthward and northward and were carried always south. It was a closething between their swimming and the current, and it looked as though thecurrent was winning. 

"It'll have to be all we know now, " said Nan, as they struggled ten yardsfrom the point. 

She and Barry both rather thought that probably it would be all they knewand just the little more they didn't know--they would be swept round thepoint well to the south of the outermost rock--and then, hey for opensea!

But their swimming proved, in this last fierce minute of the struggle, stronger than the sea. They were swept towards the jutting point, almostround it, when Nan, flinging forward to the right, caught a slipperyledge of rock with her two hands and held on. Barry didn't think shecould hold on for more than a second against the swinging seas, or, ifshe did, could consolidate her position. But he did not know the fullpower of Nan's trained, acrobatic body. Slipping her shoulder fromGerda's clutch, she grasped instead Gerda's right hand in her left, andwith her other arm and with all her sinuous, wiry strength, heavedherself onto the rock and there flung her body flat, reaching out herfree hand to Barry. Barry caught it just in time, as he was being swungon a wave outwards, and pulled himself within grip of the rock, and inanother moment he lay beside her, and between them they hauled up Gerda. 

Gerda gasped "Kay, " and they saw him struggling twenty yards behind. 

"Can you do it?" Barry shouted to him, and Kay grinned back. 

"Let you know presently. .. . Oh yes, I'm all right. Getting on fine. "

Nan stood up on the rock, watching him, measuring with expert eye theratio between distance and pace, the race between Kay's swimming and thesea. It seemed to her to be anyone's race. 

Barry didn't stand up. The strain of the swim had been rather too muchfor him, and in his violent lurch onto the rock he had strained his side. He lay flat, feeling battered and sick. 

The sea, Nan judged after another minute of watching, was going to beatKay in this race. For Kay's face had turned a curious colour, and he wasblue round the lips. Kay's heart was not strong. 

Nan's dive into the tossing waves was as pretty a thing as one would wishto see. The swoop of it carried her nearly to Kay's side. Coming up shecaught one of his now rather limp hands and put it on her left shoulder, saying "Hold tight. A few strokes will do it. "

Kay, who was no fool and who had known that he was beaten, held tight, throwing all his exhausted strength into striking out with his otherthree limbs. 

They were carried round the point, beyond reach of it had not Barry'soutstretched hand been ready. Nan touched it, barely grasped it, just andno more, as they were swung seawards. It was enough. It pulled them tothe rock's side. Again Nan wriggled and scrambled up, and then theydragged Kay heavily after them as he fainted. 

"Neat, " said Barry to Nan, his appreciation of a well-handled job, hislove of spirit and skill, rising as it were to cheer, in spite of hisexhaustion and his concern for Gerda and Kay. "My word, Nan, you're asportsman. "

"He does faint sometimes, " said Gerda of Kay. "He'll be all right in aminute. "

Kay came to. 

"Oh Lord, " he said, "that was a bit of a grind. " And then, becominggarrulous with the weak and fatuous garrulity of those who have recentlyswooned, "Couldn't have done it without you, Nan. I'd given myself up forlost. All my past life went by me in a flash. .. . I really did think itwas U. P. With me, you know. And it jolly nearly was, for all of us, wasn't it?. .. Whose idea was it bathing just here? Yours, Nan. Of course. It would be. No wonder you felt our lives on your conscience and had torescue us all. Oh Lord, the water I've drunk! I do feel rotten. "

"We all look pretty rotten, I must say, " Nan commented, looking fromKay's limp greenness to Gerda's shivering blueness, from Gerda to Barry, prostrate, bruised and coughing, from Barry to her own cut and batteredknees and elbows, bleeding with the unaccountable profuseness of limbscut by rocks in the sea. "I may die from loss of blood, and the rest ofyou from prostration, and all of us from cold. Are we well enough toscale the rocks now and get to our clothes?"

"We're not well enough for anything, " Barry returned. "But we'd better doit. We don't want to die here, with the sea washing over us in this dampway. "

They climbed weakly up to the top of the rock promontory, and along ittill they dropped down into the little cove. They all felt beaten andlimp, as if they had been playing a violent but not heating game offootball. Even Nan's energy was drained. 

Gerda said with chattering teeth, as she and Nan dressed in their rockycorner, "I suppose, Nan, if it hadn't been for you and Barry, I'd havedrowned. "

"Well, I suppose perhaps you would. If you come to think of it, we'd mostof us be dying suddenly half the time if it weren't for something--somechance or other. "

Gerda said "Thanks awfully, Nan, " in her direct, childlike way, and Nanturned it off with "You might have thanked me if you _had_ drowned, seeing it was my fault we bathed there at all. I ought to have knownit wasn't safe for you or Kay. "

Looking at the little fragile figure shivering in its vest, Nan felt inthat moment no malice, no triumph, no rivalry, no jealous anger; nothingbut the protecting care for the smaller and weaker, for Neville's littlepretty, precious child that she had felt when Gerda's hand clutched hershoulder in the sea. 

"Life-saving seems to soften the heart, " she reflected, grimly, consciousas always of her own reactions. 

"Well, " said Kay weakly, as they climbed up the cliff path to the littlevillage, "I do call that a rotten bathe. Now let's make for the pub anddrink whiskey. "

7

It was three days later. They had spent an afternoon and a night atPolperro, and the sun shone in the morning on that incredible place asthey rode out of it after breakfast. Polperro shakes the soul and theæsthetic nerves like a glass of old wine; no one can survey it unmoved, or leave it as he entered it, any more than you can come out of a fairyring as you went in. In the afternoon they had bathed in the rock poolsalong the coast. In the evening the moon had magically gleamed on thelittle town, and Barry and Gerda had sat together on the beach watchingit, and then in the dawn they had risen (Barry and Gerda again) and rowedout in a boat to watch the pilchard haul, returning at breakfast timesleepy, fishy and bright-eyed. 

As they climbed the steep hill path that leads to Talland, the sun dancedon the little harbour with its fishing-boats and its sad, crowding, crying gulls, and on the huddled white town with its narrow crookedstreets and overhanging houses: Polperro had the eerie beauty of a dreamor of a little foreign port. Such beauty and charm are on the edge ofpain; you cannot disentangle them from it. They intoxicate, and pierce totears. The warm morning sun sparkled on a still blue sea, and burned thegorse and bracken by the steep path's edge to fragrance. So steep thepath was that they had to push their bicycles up it with bent backs andlabouring steps, so narrow that they had to go in single file. It wasnever meant for cyclists, only for walkers; the bicycling road ran farinland. 

They reached the cliff's highest point, and looked down on Talland Bay. By the side of the path, on a grass plateau, a stone war-cross rearedgrey against a blue sky, with its roll of names, and its comment--"Truelove by life, true love by death is tried. .. . "

The path, become narrower, rougher and more winding, plunged sharply, steeply downwards, running perilously along the cliff's edge. Nan got onher bicycle. 

Barry called from the rear, "Nan! It can't be done! It's notrideable. .. . Don't be absurd. "

Nan, remarking casually "It'll be rideable if I ride it, " began to do so. 

"Madwoman, " Barry said, and Kay assured him, "Nan'll be all right. No oneelse would, but she's got nine lives, you know. "

Gerda came next behind Nan. For a moment she paused, dubiously, watchingNan's flying, brakeless progress down the wild ribbon of a footpath, between the hill and the sea. A false swerve, a failure to turn with thepath, and one would fly off the cliff's edge into space, fall downperhaps to the blue rock pools far below. 

To refuse Nan's lead now would be to fail again in pluck and skill beforeBarry. "My word, Nan, you're a sportsman!" Barry had said, coughingweakly on the rock onto which Nan had dragged them all out of the sea. That phrase, and the ring in his hoarse voice as he said it, had stayedwith Gerda. 

She got onto her bicycle, and shot off down the precipitous path. 

"My God!" It was Barry's voice again, from the rear. "Stop, Gerda . .. Oh, you little fool. .. . _Stop_. .. . "

But it was too late for Gerda to stop then if she had tried. She was infull career, rushing, leaping, jolting over the gorse roots under thepath, past thought and past hope and oddly past fear, past anything butthe knowledge that what Nan did she too must do. 

Strangely, inaptly, the line of verse she had just read sung itself inher mind as she rushed. 

"True love by life, true love by death is tried. .. . "

She took the first sharp turn, and the second. The third, a right anglebending inward from the cliff's very edge, she did not take. She dashedon instead, straight into space, like a young Phoebus riding a horse ofthe morning through the blue air. 

8

Nan, far ahead, nearly on the level, heard the crash and heard voicescrying out. Jamming on her brakes she jumped off; looked back up theprecipitous path; saw nothing but its windings. She left her bicycle atthe path's side and turned and ran up. Rounding a sharp bend, she sawthem at last above her; Barry and Kay scrambling furiously down the sideof the cliff, and below them, on a ledge half-way down to the sea, atangled heap that was Gerda and her bicycle. 

The next turn of the path hid them from sight again. But in two minutesshe had reached the place where their two bicycles lay flung across thepath, and was scrambling after them down the cliff. 

When she reached them they had disentangled Gerda and the bicycle, andBarry held Gerda in his arms. She was unconscious, and a cut in her headwas bleeding, darkening her yellow hair, trickling over her colourlessface. Her right leg and her left arm lay stiff and oddly twisted. 

Barry, his face drawn and tense, said "We must get her up to the pathbefore she comes to, if possible. It'll hurt like hell if she'sconscious. "

They had all learnt how to help their fellow creatures in distress, andhow you must bind broken limbs to splints before you move their owner somuch as a yard. The only splint available for Gerda's right leg was herleft, and they bound it tightly to this with three handkerchiefs, thentied her left arm to her side with Nan's stockings, and used the fourthhandkerchief (which was Gerda's, and the cleanest) for her head. She cameto before the arm was finished, roused to pained consciousness by thesplinting process, and lay with clenched teeth and wet forehead, breathing sharply but making no other sound. 

Then Barry lifted her in his arms and the others supported her on eitherside, and they climbed slowly and gently up to the path, not by the sheerway of their descent but by a diagonal track that joined the path furtherdown. 

"I'm sorry, darling, " Barry said through his teeth when he jolted her. "I'm frightfully sorry. .. . Only a little more now. "

They reached the path and Barry laid her down on the grass by its side, her head supported on Nan's knee. 

"Very bad, isn't it?" said Barry gently, bending over her. 

She smiled up at him, with twisted lips. 

"Not so bad, really. "

"You little sportsman, " said Barry, softly and stooping, he kissed herpale cheek. 

Then he stood up and spoke to Nan. 

"I'm going to fetch a doctor if there's one in Talland. Kay must rideback and fetch the Polperro doctor, in case there isn't. In any case Ishall bring up help and a stretcher from Talland and have her takendown. "

He picked up his bicycle and stood for a moment looking down at the faceon Nan's knee. 

"You'll look after her, " he said, quickly, and got on the bicycle anddashed down the path, showing that he too could do that fool's trick ifit served any good purpose. 

Gerda, watching him, caught her breath and forgot pain in fear until, swerving round the next bend, he was out of sight. 

9

Nan sat very still by the path, staring over the sea, shading Gerda'shead from the sun. There was nothing more to be done than that; there wasno water, even, to bathe the cut with. 

"Nan. "

"Yes?"

"Am I much hurt? How much hurt, do you think?"

"I don't know how much. I think the arm is broken. The leg may be onlysprained. Then there's the cut--I daresay that isn't very much--but onecan't tell that. "

"I must have come an awful mucker, " Gerda murmured, after a pause. "Itmust have looked silly, charging over the edge like that. .. . You didn't. "

"No. I didn't. "

"It was stupid, " Gerda breathed, and shut her eyes. 

"No, not stupid. Anyone might have. It was a risky game to try. "

"You tried it. "

"Oh, I . .. I do try things. That's no reason why you should. .. . You'dbetter not talk. Lie quite quiet. It won't be very long now before theycome. .. . The pain's bad, I know. "

Gerda's head was hot and felt giddy. She moved it restlessly. Urgentthoughts pestered her; her normal reticences lay like broken fences abouther. 

"Nan. "

"Yes. Shall I raise your head a little?"

"No, it's all right. .. . About Barry, Nan. "

Nan grew rigid, strung up to endure. 

"And what about Barry?"

"Just that I love him. I love him very much; beyond anything in theworld. "

"Yes. You'd better not talk, all the same. "

"Nan, do you love him too?"

Nan laughed, a queer little curt laugh in her throat. 

"Rather a personal question, don't you think? Suppose, by any chance thatI did? But of course I don't. "

"But doesn't he love you, Nan? He did, didn't he?"

"My dear, I think you're rather delirious. This isn't the way onetalks. .. . You'd better ask Barry the state of his affections, sinceyou're interested in them. I'm not, particularly. "

Gerda drew a long breath, of pain or fatigue or relief. 

"I'm rather glad you don't care for him. I thought we might have sharedhim if you had, and if he'd cared for us both. But it might have beendifficult. "

"It might; you never know. .. . Well, you're welcome to my share, if youwant it. "

Then Gerda lay quiet, with closed eyes and wet forehead, and concentratedwholly on her right leg, which was hurting badly. 

Nan too sat quiet, and she too was concentrating. 

Irrevocably it was over now; done, finished with. Barry's eyes, Barry'skiss, had told her that. Gerda, the lovely, the selfish child, had takenBarry from her, to keep for always. Walked into Barry's office, intoBarry's life, and deliberately stolen him. Thinking, she said, that theymight share him. .. . The little fool. The little thief. (She waved theflies away from Gerda's head. )

And even this other game, this contest of physical prowess, had ended ina hollow, mocking victory for the winner, since defeat had laid the losermore utterly in her lover's arms, more unshakably in his heart. Gerda, defeated and broken, had won everything. Won even that tribute which hadbeen Nan's own. "You little sportsman, " Barry had called her, with abreak of tenderness in his voice. Even that, even the palm for valour, hehad placed in her hands. The little victor. The greedy little grabber ofother people's things. .. . 

Gerda moaned at last. 

"Only a little longer, " said Nan, and laid her hand lightly and coolly onthe hot wet forehead. 

The little winner. .. Damn her. .. . 

The edge of a smile, half-ironic, wholly bitter, twisted at Nan's lips. 

10

Voices and steps. Barry and a doctor, Barry and a stretcher, Barry andall kinds of help. Barry's anxious eyes and smile. "Well? How's shebeen?"

He was on his knees beside her. 

"Here's the doctor, darling. .. . I'm sorry I've been so long. "

CHAPTER X

PRINCIPLES

1

Through the late September and October days Gerda would lie on a wickercouch in the conservatory at Windover, her sprained leg up, her brokenwrist on a splint, her mending head on a soft pillow, and eat pears. Grapes too, apples, figs, chocolates of course--but particularly pears. She also wrote verse, and letters to Barry, and drew in pen and ink, andread Sir Leo Chiozza Money's "Triumph of Nationalisation" and Mrs. Snowden on Bolshevik Russia, and "Lady Adela, " and "Côterie, " andlistened while Neville read Mr. W. H. Mallock's "Memoirs" and Disraeli's"Life. " Her grandmother (Rodney's mother) sent her "The Diary of OpalWhiteley, " but so terrible did she find it that it caused a relapse, andNeville had to remove it. She occasionally struggled in vain with amodern novel, which she usually renounced in perplexity after threechapters or so. Her taste did not lie in this direction. 

"I can't understand what they're all about, " she said to Neville. "Poetry _means_ something. It's about something real, something thatreally is so. So are books like this--" she indicated "The Triumph ofNationalisation. " "But most novels are so queer. They're about people, but not people as they are. They're not _interesting_. "

"Not as a rule, certainly. Occasionally one gets an idea out of oneof them, or a laugh, or a thrill. Now and then they express life, orreality, or beauty, in some terms or other--but not as a rule. "

Gerda was different from Kay, who devoured thrillers, shockers, andingenious crime and mystery stories with avidity. She did not believethat life was really much like that, and Kay's assertion that if itweren't it ought to be, she rightly regarded as pragmatical. Neither didshe share Kay's more fundamental taste for the Elizabethans, Carolinesand Augustans. She and Kay met (as regards literature) only on economics, politics, and modern verse. Gerda's mind was artistic rather thanliterary, and she felt no wide or acute interest in human beings, theiractions, passions, foibles, and desires. 

So, surrounded by books from the Times library, and by nearly all theweekly and monthly reviews (the Bendishes, like many others, felt, withwhatever regret, that they had to see all of these), Gerda for the mostpart, when alone, lay and dreamed dreams and ate pears. 

2

Barry came down for week-ends. He and Gerda had declared their affectionstowards one another even at the Looe infirmary, where Gerda had beenconveyed from the scene of accident. It had been no moment then foranything more definite than statements of reciprocal emotion, which arealways cheering in sickness. But when Gerda was better, well enough, infact, to lie in the Windover conservatory, Barry came down from town andsaid, "When shall we get married?"

Then Gerda, who had had as yet no time or mind-energy to reflect on theprobable, or rather certain, width of the gulf between the sociologicaltheories of herself and Barry, opened her blue eyes wide and said"Married?"

"Well, isn't that the idea? You can't jilt me now, you know; matters havegone too far. "

"But, Barry, I thought you knew. I don't hold with marriage. "

Barry threw back his head and laughed, because she looked so innocent andso serious and young as she lay there among the pears and bandages. 

"All right, darling. You've not needed to hold with it up till now. Butnow you'd better catch on to it as quickly as you can, and hold it tight, because it's what's going to happen. "

Gerda moved her bandaged head in denial. 

"Oh, no, Barry. I can't. .. . I thought you knew. Haven't we ever talkedabout marriage before?"

"Oh, probably. Yes, I think I've heard you and Kay both on the subject. You don't hold with legal ties in what should be purely a matter ofemotional impulse, I know. But crowds of people talk like that and thenget married. I've no doubt Kay will too, when his time comes. "

"Kay won't. He thinks marriage quite wrong. And so do I. "

Barry, who had stopped laughing, settled himself to talk it out. 

"Why wrong, Gerda? Superfluous, if you like; irrelevant, if you like; butwhy wrong?"

"Because it's a fetter on what shouldn't be fettered. Love might stop. Then it would be ugly. "

"Oh very. One has to take that risk, like other risks. And love isreally more likely to stop, as I see it, if there's no contract in theeyes of the world, if the two people know each can walk away from theother, and is expected to, directly they quarrel or feel a little bored. The contract, the legalisation--absurd and irrelevant as all legalthings are to anything that matters--the contract, because we're suchtradition-bound creatures, does give a sort of illusion of inevitability, which is settling, so that it doesn't occur to the people to fly apart atthe first strain. They go through with it instead, and in nine cases outof ten come out on the other side. In the tenth case they just haveeither to make the best of it or to make a break. .. . Of course peoplealways _can_ throw up the sponge, even married people, if things areinsupportable. The door isn't locked. But there's no point, I think, inhaving it swinging wide open. "

"I think it _should_ be open, " Gerda said. "I think people should beabsolutely free. .. . Take you and me. Suppose you got tired of me, orliked someone else better, I think you ought to be able to leave mewithout any fuss. "

That was characteristic of both of them, that they could take theirown case theoretically without becoming personal, without lovers'protestations to confuse the general issue. 

"Well, " Barry said, "I don't think I ought. I think it should be made asdifficult for me as possible. Because of the children. There are usuallychildren, of course. If I left you, I should have to leave them too. Thenthey'd have no father. Or, if it were you that went, they'd have nomother. Either way it's a pity, normally. Also, even if we stayedtogether always and weren't married, they'd have no legal name. Childrenoften miss that, later on. Children of the school age are the mostconventional, hide-bound creatures. They'd feel ashamed before theirschoolfellows. "

"I suppose they'd have my name legally, wouldn't they?"

"I suppose so. But they might prefer mine. The other boys and girls wouldhave their fathers', you see. "

"Not all of them. I know several people who don't hold with marriageeither; there'd be all their children. And anyhow it's not a question ofwhat the children would prefer while they were at school. It's what'sbest for them. And anything would be better than to see their parentshating each other and still having to live together. "

"Yes. Anything would be better than that. Except that it would be auseful and awful warning to them. But the point is, most married peopledon't hate each other. They develop a kind of tolerating, companionableaffection, after the first excitement called being in love is past--sofar as it does pass. That's mostly good enough to live on; that andcommon interests and so forth. It's the stuff of ordinary life; theemotional excitement is the hors _d'oeuvre_. It would be greedy to wantto keep passing on from one _hors d'oeuvre_ to another--leaving themeal directly the joint comes in. "

"I like dessert best, " Gerda said, irrelevantly, biting into an apple. 

"Well, you'd never get any at that rate. Nor much of the rest of the mealeither. "

"But people do, Barry. Free unions often last for years andyears--sometimes forever. Only you wouldn't feel tied. You'd be sureyou were only living together because you both liked to, not becauseyou had to. "

"I should feel I had to, however free it was. So you wouldn't have thatconsolation about me. I might be sick of you, and pining for someoneelse, but still I should stay. "

"Why, Barry?"

"Because I believe in permanent unions, as a general principle. They'remore civilised. It's unusual, uncivic, dotting about from one mate toanother, leaving your young and forgetting all about them and havingnew ones. Irresponsible, I call it. Living only for a good time. It'snot the way to be good citizens, as I see it, nor to bring up goodcitizens. .. . Oh, I know that the whole question of sex relationships ishorribly complicated, and can't be settled with a phrase or a dogma. It'sbeen for centuries so wrapped in cant and humbug and expediencies andcamouflage; I don't profess to be able to pierce through all that, or toso much as begin to think it out clearly. The only thing I can fall backon as a certainty is the children question. A confused and impermanentfamily life _must_ be a bad background for the young. They want all theycan get of both their parents, in the way of education and training andlove. "

"Family life is such a hopeless muddle, anyhow. "

"A muddle, yes. Hopeless, no. Look at your own. Your father and motherhave always been friends with each other and with you. They brought youup with definite ideas about what they wanted you to become--fairly wellthought-out and consistent ideas, I suppose. I don't say they could domuch--parents never can--but something soaks in. "

"Usually something silly and bad. "

"Often, yes. Anyhow a queer kind of mixed brew. But at least the parentshave their chance. It's what they're there for; they've got to do allthey know, while the children are young, to influence them towards whatthey personally believe, however mistakenly, to be the finest points ofview. Of course lots of it is, as you say, silly and bad, because people_are_ largely silly and bad. But no parent can be absolved from doing hisor her best. "

Barry was walking round the conservatory, eager and full of faith andhope and fire, talking rapidly, the educational enthusiast, the ardentcitizen, the social being, the institutionalist, all over. He was allthese things; he was rooted and grounded in citizenship, in socialethics. He stopped by the couch and stood looking down at Gerda amongher fruit, his hands in his pockets, his eyes bright and lit. 

"All the same, darling, I shall never want to fetter you. If you everwant to leave me, I shan't come after you. The legal tie shan't stand inyour way. And to me it would make no difference; I shouldn't leave you inany case, married or not. So I don't see how or why you score in doingwithout the contract. "

"It's the idea of the thing, partly. I don't want to wear a wedding ringand be Mrs. Briscoe. I want to be Gerda Bendish, living with BarryBriscoe because we like to. .. . I expect, Barry, in my case it _would_be for always, because, at present, I can't imagine stopping caring morefor you than for anything else. But that doesn't affect the principle ofthe thing. It would be _wrong_ for me to marry you. One oughtn't to giveup one's principles just because it seems all right in a particular case. It would be cheap and shoddy and cowardly. "

"Exactly, " said Barry, "what I feel. I can't give up my principle either, you know. I've had mine longer than you've had yours. "

"I've had mine since I was about fifteen. "

"Five years. Well, I've had mine for twenty. Ever since I first began tothink anything out, that is. "

"People of your age, " said Gerda, "people over thirty, I mean, oftenthink like that about marriage. I've noticed it. So has Kay. "

"Observant infants. Well, there we stand, then. One of us has got eitherto change his principles--her principles, I mean--or to be false to them. Or else, apparently, there can be nothing doing between you and me. That's the position, isn't it?"

Gerda nodded, her mouth full of apple. 

"It's very awkward, " Barry continued, "my having fallen in love with you. I had not taken your probable views on sociology into account. I knewthat, though we differed in spelling and punctuation, we were agreed(approximately) on politics, economics, and taste in amusements, and Ithought that was enough. I forgot that divergent views on matrimony wereof practical importance. It would have mattered less if I had discoveredthat you were a militarist and imperialist and quoted Marx at me. "

"I did tell you, Barry. I really did. I never hid it. And I neversupposed that you'd want to _marry_ me. "

"That was rather stupid of you. I'm so obviously a marrying man. .. . Now, darling, will you think the whole thing out from the beginning, afterI've gone? Be first-hand; don't take over theories from other people, anddon't be sentimental about it. Thrash the whole subject out with yourselfand with other people--with your own friends, and with your family too. They're a modern, broad-minded set, your people, after all; they won'tlook at the thing conventionally; they'll talk sense; they won't fob youoff with stock phrases, or talk about the sanctity of the home. They'renot institutionalists. Only be fair about it; weigh all the pros andcons, and judge honestly, and for heaven's sake don't look at the thingromantically, or go off on theories because they sound large andsubversive. Think of practical points, as well as of ultimate principles. Both, to my mind, are on the same side. I'm not asking you to sacrificeright for expediency, or expediency for right. I don't say 'Be sensible, 'or 'Be idealistic. ' We've got to be both. "

"Barry, I've thought and talked about it so often and so long. You don'tknow how much we do talk about that sort of thing, at the club andeverywhere and Kay and I. I could never change my mind. "

"What a hopeless admission! We ought to be ready to change our minds atany moment; they should be as changeable as pound notes. "

"What about yours, then, darling?"

"I'm always ready to change mine. I shall think the subject out too, andif I do change I shall tell you at once. "

"Barry. " Gerda's face was grave; her forehead was corrugated. "Suppose weneither of us ever change? Suppose we both go on thinking as we do nowfor always? What then?"

He smoothed the knitted forehead with his fingers. 

"Then one of us will have to be a traitor to his or her principles. Apity, but sometimes necessary in this complicated world. Or, if we canneither of us bring ourselves down to that, I suppose eventually we shalleach perpetrate with someone else the kind of union we personallyprefer. "

They parted on that. The thing had not grown serious yet; they couldstill joke about it. 

3

Though Gerda said "What's the use of my talking about it to people whenI've made up my mind?" and though she had not the habit of talking forconversation's sake, she did obediently open the subject with herparents, in order to assure herself beyond a doubt what they felt aboutit. But she knew already that their opinions were what you might expectof parents, even of broad-minded, advanced parents, who rightly believedthemselves not addicted to an undiscriminating acceptance of thestandards and decisions of a usually mistaken world. But Barry was wrongin saying they weren't institutionalists; they were. Parents are. 

Rodney was more opinionated than Neville, on this subject as on mostothers. He said, crossly, "It's a beastly habit, unlegitimatised union. When I say beastly, I mean beastly; nothing derogatory, but merely likethe beasts--the other beasts, that is. "

Gerda said "Well, that's not really an argument against it. In that senseit's beastly when we sleep out instead of in bed, or do lots of otherquite nice things. The way men and women do things isn't necessarily thebest way, " and there Rodney had to agree with her. He fell back on "It'sunbusinesslike. Suppose you have children?" and Gerda, who had supposedall that with Barry, sighed. Rodney said a lot more, but it made littleimpression on her, beyond corroborating her views on the matrimonialtheories of middle-aged people. 

Neville made rather more. To Neville Gerda said "How can I go back oneverything I've always said and thought about it, and go and get married?It would be so _reactionary_. "

Neville, who had a headache and was irritable, said "It's the other thingthat's reactionary. It existed long before the marriage tie did. That'swhat I don't understand about all you children who pride yourselves onbeing advanced. If you frankly take your stand on going back to nature, on _being_ reactionary--well, it is, anyhow, a point of view, and has itsown merits. But your minds seem to me to be in a hopeless muddle. Youthink you're going forward while you're really going back. "

"Marriage, " said Gerda, "is so Victorian. It's like antimacassars. "

"Now, my dear, do you mean _anything_ by either of those statements?Marriage wasn't invented in Victoria's reign. Nor did it occur morefrequently in that reign than it had before or does now. Why Victorian, then? And why antimacassars? Think it out. How _can_ a legal contract belike a doyley on the back of a chair? Where is the resemblance? It soundslike a riddle, only there's no answer. No, you know you've got no answer. That kind of remark is sheer sentimentality and muddle-headedness. Whyare people in their twenties so often sentimental? That's anotherriddle. "

"That's what Nan says. She told me once that she used to be sentimentalwhen she was twenty. Was she?"

"More than she is now, anyhow. "

Neville's voice was a little curt. She was not happy about Nan, who hadjust gone to Rome for the winter. 

"Well, " Gerda said, "anyhow I'm not sentimental about not meaning tomarry. I've thought about it for years, and I know. "

"Thought about it! Much you know about it. " Neville, tired and crossfrom over-work, was, unlike herself, playing the traditional conventionalmother. "Have you thought how it will affect your children, forinstance?"

Those perpetual, tiresome children. Gerda was sick of them. 

"Oh yes, I've thought a lot about that. And I can't see it will hurtthem. Barry and I talked for ever so long about the children. So didfather. "

So did Neville. 

"Of course I know, " she said, "that you and Kay would be only too pleasedif father and I had never been married, but you've no right to judge byyourself the ones you and Barry may have. They may not be nearly soodd. .. . And then there's your own personal position. The world's full ofpeople who think they can insult a man's mistress. "

"I don't meet people like that. The people I know don't insult otherpeople for not being married. They think it's quite natural, and only thepeople's own business. "

"You've moved in a small and rarefied clique so far, my dear. You'll meetthe other kind of people presently; one can't avoid them, the world's sofull of them. "

"Do they matter?"

"Of course they matter. As mosquitoes matter, and wasps, and cars thatsplash mud at you in the road. You'd be constantly annoyed. Your ownscullery maid would turn up her nose at you. The man that brought themilk will sneer. "

"I don't think, " Gerda said, after reflection, "that I'm very easilyannoyed. I don't notice things, very often. I think about other thingsrather a lot, you see. That's why I'm slow at answering. "

"Well, Barry would be annoyed, anyhow. "

"Barry does lots of unpopular things. He doesn't mind what people say. "

"He'd mind for you. .. . But Barry isn't going to do it. Barry won't haveyou on your terms. If you won't have him on his, he'll leave you and goand find some nicer girl. "

"I can't help it, mother. I can't do what I don't approve of for that. How could I?"

"No, darling, of course you couldn't; I apologise. But do try and see ifyou can't get to approve of it, or anyhow to be indifferent about it. Such a little thing! It isn't as if Barry wanted you to become a Mormonor something. .. . And after all you can't accuse him of being retrograde, or Victorian, if you like to use that silly word, or lacking in idealsfor social progress--can you? He belongs to nearly all your illegalpolitical societies, doesn't he? Why, his house gets raided for leafletsfrom time to time. I don't think they ever find any, but they look, andthat's something. You can't call Barry hide-bound or conventionallyorthodox. "

"No. Oh no. Not that. Or I shouldn't be caring for him. But he doesn'tunderstand about this. And you don't, mother, nor father, nor anyone ofyour ages. I don't know how it is, but it is so. "

"You might try your Aunt Rosalind, " Neville suggested, with malice. 

Gerda shuddered. "Aunt Rosalind . .. She wouldn't understand at all. .. . "

But the dreadful thought was, as Neville had intended, implanted inher that, of all her elder relatives, it was only Aunt Rosalind who, though she mightn't understand, might nevertheless agree. Aunt Rosalindon free unions. .. That would be terrible to have to hear. For AuntRosalind would hold with them not because she thought them right butbecause she enjoyed them--the worst of reasons. Gerda somehow feltdegraded by the introduction into the discussion of Aunt Rosalind, whomshe hated, whom she knew, without having been told so, that her motherand all of them hated. It dragged it down, made it vulgar. 

Gerda lay back in silence, the springs of argument and talk dried in her. She wanted Kay. 

It was no use; they couldn't meet. Neville could not get away from hertraditions, nor Gerda from hers. 

Neville, to change the subject (though scarcely for the better), read her"The Autobiography of Mrs. Asquith" till tea-time. 

4

They all talked about it again, and said the same things, and differentthings, and more things, and got no nearer one another with it all. SoonBarry and Gerda, each comprehending the full measure of the seriousintent of the other, stood helpless before it, the one in half-amusedexasperation, the other in obstinate determination. 

"She means business, then, " thought Barry. "He won't come round, " thoughtGerda and their love pierced and stabbed them, making Barry hasty ofspeech and Gerda sullen. 

"The _waste_ of it, " said Barry, on Sunday evening, "when I've onlygot one day in the week, to spend it quarrelling about marriage. I'vehundreds of things to talk about and tell you--interesting things, funnythings--but I never get to them, with all this arguing we have to havefirst. "

"I don't want to argue, Barry. Let's not. We've said everything now, lotsof times. There can't be any more. Tell me your things instead!"

He told her, and they were happy talking, and forgot how they thoughtdifferently on marriage. But always the difference lay there in thebackground, coiled up like a snake, ready to uncoil and seize them andmake them quarrel and hurt one another. Always one was expecting theother at any moment to throw up the sponge and cry "Oh, have it your ownway, since you won't have it mine and I love you. " But neither did. Theirwills stood as stiff as two rocks over against one another. 

Gerda grew thinner under the strain, and healed more slowly than before. Her fragile, injured body was a battle-ground between her will and herlove, and suffered in the conflict. Barry saw that it could not go on. They would, he said, stop talking about it; they would put it in thebackground and go on as if it were not there, until such time as theycould agree. So they became friends again, lovers who lived in thepresent and looked to no future, and, since better might not be, that hadto do for the time. 

CHAPTER XI

THAT WHICH REMAINS

1

Through September Neville had nursed Gerda by day and worked by night. The middle of October, just when they usually moved into town for thewinter, she collapsed, had what the doctor called a nervous breakdown. 

"You've been overworking, " he told her. "You're not strong enough inthese days to stand hard brain-work. You must give it up. "

For a fortnight she lay tired and passive, surrendered and inert, caringfor nothing but to give up and lie still and drink hot milk. Then shestruggled up and mooned about the house and garden, and cried weakly fromtime to time, and felt depressed and bored, and as if life were over andshe were at the bottom of the sea. 

"This must be what mother feels, " she thought. "Poor mother. .. . I'mlike her; I've had my life, and I'm too stupid to work, and I can onlycry. .. . Men must work and women must weep. .. . I never knew before thatthat was true. .. . I mustn't see mother just now, it would be the laststraw . .. Like the skeletons people used to look at to warn themselveswhat they would come to. .. . Poor mother . .. And poor me. .. . But mother'sgetting better now she's being analysed. That wouldn't help me at all. Ianalyse myself too much already. .. . And I was so happy a few months ago. What a dreadful end to a good ambition. I shall never work again, Isuppose, in any way that counts. So that's that. .. . Why do I want to workand to do something? Other wives and mothers don't. .. . Or do they, onlythey don't know it, because they don't analyse? I believe they do, lotsof them. Or is it only my horrible egotism and vanity, that can't take aback seat quietly? I was always like that, I know. Nan and I and Gilbert. Not Jim so much, and not Pamela at all. But Rodney's worse than I am; hewouldn't want to be counted out, put on the shelf, in the forties; he'dbe frightfully sick if he had to stand by and see other people workingand getting on and in the thick of things when he wasn't. He couldn'tbear it; he'd take to drink, I think. .. . I hope Rodney won't ever havea nervous breakdown and feel like this, poor darling, he'd be dreadfullytiresome. .. . Not to work after all. Not to be a doctor. .. . What then?Just go about among people, grinning like a dog. Winter in town, talking, dining, being the political wife. Summer in the country, walking, riding, reading, playing tennis. Fun, of course. But what's it all for? When I'vegot Gerda off my hands I shall have done being a mother, in any sensethat matters. Is being a wife enough to live for? Rodney's wife? Oh, Iwant to be some use, want to do things, to count. .. . And Rodney will diesome time--I know he'll die first--and then I shan't even be a wife. Andin twenty years I shan't be able to do things with my body much more, andwhat then? What will be left? . .. I think I'm getting hysterical, likepoor mother. .. . How ugly I look, these days. "

She stopped before the looking-glass. Her face looked back at her, whiteand thin, almost haggard, traced in the last few weeks for the first timewith definite lines round brow and mouth. Her dark hair was newlystreaked with grey. 

"Middle age, " said Neville, and a cold hand was laid round her heart. "Ithad to come some time, and this illness has opened the door to it. Orshall I look young again when I'm quite well? No, never young again. "

She shivered. 

"I look like mother to-day. .. . I _am_ like mother. .. . "

So youth and beauty were to leave her, too. She would recover from thisillness and this extinguishing of charm, but not completely, and not forlong. Middle age had begun. She would have off days in future, when shewould look old and worn instead of always, as hitherto, looking charming. She wouldn't, in future, be sure of herself; people wouldn't be sure tothink "A lovely woman, Mrs. Rodney Bendish. " Soon they would be saying"How old Mrs. Bendish is getting to look, " and then "She was a prettywoman once. "

Well, looks didn't matter much really, after all. .. . 

"They do, they do, " cried Neville to the glass, passionately truthful. "If you're vain they do--and I am vain. Vain of my mind and of mybody. .. . Vanity, vanity, all is vanity . .. And now the silver cord isgoing to be loosed and the golden bowl is going to be broken, and I shallbe hurt. "

Looks did matter. It was no use canting, and minimising them. Theyaffected the thing that mattered most--one's relations with people. Men, for instance, cared more to talk to a woman whose looks pleased them. They liked pretty girls, and pretty women. Interesting men cared to talkto them: they told them things they would never tell a plain woman. Rodney did. He liked attractive women. Sometimes he made love to them, prettily and harmlessly. 

The thought of Rodney stabbed her. If Rodney were to get to careless . .. To stop making love to her . .. Worse, to stop needingher. .. . For he did need her; through all their relationship, disappointing in some of its aspects, his need had persisted, a simple, demanding thing. 

Humour suddenly came back. 

"This, I suppose, is what Gerda is anticipating, and why she won't haveBarry tied to her. If Rodney wasn't tied to me he could flee from mywrinkles. .. . "

"Oh, what an absurd fuss one makes. What does any of it matter? It's allin the course of nature, and the sooner 'tis over the sooner to sleep. Middle age will be very nice and comfortable and entertaining, once one'sfairly in it. .. . I go babbling about my wasted brain and fading looks asif I'd been a mixture of Sappho and Helen of Troy. .. . That's the worst ofbeing a vain creature. .. . What will Rosalind do when _her_ time comes?Oh, paint, of course, and dye--more thickly than she does now, I mean. She'll be a ghastly sight. A raddled harridan. At least I shall alwayslook respectable, I hope. I shall go down to Gerda. I want to look atsomething young. The young have their troubles, poor darlings, but theydon't know how lucky they are. "

2

In November Neville and Gerda, now both convalescent, joined Rodney intheir town flat. Rodney thought London would buck Neville up. London doesbuck you up, even if it is November and there is no gulf stream and notmuch coal. For there is always music and always people. Neville had acritical appreciation of both. Then, for comic relief, there arepolitics. You cannot be really bored with a world which contains themother of Parliaments, particularly if her news is communicated to youat first hand by one of her members. Disgusted you may be and are, ifyou are a right-minded person, but at least not bored. 

What variety, what excitement, what a moving picture show, is this tragicand comic planet! Why want to be useful, why indulge such tediousinanities as ambitions, why dream wistfully of doing one's bit, makingone's work, in a world already as full of bits, bright, coloured, absurdbits, like a kaleidoscope, as full of marks (mostly black marks) as anovel from a free library? A dark and bad and bitter world, of course, full of folly, wickedness and misery, sick with poverty and pain, so thatat times the only thing Neville could bear to do in it was to sit on somedreadful committee thinking of ameliorations for the lot of the verypoor, or to go and visit Pamela in Hoxton and help her with some job orother--that kind of direct, immediate, human thing, which was a sop touneasiness and pity such as the political work she dabbled in, howeversimilar its ultimate aim, could never be. 

3

To Pamela Neville said, "Are you afraid of getting old, Pamela?"

Pamela replied, "Not a bit. Are you?" And she confessed it. 

"Often it's like a cold douche of water down my spine, the thought of it. I reason and mock at myself, but I _don't_ like it. .. . You're different;finer, more real, more unselfish. Besides, you'll have done somethingworth doing when you have to give up. I shan't. "

Pamela's brows went up. 

"Kay? Gerda? The pretty dears: I've done nothing so nice as them. You'vedone what's called a woman's work in the world--isn't that the phrase?"

"Done it--just so, but so long ago. What now? I still feel young, Pamela, even now that I know I'm not. . .. Oh Lord, it's a queer thing, being awoman. A well-off woman of forty-three with everything made comfortablefor her and her brain gone to pot and her work in the world done. I wantsomething to bite my teeth into--some solid, permanent job--and I getnothing but sweetmeats, and people point at Kay and Gerda and say 'That'syour work, and it's over. Now you can rest, seeing that it's good, likeGod on the seventh day. '"

"_I_ don't say 'Now you can rest. Except just now, while you're rundown. '"

"Run down, yes; run down like a disordered clock because I tried totackle an honest job of work again. Isn't it sickening, Pamela? Isn't itludicrous?"

"Ludicrous--no. Everyone comes up against his own limitations. You've gotto work within them that's all. After all, there are plenty of jobs youcan do that want doing--simply shouting to be done. "

"Pammie dear, it's worse than I've said. I'm a low creature. I don't onlywant to do jobs that want doing: I want to count, to make a name. I'mdamnably ambitious. You'll despise that, of course--and you're quiteright, it is despicable. But there it is. Most men and many women aretormented by it--they itch for recognition. "

"Of course. One is. "

"You too, Pammie?"

"I have been. Less now. Life gets to look short, when you'rethirty-nine. "

"Ah, but you have it--recognition, even fame, in the world you work in. You count for something. If you value it, there it is. I wouldn't grumbleif I'd played your part in the piece. It's a good part--a useful partand a speaking part. "

"I suppose we all feel we should rather like to play someone else's partfor a change. There's nothing exciting about mine. Most people would farprefer yours. "

They would, of course; Neville knew it. The happy political wife ratherthan the unmarried woman worker; Rodney, Gerda and Kay for company ratherthan Frances Carr. There was no question which was the happier lot, thefuller, the richer, the easier, the more entertaining. 

"Ah well. .. . You see, Rosalind spent the afternoon with me yesterday, andI felt suddenly that it wasn't for me to be stuck up about her--what am Itoo but the pampered female idler, taking good things without earningthem? It made me shudder. Hence this fit of blues. The pampered, lazy, brainless animal--it is such a terrific sight when in human form. Rosalind talked about Nan, Pamela. In her horrible way--you know. Hintingthat she isn't alone in Rome, but with Stephen Lumley. "

Pamela took off her glasses and polished them. 

"Rosalind would, of course. What did you say?"

"I lost my temper. I let out at her. It's not a thing I often do withRosalind--it doesn't seem worth while. But this time I saw red. I toldher what I thought of her eternal gossip and scandal. I said, what if Nanand Stephen Lumley, or Nan and anyone else, did arrange to be in Rome atthe same time and to see a lot of each other; where was the harm? No use. You can't pin Rosalind down. She just shrugged her shoulders and smiled, and said 'My dear, we all know our Nan. We all know too that StephenLumley has been in love with her for a year, and doesn't live with hiswife. Then they go off to Rome at the same moment, and one hears thatthey are seen everywhere together. Why shut one's eyes to obviousdeductions? You're so like an ostrich, Neville. ' I said I'd rather bean ostrich than a ferret, eternally digging into other people'sconcerns, --and by the time we had got to that I thought it was farenough, so I had an engagement with my dressmaker. "

"It's no use tackling Rosalind, " Pamela agreed. "She'll never change herspots. .. . Do you suppose it's true about Nan?"

"I daresay it is. Yes, I'm afraid I do think it's quite likelytrue. .. . Nan was so queer the few times I saw her after Gerda's accident. I was unhappy about her. She was so hard, and so more than usuallycynical and unget-at-able. She told me it had been all her fault, leading Gerda into mischief, doing circus tricks that the child tried toemulate and couldn't. I couldn't read her, quite. Her tone about Gerdahad a queer edge to it. And she rather elaborately arranged, I thought, so that she shouldn't meet Barry. Pamela, do you think she had finallyand absolutely turned Barry down before he took up so suddenly withGerda, or. .. . "

Pamela said, "I know nothing. She told me nothing. But I rather thought, when she came to see me just before she went down to Cornwall, that shehad made up her mind to have him. I may have been wrong. "

Neville leant her forehead on her hands and sighed. 

"Or you may have been right. And if you were right, it's the ghastliesttragedy--for her. .. . Oh, I shouldn't have let Gerda go and work with him;I should have known better. .. . Nan had rebuffed him, and he flew off at atangent, and there was Gerda sitting in his office, as pretty as flowersand with her funny little silent charm. .. . And if Nan was all the timewaiting for him, meaning to say yes when he asked her. .. . Poor darlingNan, robbed by my horrid little girl, who doesn't even want tomarry. .. . If that's the truth, it would account for the Stephen Lumleybusiness. Nan wouldn't stay on in London, to see them together. If Lumleycaught her at that psychological moment, she'd very likely go off withhim, out of mere desperation and bravado. That would be so terribly likeNan. .. . What a desperate, wry, cursed business life is. .. . On the otherhand, she may just be going about with Lumley on her own terms not his. It's her own affair whichever way it is; what we've got to do is tocontradict the stories Rosalind is spreading whenever we get the chance. Not that one can scotch scandal once it starts--particularly Rosalind'sscandal. "

"Ignore it. Nan can ignore it when she comes back. It won't hurt her. Nan's had plenty of things said about her before, true and untrue, andnever cared. "

"You're splendid at the ignoring touch, Pam. I believe there's nothingyou can't and don't ignore. "

"Well, why not? Ignoring's easy. "

"Not for most of us. I believe it is, for you. In a sense you ignore lifeitself; anyhow you don't let it hold and bully you. When your time comesyou'll ignore age, and later death. "

"They don't matter much, do they? Does anything? I suppose it's my stolidtemperament, but I can't feel that it does. "

Neville thought, as she had often thought before, that Pamela, like Nan, only more calmly, less recklessly and disdainfully, had the aristocratictouch. Pamela, with her delicate detachments and her light, even touch onthings great and small, made her feel fussy and petty and excitable. 

"I suppose you're right, my dear. .. . 'All is laughter, all is dust, all is nothingness, for the things that are arise out of theunreasonable. .. . ' I must get back. Give my love to Frances. .. And whennext you see Gerda do try to persuade her that marriage is one of thethings that don't matter and that she might just as well put up with toplease us all. The child is a little nuisance--as obstinate as a mule. "

4

Neville, walking away from Pamela's grimy street in the November fog, felt that London was terrible. An ugly clamour of strident noises andhard, shrill voices, jabbering of vulgar, trivial things. A wry, desperate, cursed world, as she had called it, a pot seething withbitterness and all dreadfulness, with its Rosalinds floating on the toplike scum. 

And Nan, her Nan, her little vehement sister, whom she had motheredof old, had pulled out of countless scrapes--Nan had now taken herlife into her reckless hands and done what with it? Given it, perhaps, to a man she didn't love, throwing cynical defiance thereby at love, which had hurt her; escaping from the intolerable to the shoddy. Evenif not, even supposing the best, Nan was hurt and in trouble; Nevillewas somehow sure of that. Men were blind fools; men were fickle children. Neville almost wished now that Barry would give up Gerda and go out toRome and fetch Nan back. But, to do that, Barry would have to fallout of love with Gerda and into love again with Nan; and even Barry, Neville imagined, was not such a weathercock as that. And Barry wouldreally be happier with Gerda. With all their differences, they wereboth earnest citizens, both keen on social progress. Nan was a cynicalflibberty-gibbet; it might not have been a happy union. Perhaps happyunions were not for such as Nan. But at the thought of Nan playing thatdesperate game with Stephen Lumley in Rome, Neville's face twitched. .. . 

She would go to Rome. She would see Nan; find out how things were. Nanalways liked to see her, would put up with her even when she wanted noone else. 

That was, at least, a job one could do. These family jobs--they still goon, they never cease, even when one is getting middle-aged and one'sbrain has gone to pot. They remain, always, the jobs of the affections. 

She would write to Nan to-night, and tell her she was starting for Romein a few days, to have a respite from the London fogs. 

5

But she did not start for Rome, or even write to Nan, for when she gothome she went to bed with influenza. 

CHAPTER XII

THE MOTHER

1

The happiness Mrs. Hilary now enjoyed was of the religious type--a deep, warm glow, which did not lack excitement. She felt as those may bepresumed to feel who have just been converted to some church--newlyalive, and sunk in spiritual peace, and in profound harmony with life. Where were the old rubs, frets, jars and ennuis? Vanished, melted likeyesterday's snows in the sun of this new peace. It was as if she had casther burden upon the Lord. That, said her psycho-analyst doctor, was quitein order; that was what it ought to be like. That was, in effect, whatshe had in point of fact done; only the place of the Lord was filled byhimself. To put the matter briefly, transference of burden had beeneffected; Mrs. Hilary had laid all her cares, all her perplexities, allher grief, upon this quiet, acute-looking man, who sat with her twice aweek for an hour, drawing her out, arranging her symptoms for her, penetrating the hidden places of her soul, looking like a cross betweenSherlock Holmes and Mr. Henry Ainley. Her confidence in him was, he toldher, the expression of the father-image, which surprised Mrs. Hilary alittle, because he was twenty years her junior. 

Mrs. Hilary felt that she was getting to know herself very well indeed. Seeing herself through Mr. Cradock's mind, she felt that she was indeed acurious jumble of complexes, of strange, mysterious impulses, desires andfears. Alarming, even horrible in some ways; so that often she thought"Can he be right about me? Am I really like that? Do I really hope thatMarjorie (Jim's wife) will die, so that Jim and I may be all in all toeach other again? Am I really so wicked?" But Mr. Cradock said that itwas not at all wicked, perfectly natural and normal--the Unconscious_was_ like that. And worse than that; how much worse he had to break toMrs. Hilary, who was refined and easily shocked, by gentle hints and slowdegrees, lest she should be shocked to death. Her dreams, which she hadto recount to him at every sitting, bore such terrible significance--theygrew worse and worse in proportion, as Mrs. Hilary could stand more. 

"Ah well, " Mrs. Hilary sighed uneasily, after an interpretation intostrange terms of a dream she had about bathing, "it's very odd, when I'venever even thought about things like that. "

"Your Unconscious, " said Mr. Cradock, firmly, "has thought the more. Themore your Unconscious is obsessed by a thing, the less your consciousself thinks of it. It is shy of the subject, for that very reason. "

Mrs. Hilary was certainly shy of the subject, for that reason or others. When she felt too shy of it, Mr. Cradock let her change it. "It may betrue, " she would say, "but it's very terrible, and I would rather notdwell on it. "

So he would let her dwell instead on the early days of her married life, or on the children's childhood, or on her love for Neville and Jim, or onher impatience with her mother. 

2

They were happy little times, stimulating, cosy little times. They spokestraight to the heart, easing it of its weight of tragedy. A splendidman, Mr. Cradock, with his shrewd, penetrating sympathy, his kindfirmness. He would listen with interest to everything; the sharp wordsshe had had with Grandmama, troubles with the maids, the little rubsof daily life (and what a rubbing business life is, to be sure!) aswell as to profounder, more tragic accounts of desolation, jealousy, weariness and despair. He would say "Your case is a very usual one, "so that she did not feel ashamed of being like that. He reduced it all, dispassionately and yet not unsympathetically, and with clear scientificprecision, to terms of psychical and physical laws. He trained hispatient to use her mind and her will, as well as to remember her dreamsand to be shocked at nothing that they signified. 

Mrs. Hilary would wake each morning, or during the night, and clutch atthe dream which was flying from her, clutch and secure it, and make itstand and deliver its outlines to her. She was content with outlines; itwas for Mr. Cradock to supply the interpretation. Sometimes, if Mrs. Hilary couldn't remember any dreams, he would supply, according to aclassic precedent, the dream as well as the interpretation. But on thewhole, deeply as she revered and admired him, Mrs. Hilary preferred toremember her own dreams; what they meant was bad enough, but the meaningof the dreams that Mr. Cradock told her she had dreamt was beyond allwords. .. . That terrible Unconscious! Mrs. Hilary disliked it excessively;she felt rather as if it were a sewer, sunk beneath an inadequategrating. 

But from Mr. Cradock she put up with hearing about it. She would have putup with anything. He was so steadying and so wonderful. He enabled her toface life with a new poise, a fresh lease of strength and vitality. Shetold Grandmama so. Grandmama said "Yes, my dear, I've observed it in you. It sounds to me an unpleasing business, but it is obviously doing yougood, so far. I only wish it may last. The danger may be reaction, afteryou have finished the course and lost touch with this young man. " (Mr. Cradock was forty-five, but Grandmama, it must be remembered, waseighty-four. ) "You will have to guard against that. In a way it was apity you didn't take up church-going instead; religion lasts. "

"And these quackeries do not, " Grandmama finished her sentence toherself, not wishing to be discouraging. 

"Not always, " Mrs. Hilary truly replied, meaning that religion did notalways last. 

"No, " Grandmama agreed. "Unfortunately not always. Particularly when itis High Church. There was your uncle Bruce, of course. .. . "

Mrs. Hilary's uncle Bruce, who had been High Church for a season, and hadeven taken Orders in the year 1860, but whose faith had wilted in theheat and toil of the day, so that by 1870 he was an agnostic barrister, took Grandmama back through the last century, and she became reminiscentover the Tractarian movement, and, later, the Ritualists. 

"The Queen never could abide them, " said Grandmama. "Nor could LordBeaconsfield, nor your father, though he was always kind and tolerant. I remember when Dr. Jowett came to stay with us, how they talked aboutit. .. . Ah well, they've become very prominent since then, and done agreat deal of good work, and there are many very able, excellent men andwomen among them. .. . But they're not High Church any longer, they tellme. They're Catholics in these days. I don't know enough of them to judgethem, but I don't think they can have the dignity of the old High Churchparty, for if they had I can't imagine that Gilbert's wife, for instance, would have joined them, even for so short a time as she did. .. . Well, itsuits some people, and psycho-analysis obviously suits others. Only I dohope you will try to keep moderate and balanced, my child, and notbelieve all this young man tells you. Parts of it do sound so verystrange. "

(But Mrs. Hilary would not have dreamt of repeating to Grandmama thestrangest parts of all. )

"I feel a new woman, " she said, fervently, and Grandmama smiled, wellpleased, thinking that it certainly did seem rather like the oldevangelical conversions of her youth. (Which, of course, did not alwayslast, any more than the High Church equivalents did. )

All Grandmama committed herself to, in her elderly caution, which camehowever less from age than from having known Mrs. Hilary for sixty-threeyears, was "Well, well, we must see. "

3

And then Rosalind's letter came. It came by the afternoon post--the big, mauve, scented, sprawled sheets, dashingly monographed across one corner. 

"Gilbert's wife, " pronounced Grandmama, non-committally from her easychair, and, said in that tone, it was quite sufficient comment. "Anothercup of tea, please, Emily. "

Mrs. Hilary gave it to her, then began to read aloud the letter fromGilbert's wife. Gilbert's wife was one of the topics upon which she andGrandmama were in perfect accord, only that Mrs. Hilary was irritatedwhen Grandmama pushed the responsibility for the relationship onto her bycalling Rosalind "your daughter-in-law. "

Mrs. Hilary began to read the letter in the tone used by well-bred womenwhen they would, if in a slightly lower social stratum, say "Fancy thatnow! Did you ever, the brazen hussy!" Grandmama listened, cynicallydisapproving, prepared to be disgusted yet entertained. On the whole shethoroughly enjoyed letters from Gilbert's wife. She settled downcomfortably in her chair with her second cup of tea, while Mrs. Hilaryread two pages of what Grandmama called "foolish chit-chat. " Rosalind'sletters were really like the gossipping imbecilities written by Eve ofthe Tatler, or the other ladies who enliven our shinier-paper weeklieswith their bright personal babble. She did not often waste one of them onher mother-in-law; only when she had something to say which might annoyher. 

"Do you hear from Nan?" the third page of the letter began. "I hear fromthe Bramertons, who are wintering in Rome--the Charlie Bramertons, youknow, great friends of mine and Gilbert's (he won a pot of money on theDerby this year and they've a dinky flat in some palace out there--), andthey meet Nan about, and she's always with Stephen Lumley, the painter(rotten painter, if you ask me, but he's somehow diddled London intoadmiring him, don't expect you've heard of him down at the seaside). Well, they're quite simply _always_ together, and the Brams say thateveryone out there says it isn't in the least an ambiguous case--no twoways about it. He doesn't live with his wife, you know. You'll excuse mepassing this on to you, but it does seem you ought to know. I mentionedit to Neville the other day, just before the poor old dear went down withthe plague, but you know what Neville is, she always sticks up for Nanand doesn't care _what_ she does, or what people say. People are talking;beasts, aren't they! But that's the way of this wicked old world, we alldo it. Gilbert's quite upset about it, says Nan ought to manage heraffairs more quietly. But after all and between you and me it's not thefirst time Nan's been a Town Topic, is it. 

"How's the psycho going? Isn't Cradock rather a priceless pearl? You'reover head and ears with him by now, of course, we all are. Psychowouldn't do you any good if you weren't, that's the truth. Cradock toldme himself once that transference can't be effected without the patientbeing a little bit smitten. Personally I should give up a man patient atonce if he didn't rather like me. But isn't it soothing and comforting, and doesn't it make you feel good all over, like a hot bath when you'refagged out. .. . "

But Mrs. Hilary didn't get as far as this. She stopped at "not the firsttime Nan's been a Town Topic. .. . " and dropped the thin mauve sheets ontoher lap, and looked at Grandmama, her face queerly tight and flushed, asif she were about to cry. 

Grandmama had finished her tea, and had been listening quietly. 

Mrs. Hilary said "Oh, my God, " and jerked her head back, quivering likea nervous horse who has had a shock and does not care to conceal it. 

"Your daughter-in-law, " said Grandmama, without excitement, "is anexceedingly vulgar young woman. "

"Vulgar? Rosalind? But of course. .. . Only that doesn't affect Nan. .. . "

"Your daughter-in-law, " Grandmama added, "is also a very notorious liar. "

"A liar . .. Oh yes, yes, yes. .. . But this time it's true. Oh I feel, I know, it's true. Nan _would_. That Stephen Lumley--he's been hangingabout her for ages. . .. Oh yes, it's true what they say. The veryworst. .. . "

Grandmama glanced at her curiously. The very worst in that directionhad become strangely easier of credence by Mrs. Hilary lately. Grandmamahad observed that. Mr. Cradock's teaching had not been without itseffect. According to Mr. Cradock, people were usually engaged either inpractising the very worst, or in desiring to practise it, or in wishingand dreaming that they had practised it. It was the nature of mankind, and not in the least reprehensible, though curable. Thus Mr. Cradock. Mrs. Hilary had, against her own taste, absorbed part of his teaching, but nothing could ever persuade her that it was not reprehensible: itquite obviously was. Also disgusting. Mr. Cradock might say what heliked. It _was_ disgusting. And when the man had a wife. .. . 

"It is awful, " said Mrs. Hilary. "Awful. .. . It must be stopped. I shallgo to Rome. At once. "

"That won't stop it, dear, if it is going on. It will only irritate theyoung people. "

"Irritate! You can use a word like that! Mother, you don't realise thisghastly thing. "

"I quite see, my dear, that Nan may be carrying on with this artist. Andvery wrong it is, if so. All I say is that your going to Rome won't stopit. You know that you and Nan don't always get on very smoothly. You rubeach other up. .. . It would be far better if someone else went. Neville, say. "

"Neville is ill. " Mrs. Hilary shut her lips tightly on that. She wasglad Neville was ill; she had always hated (she could not help it) thedevotion between Neville and Nan. Nan, in her tempestuous childhood, flaring with rage against her mother, or sullen, spiteful and perverse, long before she could have put into words the qualities in Mrs. Hilarywhich made her like that, had always gone to Neville, nine years older, to be soothed and restored to good temper. Neville had reprimanded thelittle naughty sister, had told her she must be "decent to mother--feeldecent if you can, behave decent in any case, " was the way she had putit. It was Neville who had heard Nan's confidences and helped her out ofscrapes in childhood, schoolgirlhood and ever since. This was very bitterto Mrs. Hilary. She was jealous of both of them; jealous that so much ofNeville's love should go elsewhere than to her, jealous that Nan, whogave her nothing except generous and extravagant gifts and occasional, spasmodic, remorseful efforts at affection and gentleness, should toNeville give all. 

"Neville is ill, " she said. "She certainly won't be fit to travel outof England this winter. Influenza coming on the top of that miserablebreakdown is a thing to be treated with the greatest care. Even when sheis recovered, post-influenza will keep her weak till the summer. I amreally anxious about her. No; Neville is quite out of the question. "

"Well, what about Pamela?"

"Pamela is up to her eyes in her work. .. . Besides, why should Pamela go, or Neville, rather than I? A girl's mother is obviously the right person. I may not be of much use to my children in these days, but at least Ihope I can save them from themselves. "

"It takes a clever parent to do that, Emily, " said Grandmama, whodoubtless knew. 

"But, mother, what would you _have_ me do? Sit with my hands before mewhile my daughter lives in sin? What's _your_ plan?"

"I'm too old to make plans, dear. I can only look on at the world. I'velooked at the world now for many, many years, and I've learnt that onlygreat wisdom and great love can change people's decisions as to their wayof life, or turn them from evil courses. Frankly, my child, I doubt ifyou have, where Nan is concerned, enough wisdom or enough love. Enoughsympathy, I should rather say, for you have love. But do you feel youunderstand the child enough to interfere wisely and successfully?"

"Oh, you think I'm a fool, mother; of course I know you've always thoughtme a fool. Good God, if a mother can't interfere with her own daughter tosave her from wickedness and disaster, who can, I should like to know?"

"One would indeed like to know that, " Grandmama said, sadly. 

"Perhaps you'd like to go yourself, " Mrs. Hilary shot at her, quiveringnow with anger and feeling. 

"No, my dear. Even if I were able to get to Rome I should know that I wastoo old to interfere with the lives of the young. I don't understand themenough. You believe that you do. Well, I suppose you must go and try. Ican't stop you. "

"You certainly can't. Nothing can stop me. .. . You're singularlyunsympathetic, mother, about this awful business. "

"I don't feel so, dear. I am very, very sorry for you, and very, verysorry for Nan (whom, you must remember, we may be slandering). I havealways looked on unlawful love as a very great sin, though there may begreat provocation to it. "

"It is an awful sin. " Mr. Cradock could say what he liked on thatsubject; he might tell Mrs. Hilary that it was not awful except in sofar as any other yielding to nature's promptings in defiance of the lawof man was awful, but he could not persuade her. Like many other people, she set that particular sin apart, in a special place by itself; shewould talk of "a bad woman, " "an immoral man, " a girl who had "losther character, " and mean merely the one kind of badness, the onemanifestation of immorality, the one element in character. Dishonestyand cruelty she could forgive, but never that. 

"I shall start in three days, " said Mrs. Hilary, becoming tragicallyresolute. "I must tell Mr. Cradock to-morrow. "

"That young man? Must he know about Nan's affairs, my dear?"

"I have to tell him everything, mother. It's part of the course. He is assecret as the grave. "

Grandmama knew that Emily, less secret than the grave, would have to easeherself of the sad tale to someone or other in the course of the nextday, and supposed that it had better be to Mr. Cradock, who seemed to bea kind of hybrid of doctor and clergyman, and so presumably was morediscreet than an ordinary human being. Emily must tell. Emily alwayswould. That was why she enjoyed this foolish psycho-analysis business somuch. 

At the very thought of it a gleam had brightened Mrs. Hilary's eyes, and her rigid, tense pose had relaxed. Oh the comfort of telling Mr. Cradock! Even if he did tell her how it was all in the course of nature, at least he would sympathise with her trouble about it, and her annoyancewith Grandmama. And he would tell her how best to deal with Nan whenshe got to her. Nan's was the sort of case that Mr. Cradock reallydid understand. Any situation between the sexes--he was all over it. Psycho-analysts adored sex; they made an idol of it. They communed withit, as devotees with their God. They couldn't really enjoy, with theirwhole minds, anything else, Mrs. Hilary sometimes vaguely felt. But as, like the gods of the other devotees, it was to them immanent, everywhereand in everything; they could be always happy. If they went up intoheaven it was there; if they fled down into hell it was there also. Once, when Mrs. Hilary had tentatively suggested that Freud, for instance, over-stated its importance, Mr. Cradock had said firmly "It is impossibleto do that, " which settled it once and for all. 

Mrs. Hilary stood up. Her exalted, tragic mood clothed her like a flowinggarment. 

"I shall write to Cook, " she said. "Also to Nan, to tell her I amcoming. "

Grandmama, after a moment's silence, seemed to gather herself togetherfor a final effort. 

"Emily, my child. Is your mind set to do this?"

"Absolutely, mother. Absolutely and entirely. "

"Shall I tell you what I think? No, you don't want to hear it, but youdrive me to it. .. . If you go to that foolish, reckless child and attemptto interfere with her, or even to question her, you will run the risk, ifshe is innocent, of driving her into what you are trying to prevent. Ifshe is already committed to it, you run the risk of shutting the dooragainst her return. In either case you will alienate her from yourself:that is the least of the risks you run, though the most certain. .. . Thatis all. I can say no more. But I ask you, my dear. .. . I beg you, for thechild's sake and your own . .. To write neither to Cook nor to Nan. "

Grandmama's breath came rather fast and heavily; her heart was troublingher; emotion and effort were not good for it. 

Mrs. Hilary stood looking down at the old shrunk figure, shaking a littleas she stood, knowing that she must be patient and calm. 

"You will please allow me to judge. You will please let me take the stepsI think necessary to help my child. I know that you have no confidence inmy judgment or my tact; you've always shown that plainly enough, and doneyour best to teach my children the same view of me. .. . "

Grandmama put up her hand, meaning that she could not stand, neither shenor her heart could stand, a scene. Mrs. Hilary broke off. For once shedid not want a scene either. In these days she found what vent wasnecessary for her emotional system in her interviews with Mr. Cradock. 

"I daresay you mean well, mother. But in this matter I must be the judge. I am a mother first and foremost. It is the only thing that life has leftfor me to be. " (Scarcely a daughter, she meant: that was made toodifficult for her; you would almost imagine that the office was notwanted. )

She turned to the writing table. 

"First of all I shall write to Rosalind, and tell her what I think of herand her abominable gossip. "

She began to write. 

Grandmama sat shrunk and old and tired in her chair. 

Mrs. Hilary's pen scratched over the paper, telling Rosalind what shethought. 

"Dear Rosalind, " she wrote, "I was very much surprised at yourletter. I do not know why you should trouble to repeat to me theseridiculous stories about Nan. You cannot suppose that I am likely tocare either what you or any of your friends are saying about one of mychildren. .. . " And so on. One knows the style. It eases the mind of thewriter and does not deceive the reader. When the reader is RosalindHilary it amuses her vastly. 

4

Next day, at three p. M. , Mrs. Hilary told Mr. Cradock all about it. Mr. Cradock was not in the least surprised. Nor had he the slightest, not theremotest doubt that Nan and Stephen Lumley were doing what Mrs. Hilarycalled living in sin, what he preferred to call obeying the natural ego. (After all, as any theologian would point out, the terms are synonymousin a fallen world. )

"I must have your advice, " Mrs. Hilary said. "You must tell me what lineto take with her. "

"Shall you, " Mr. Cradock enquired, thoughtful and intelligent, "find yourdaughter in a state of conflict?"

Mrs. Hilary spread her hands helplessly before her. 

"I know nothing; nothing. "

"A very great deal, " said Mr. Cradock, "depends on that. If she is tornbetween the cravings of the primitive ego and the inhibitions put uponthese cravings by the conventions of society--if, in fact, her censor, her endopsychic censor, is still functioning. .. . "

"Oh, I doubt if Nan's got an endopsychic censor. She is so lawlessalways. "

"Every psyche has a censor. " Mr. Cradock was firm. "Regarded, of course, by the psyche with very varying degrees of respect. Well, what I mean tosay is, if your daughter is in a state of conflict, with forces pullingher both ways, her case will be very much easier to deal with than if shehas let her primitive ego so take possession of the situation that shefeels in a state of harmony. In the former case, you will only have tostrengthen the forces which are opposing her sexual craving. .. . "

Mrs. Hilary fidgeted uneasily. "Oh, I don't think Nan feels _that_exactly. None of my children. .. . "

Mr. Cradock gave her an amused glance. It seemed sometimes that he wouldnever get this foolish lady properly educated. 

"Your children, I presume, are human, Mrs. Hilary. Sexual craving meansa craving for intimacy with a member of another sex. "

"Oh well, I suppose it does. I don't care for the _name_, somehow. Butplease go on. "

"I was going to say, if you find, on the other hand, that your daughter'snature has attained harmony in connection with this course she ispursuing, your task will be far more difficult. You will then have to_create_ a discord, instead of merely strengthening it. .. . May I ask yourdaughter's age?"

"Nan is thirty-three. "

"A dangerous age. "

"All Nan's ages, " said Mrs. Hilary, "have been dangerous. Nan is likethat. "

"As to that, " said Mr. Cradock, "we may say that all ages are dangerousto all people, in this dangerous life we live. But the thirties are aspecially dangerous time for women. They have outlived the shynessesand restraints of girlhood, and not attained to the caution anddiscretion of middle age. They are reckless, and consciously orunconsciously on the lookout for adventure. They see ahead of themthe end of youth, and that quickens their pace. .. . Has passion alwaysbeen a strong element in your daughter's life?"

"Oh, passion. .. . " (Another word not liked by Mrs. Hilary. ) "Not quitethat, I should say. Nan has been reckless; she has got into scrapes, gotherself talked about. She has played about with men a good deal always. But as to passion. .. . "

"A common thing enough, " Mr. Cradock told her, as it were reassuringly. "Nothing to fight shy of, or be afraid of. But something to be regulatedof course. .. . Now, the thing is to oppose to this irregular desire ofyour daughter's for this man a new and a stronger set of desires. Fightone group of complexes with another. You can't, I suppose, persuade herto be analysed? There are good analysts in Rome. "

"Oh no. Nan laughs at it. She laughs at everything of that sort. "

"A great mistake. A mistake often made by shallow and foolish people. They might as well laugh at surgery. .. . Well now, to go into thisquestion of the battle between the complex-groups. .. . "

He went into it, patiently and exhaustively. His phrases drifted overMrs. Hilary's head. 

". .. A deterrent force residing in the ego and preventing us fromstepping outside the bounds of propriety. .. . Rebellious messages sentup from the Unconscious, which wishes to live, love and act in archaicmodes . .. Conflict with the progress of human society . .. Inhibitory andrepressive power of the censor. .. . " (How wonderful, thought Mrs. Hilary, to be able to talk so like a book for so long together!) . .. "give thecensor all the help we can . .. Keep the Unconscious in order by turningits energies into some other channel . .. Give it a substitute. .. . Theenergy involved in the intense desire for someone of another sex can bediverted . .. Employed on some useful work. Libido . .. It should all beused. Find another channel for your daughter's libido. .. . Her life isperhaps a rather vacant one?"

That Mrs. Hilary was able to reply to. 

"Nan's? Vacant? Oh no. She is quite full of energy. Too full. Alwaysdoing a thousand things. And she writes, you know. "

"Ah. That should be an outlet. A great deal of libido is used up by that. Well, her present strong desire for this man should be sublimated into adesire for something else. I gather that her root trouble is lawlessness. That can be cured. You must make her remember her first lawless action. "(Man's first disobedience and the fruit thereof, thought Mrs. Hilary. )

"O dear me, " she said, "I'm afraid that would be impossible. When she wasa month old she used to attempt to dash her bottle onto the floor. "

"People have even remembered their baptisms, when driven back to them byanalysis. "

"Our children were not baptised. My husband was something of a Unitarian. He said he would not tie them up with a rite against which they mightreact in later life. So they were merely registered. "

"Ah. In a way that is a pity. Baptism is an impressive moment in thesensitive consciousness of the infant. It has sometimes been foundto be a sort of lamp shining through the haze of the early memory. Registration, owing to the non-participation of the infant, is uselessin that way. "

"Nan might remember how she kicked me when I short-coated her, " Mrs. Hilary mused, hopefully. 

Mr. Cradock flowed on. Mrs. Hilary, listened, assented, was impressed. Itall sounded so simple, so wonderful, even so beautiful. But she thoughtonce or twice, "He doesn't know Nan. "

"Thank you, " she said, rising to go when her hour was over. "You havemade me feel so much stronger, as usual. I can't thank you enough for allyou do for me. I could face none of my troubles and problems but for yourhelp. "

"That merely means, " said Mr. Cradock, who always got the last word, "that your ego is at present in what is called the state of infantiledependence or tutelage. A necessary but an impermanent stage in itsstruggle towards the adult level of the reality-principle. "

"I suppose so, " Mrs. Hilary said. "Good-bye. "

"He is too clever for me, " she thought, as she went home. "He is oftenabove my head. " But she was used to that in the people she met. 

CHAPTER XIII

THE DAUGHTER

1

Mrs. Hilary hated travelling, which is indeed detestable. The Channel waschoppy and she a bad sailor; the train from Calais to Paris continued themotion, and she remained a bad sailor (bad sailors often do this). Shelay back and smelled salts, and they were of no avail. At Paris she triedand failed to dine. She passed a wretched night, being of those whodetest nights in trains without _wagons-lits_, but save money by nothaving _wagons-lits_, and wonder dismally all night if it is worth it. Modane in the chilly morning annoyed her as it annoys us all. The customspeople were rude and the other travellers in the way. Mrs. Hilary, whowas not good in crowds, pushed them, getting excited and red in the face. Psycho-analysis had made her more patient and calm than she had beenbefore, but even so, neither patient nor calm when it came to jostlingcrowds. 

"I am not strong enough for all this, " she thought, in the Mont Cenistunnel. 

Rushing out of it into Italy, she thought, "Last time I was here was in'99, with Richard. If Richard were here now he would help me. " He wouldface the customs at Modane, find and get the tickets, deal with uncivilGermans--(Germans were often uncivil to Mrs. Hilary and she to them, andthough she had not met any yet on this journey, owing doubtless to theirstate of collapse and depression consequent on the Great Peace, one mightget in at any moment, Germans being naturally buoyant). Richard wouldhave got hold of pillows, seen that she was comfortable at night, toldher when there was time to get out for coffee and when there wasn't (Mrs. Hilary was no hand at this; she would try no runs and get run out, or allbut run out). And Richard would have helped to save Nan. Nan and herfather had got on pretty well, for a naughty girl and an elderly parent. They had appreciated one another's brains, which is not a bad basis. Theyhad not accepted or even liked one another's ideas on life, but this isnot necessary or indeed usual in families. Mrs. Hilary certainly did notgo so far as to suppose that Nan would have obeyed her father had heappeared before her in Rome and bidden her change her way of life, butshe might have thought it over. And to make Nan think over anythingwhich _she_ bade her do would be a phenomenal task. What had Mr. Cradocksaid--make her remember her first disobedience, find the cause of it, talk it out with her, get it into the open--and then she would be curedof her present lawlessness. Why? That was the connection that alwayspuzzled Mrs. Hilary a little. Why should remembering that you had done, and why you had done, the same kind of thing thirty years ago cure youof doing it now? Similarly, why should remembering that a nurse hadscared you as an infant cure you of your present fear of burglars? Inpoint of fact, it didn't. Mr. Cradock had tried this particular cure onMrs. Hilary. It must be her own fault, of course, but somehow she had notfelt much less nervous about noises in the house at night since Mr. Cradock had brought up into the light, as he called it, that old frightin the nursery. After all, why should one? However, hers not to reasonwhy; and perhaps the workings of Nan's mind might be more orthodox. 

At Turin Germans got in. Of course. They were all over Italy. Italy waswelcoming them with both hands, establishing again the economic entente. These were a mother and a _backfisch_, and they looked shyly and sullenlyat Mrs. Hilary and the other English-woman in the compartment. They werethin, and Mrs. Hilary noted it with satisfaction. She didn't believe forone moment in starving Germans, but these certainly did not look soprosperous and buxom as a pre-war German mother and _backfisch_ wouldhave looked. They were equally uncivil, though. They pulled both windowsup to the top. The two English ladies promptly pulled them down half-way. English ladies are the only beings in the world who like open windows inwinter. English lower-class women do not, nor do English gentlemen. Ifyou want to keep warm while travelling (to frowst, as the open air schoolcalls it) do not get in with well-bred Englishwomen. 

The German mother broke out in angry remonstrance, indicating that shehad neuralgia and the _backfisch_ a cold in the head. There followed oneof those quarrels which occur on this topic in trains, and are so bitterand devastating. It had now more than the pre-war bitterness; between thecombatants flowed rivers of blood; behind them ranked male relativeskilled or maimed by the male relatives of their foes on the oppositeseat. The English ladies won. Germany was a conquered race, and knew it. In revenge, the _backfisch_ coughed and sneezed "all over the carriage, "as Mrs. Hilary put it, "in the disgusting German way, " and her mothermade noises as if she could be sick if she tried hard enough. 

So it was a detestable journey. And the second night in the train wasworse than the first. For the Germans, would you believe it, shut bothwindows while the English were asleep, and the English, true to theircaste and race, woke with bad headaches. 

2

When they got to Rome in the morning Mrs. Hilary felt thoroughly ill. Shehad to strive hard for self-control; it would not do to meet Nan in anunnerved, collapsed state. All her psychical strength was necessaryto deal with Nan. So when she stood on the platform with her luggage shelooked and felt not only like one who has slept (but not much) in a trainfor two nights and fought with Germans about windows but also like anelderly virgin martyr (spiritually tense and strung-up, and distraught, and on the line between exultation and hysteria). 

Nan was there. Nan, pale and pinched, and looking plain in the nippingmorning air, though wrapped in a fur coat. (One of the points about Nanwas that, though she sometimes looked plain, she never looked dowdy;there was always a distinction, a chic, about her. )

Nan kissed her mother and helped with the luggage and got a cab. Nan wasgood at railway stations and such places. Mrs. Hilary was not. 

They drove out into the hideous new streets. Mrs. Hilary shivered. 

"Oh, how ugly!"

"Rome is ugly, this part. "

"It's worse since '99. "

But she did not really remember clearly how it had looked in '99. The olddesire to pose, to show that she knew something, took her. Yet she feltthat Nan, who knew that she knew next to nothing, would not be deceived. 

"Oh . .. The Forum!"

"The Forum of Trajan, " Nan said. "We don't pass the Roman Forum on theway to our street. "

"The Forum of Trajan, of course, I meant that. "

But she knew that Nan knew she had meant the Forum Romanum. 

"Rome is always Rome, " she said, which was safer than identifyingparticular buildings, or even Forums, in it. "Nothing like it anywhere. "

"How long can you stay, mother? I've got you a room in the house I'mlodging in. It's in a little street the other side of the Corso. Rathera mediæval street, I'm afraid. That is, it smells. But the rooms areclean. "

"Oh, I'm not staying long. .. . We'll talk later; talk it all out. Athorough talk. When we get in. After a cup of tea. .. . "

Mrs. Hilary remembered that Nan did not yet know why she had come. Aftera cup of strong tea. .. . A cup of tea first. .. . Coffee wasn't the same. One needed tea, after those awful Germans. She told Nan about these. Nanknew that she would have had tiresome travelling companions; she alwaysdid; if it weren't Germans it would be inconsiderate English. She wasunlucky. 

"Go straight to bed and rest when we get in, " Nan advised; but she shookher head. "We must talk first. "

Nan, she thought, looked pinched about the lips, and thin, and her blackbrows were at times nervous and sullen. Nan did not look happy. Was itguilt, or merely the chill morning air?

They stopped at a shabby old house in a narrow mediæval street in theBorgo, which had been a palace and was now let in apartments. Here Nanhad two bare, gilded, faded rooms. Mrs. Hilary sat by a charcoal stove inone of them, and Nan made her some tea. After the tea Mrs. Hilary feltrevived. She wouldn't go to bed; she felt that the time for the talk hadcome. She looked round the room for signs of Stephen Lumley, but all thesigns she saw were of Nan; Nan's books, Nan's proofs strewing the table. Of course that bad man wouldn't come while she was there. He was no doubtwaiting eagerly for her to be gone. Probably they both were. .. . 

3

"Nan--" They were still sitting by the stove, and Nan was lighting acigarette. "Nan--do you guess why I've come?"

Nan threw away the match. 

"No, mother. How should I?. .. One does come to Rome, I suppose, if onegets a chance. "

"Oh, I've not come to see Rome. I know Rome. Long before you wereborn. .. . I've come to see you. And to take you back with me. "

Nan glanced at her quickly, a sidelong glance of suspicion andcomprehension. Her lower lip projected stubbornly. 

"Ah, I see you know what I mean. Yes, I've heard. Rumours reached us--itwas through Rosalind, of course. And I'm afraid . .. I'm afraid that foronce she spoke the truth. "

"Oh no, she didn't. I don't know what Rosalind's been saying this time, but it would be odd if it was the truth. "

"Nan, it's no use denying things. I _know_. "

It was true; she did know. A few months ago she would have doubted andquestioned; but Mr. Cradock had taught her better. She had learnt fromhim the simple truth about life; that is, that nearly everyone is nearlyalways involved up to the eyes in the closest relationship with someoneof another sex. It is nature's way with mankind. Another thing she hadlearnt from him was that the more they denied it the more it was so;protests of innocence and admissions of guilt were alike proofs of thelatter. So she was accurate when she said that it was no use for Nan todeny anything. It was no use whatever. 

Nan had become cool and sarcastic--her nastiest, most dangerous manner. 

"Do you think you would care to be a little more explicit, mother? I'mafraid I don't quite follow. What is it no use my denying? _What_ do youknow?"

Mrs. Hilary gathered herself together. Her head trembled and jerked withemotion; wisps of her hair, tousled by the night, escaped over hercollar. She spoke tremulously, tensely, her hands wrung together. 

"That you are going on with a married man. That you are his mistress, "she said, putting it at its crudest, since Nan wanted plain speaking. 

Nan sat quite still, smoking. The silence thrilled with Mrs. Hilary'spassion. 

"I see, " Nan said at last. "And it's no use my denying it. In that caseI won't. " Her voice was smooth and clear and still, like cold water. "Youknow the man's name too, I presume?"

"Of course. Everyone knows it. I tell you, Nan, everyone's talking of youand him. A town topic, Rosalind calls it. "

"Rosalind would. Town must be very dull just now, if that's all they haveto talk of. "

"But it's not the scandal I'm thinking of, " Mrs. Hilary went on, "though, God knows, that's bad enough--I'm thankful Father died when he did andwas spared it--but the thing itself. The awful, awful thing itself. Haveyou no shame, Nan?"

"Not much. "

"For all our sakes. Not for mine--I know you don't care a rap forthat--but for Neville, whom you do profess to love. .. . "

"I should think we might leave Neville out of it. She's shown no signs ofbelieving any story about me. "

"Well, she does believe it, you may depend upon it. No one could help it. People write from here saying it's an open fact. "

"People here can't have much to put in their letters. "

"Oh, they'll make room for gossip. People always will. Always. But I'mnot going to dwell on that side of things, because I know you don't carewhat anyone says. It's the _wrongness_ of it. .. . A married man. .. . Evenif his wife divorces him! It would be in the papers. .. . And if shedoesn't you can't ever marry him. .. . Do you care for the man?"

"What man?"

"Don't quibble. Stephen Lumley, of course. "

"Stephen Lumley is a friend of mine. I'm fond of him. "

"I don't believe you do love him. I believe it's all recklessness andperversity. Lawlessness. That's what Mr. Cradock said. "

"Mr. Cradock?" Nan's eyebrows went up. 

Mrs. Hilary flushed a brighter scarlet. The colour kept running over herface and going back again, all the time she was talking. 

"Your psycho-analyst doctor, " said Nan, and her voice was a little harderand cooler than before. "I suppose you had an interesting conversationwith him about me. "

"I have to tell him everything, " Mrs. Hilary stammered. "It's partof the course. I did consult him about you. I'm not ashamed of it. Heunderstands about these things. He's not an ordinary man. "

"This is very interesting. " Nan lit another cigarette. "It seems thatI've been a boon all round as a town topic--to London, to Rome and to St. Mary's Bay. .. . Well, what did he advise about me?"

Mrs. Hilary remembered vaguely and in part, but did not think it would beprofitable just now to tell Nan. 

"We have to be very wise about this, " she said, collecting herself. "Verywise and firm. Lawlessness. .. . I wonder if you remember, Nan, throwingyour shoes at my head when you were three?"

"No. But I can quite believe I did. It was the sort of thing I used todo. "

"Think back, Nan. What is the first act of naughtiness and disobedienceyou remember, and what moved you to it?"

Nan, who knew a good deal more about psycho-analysis than Mrs. Hilarydid, laughed curtly. 

"No good, mother. That won't work on me. I'm not susceptible to thetreatment. Too hard-headed. What was Mr. Cradock's next brain-wave?"

"Oh well, if you take it like this, what's the use. .. . "

"None at all. I advise you not to bother yourself. It will only make yourheadache worse. .. . Now I think after all this excitement you had bettergo and lie down, don't you? I'm going out, anyhow. "

Then Stephen Lumley knocked at the door and came in. A tall, slouchinghollow-chested man of forty, who looked unhappy and yet cynicallyamused at the world. He had a cough, and unusually bright eyes underoverhanging brows. 

Nan said, "This is Stephen Lumley, mother. My mother, Stephen, " and leftthem to do the rest, watching, critical and aloof, to see how they wouldmanage the situation. 

Mrs. Hilary managed it by rising from her chair and standing rigidly inthe middle of the room, breathing hard and staring. Stephen Lumley lookedenquiringly at Nan. 

"How do you do, Mrs. Hilary, " he said. "I expect you're pretty wellplayed out by that beastly journey, aren't you. "

Mrs. Hilary's voice came stifled, choked, between pants. She was workingup; or rather worked up: Nan knew the symptoms. 

"You dare to come into my presence. .. . I must ask you to leave mydaughter's sitting-room _immediately_. I have come to take her back toEngland with me at once. Please go. There is nothing that can possibly besaid between you and me--nothing. "

Stephen Lumley, a cool and quiet person, raised his brows, looked enquiryonce more at Nan, found no answer, said, "Well, then, I'll say good-bye, "and departed. 

Mrs. Hilary wrung her hands together. 

"How dare he! How dare he! Into my very presence! He has no shame. .. . "

Nan watched her coolly. But a red spot had begun to burn in each cheek ather mother's opening words to Lumley, and still burned. Mrs. Hilary knewof old that still-burning, deadly anger of Nan's. 

"Thank you, mother. You've helped me to make up my mind. I'm going toCapri with Stephen next week. I've refused up till now. He was goingwithout me. You've made up my mind for me. You can tell Mr. Cradock thatif he asks. "

Nan was fiercely, savagely desirous to hurt. In the same spirit she haddoubtless thrown her shoes at Mrs. Hilary thirty years ago. Rage anddisgust, hot rebellion and sick distaste--what she had felt then shefelt now. During her mother's breathless outbreak at Stephen Lumley, standing courteous and surprised before her, she had crossed her Rubicon. And now with flaming words she burned her boats. 

Mrs. Hilary burst into tears. But her tears had never yet quenched Nan'sflames. Nan made her lie down and gave her sal volatile. Sal volatileeases the head and nervous system and composes the manners, but no morethan tears does it quench flames. 

4

The day that followed was strange, and does not sound likely, but lifeoften does not. Nan took Mrs. Hilary out to lunch at a trattoria nearthe Forum, as it were to change the subject, and they spent the usualfirst afternoon of visitors in Rome, who hasten to view the Forum witha guide to the most recent excavations in their hands. Mrs. Hilary feltcompletely uninterested to-day in recent or any other excavations. But, obsessed even now with the old instinctive desire (the fond hope, rather)not to seem unintelligent before her children, more especially when shewas not on good terms with them, she accompanied Nan, who firmly anddeftly closed or changed the subjects of unlawful love, Stephen Lumley, Capri, returning to England, and her infant acts of wilfulness, wheneverher mother opened them, which was frequently, as Mrs. Hilary found thesethings easier conversational topics than the buildings in the Forum. Nanwas determined to keep the emotional pressure low for the rest of theday, and she was fairly competent at this when she tried. As Mrs. Hilaryhad equal gifts at keeping it high, it was a well-matched contest. Whenshe left the Forum for a tea shop, both were tired out. The Forum istiring; emotion is tiring; tears are tiring; quarrelling is tiring;travelling through to Rome is tiring; all five together are annihilating. 

However, they had tea. 

Mrs. Hilary was cold and bitter now, not hysterical. Nan, who wasliving a bad life, and was also tiresomely exactly informed about thedifferences between the Forum in '99 and the Forum to-day (a subject onwhich Mrs. Hilary was hazy) was not fit, until she came to a better mind, to be spoken to. Mrs. Hilary shut her lips tight and averted her reddenedeyes. She hated Nan just now. She could have loved her had she beenwon to repentance, but now--"Nan was never like the rest, " she thought. 

Nan persisted in making light, equable conversation, which Mrs. Hilarythought in bad taste. She talked of England and the family, asked afterGrandmama, Neville and the rest. 

"Neville is extremely ill, " Mrs. Hilary said, quite untruly, butthat was, to do her justice, the way in which she always saw illness, particularly Neville's. "And worried to death about Gerda, who seems tohave gone off her head since that accident in Cornwall. She is stillsticking to that insane, wicked notion about not getting married. "

Nan had heard before of this. 

"She'll give that up, " she said, coolly, "when she finds she really can'thave Barry if she doesn't. Gerda gets what she wants. "

"Oh, you all do that, the whole lot of you. .. . And a nice example_you're_ setting the child. "

"She'll give it up, " Nan repeated, keeping the conversation on Gerda. "Gerda hasn't the martyr touch. She won't perish for a principle. Shewants Barry and she'll have him, though she may hold out for a time. Gerda doesn't lose things, in the end. "

"She's a very silly child, and I suppose she's been mixing with dreadfulfriends and picked up these ideas. At twenty there's some excuse forignorant foolishness. " But none at thirty-three, Mrs. Hilary meant. 

"Barry Briscoe, " she added, "is being quite firm about it. Though he isdesperately in love with her, Neville tells me; desperately. "

He's soon got over you, even if he did care for you once, and even if youdid send him away, her emphasis implied. 

In Nan, casually flicking the ash off her cigarette, a queer impulse cameand went. For a moment she wanted to cry; to drop hardness and lightnessand pretence, and cry like a child and say "Mother, comfort me. Don't goon hurting me. I love Barry. Be kind to me, oh be kind to me!"

If she had done it, Mrs. Hilary would have taken her in her arms and beenall mother, and the wound in their affection would have been temporarilyhealed. 

Nan said nonchalantly "I suppose he is. They're sure to be allright. .. . Now what next, mother? It's getting dark for seeing things. "

"I am tired to death, " said Mrs. Hilary. "I shall go back to thosedreadful rooms and try to rest. .. . It has been an awful day. .. . I hateRome. In '99 it was so different. Father and I went about together; heshowed me everything. He _knew_ about it all. Besides. .. . "

Besides, how could I enjoy sight-seeing after that scene this morning, and with this awful calamity that has happened?

They went back. Mrs. Hilary was desperately missing her afternoon hourwith Mr. Cradock. She had come to rely on it on a Wednesday. 

5

Nan sat up late, correcting proofs, after Mrs. Hilary had gone to bed. Galleys lay all round her on the floor by the stove. She let them slipfrom her knee and lie there. She hated them. .. . 

She pressed her hands over her eyes, shutting them out, shutting outlife. She was going off with Stephen Lumley. She had told him so thismorning. Both their lives were broken; hers by Barry, whom she loved, hisby his wife, whom he disliked. He loved her; he wanted her. She couldwith him find relief, find life a tolerable thing. They could have a goodtime together. They were good companions; their need, though dissimilar, was mutual. They saw the same beauty, spoke the same tongue, laughed atthe same things. In the very thought of Stephen, with his cynical humour, his clear, keen mind, his lazy power of brain, Nan had found relief allthat day, reacting desperately from a mind fuddled with sentiment andemotion as with drink, a soft, ignorant brain, which knew and cared aboutnothing except people, a hysterical passion of anger and malice. They hadpushed her sharply and abruptly over the edge of decision, that mind andbrain and passion. Stephen, against whom their fierce anger wasconcentrated, was so different. .. . 

To get away, to get right away from everything and everyone, withStephen. Not to have to go back to London alone, to see what she couldnot, surely, bear to see--Barry and Gerda, Gerda and Barry, always, everywhere, radiant and in love. And Neville, Gerda's mother, who saw somuch. And Rosalind, who saw everything, everything, and said so. And Mrs. Hilary. .. . 

To saunter round the queer, lovely corners of the earth with Stephen, light oneself by Stephen's clear, flashing mind, look after Stephen'sweak, neglected body as he never could himself . .. That was the onlyanodyne. Life would then some time become an adventure again, a gaystroll through the fair, instead of a desperate sickness and nightmare. 

Barry, oh Barry. .. . Nan, who had thought she was getting better, foundthat she was not. Tears stormed and shook her at last. She crumpled up onthe floor among the galley-slips, her head upon the chair. 

Those damned proofs--who wanted them? What were books? What was anything?

6

Mrs. Hilary came in, in her dressing-gown, red-eyed. She had heardstrangled sounds, and knew that her child was crying. 

"My darling!"

Her arms were round Nan's shoulders; she was kneeling among the proofs. 

"My little girl--Nan!"

"Mother. .. . "

They held each other close. It was a queer moment, though not anunprecedented one in the stormy history of their relations together. A queer, strange, comforting, healing moment, the fleeting shadow of agreat rock in a barren land; a strayed fragment of something which shouldhave been between them always but was not. Certainly an odd moment. 

"My own baby. .. . You're unhappy. .. . "

"Unhappy--yes. .. . Darling mother, it can't be helped. Nothing can behelped. .. . Don't let's talk . .. Darling. "

Strange words from Nan. Strange for Mrs. Hilary to feel her hand heldagainst Nan's wet cheek and kissed. 

Strange moment: and it could not last. The crying child wants its mother;the mother wants to comfort the crying child. A good bridge, but oneinadequate for the strain of daily traffic. The child, having driedits tears, watches the bridge break again, and thinks it a pity butinevitable. The mother, less philosophic, may cry in her turn, thinkingperhaps that the bridge may be built this time in that way; but, thechild having the colder heart, it seldom is. 

There remain the moments, impotent but indestructible. 

CHAPTER XIV

YOUTH TO YOUTH

1

Kay was home for the Christmas vacation. He was full, not so much ofCambridge, as of schemes for establishing a co-operative press next year. He was learning printing and binding, and wanted Gerda to learn too. 

"Because, if you're really not going to marry Barry, and if Barry sticksto not having you without, you'll be rather at a loose end, won't you, and you may as well come and help us with the press. .. . But of course, you know, " Kay added absently, his thoughts still on the press, "I shouldadvise you to give up on that point. "

"Give up, Kay? Marry, do you mean?"

"Yes. .. . It doesn't seem to me to be a point worth making a fuss about. Of course I agree with you in theory--I always have. But I've come tothink lately that it's not a point of much importance. And perfectlysensible people are doing it all the time. You know Jimmy Kenrick andSusan Mallow have done it? They used to say they wouldn't, but they have. The fact is, people _do_ do it, whatever they say about it beforehand. And though in theory it's absurd, it seems often to work out pretty wellin actual life. Personally I should make no bones about it, if I wanteda girl and she wanted marriage. Of course a girl can always go on beingcalled by her own name if she likes. That has points. "

"Of course one could do that, " Gerda pondered. 

"It's a sound plan in some ways. It saves trouble and explanationto go on with the name you've published your things under beforemarriage. .. . By the way, what about your poems, Gerda? They'll be aboutready by the time we get our press going, won't they? We can afford tohave some slight stuff of that sort if we get hold of a few really goodthings to start with, to make our name. "

Gerda's thoughts were not on her poems, nor on Kay's press, but on hisadvice about matrimony. For the first time she wavered. If Kay thoughtthat. .. . It set the business in a new light. And of course other people_were_ doing it; sound people, the people who talked the same languageand belonged to the same set as one's self. 

Kay had spoken. It was the careless, authentic voice of youth speaking toyouth. It was a trumpet blast making a breach in the walls against whichthe batteries of middle age had thundered in vain. Gerda told herselfthat she must look further into this, think it over again, talk it overwith other people of the age to know what was right. If it could bemanaged with honour, she would find it a great relief to give up on thispoint. For Barry was so firm; he would never give up; and, after all, oneof them must, if it could be done with a clear conscience. 

2

Ten days later Gerda said to Barry, "I've been thinking it over again, Barry, and I've decided that perhaps it will be all right for us to getmarried after all. "

Barry took both her hands and kissed each in turn, to show that he wasnot triumphing but adoring. 

"You mean it? You feel you can really do it without violating yourconscience? Sure, darling?"

"Yes, I think I'm sure. Lots of quite sensible, good people have done itlately. "

"Oh any number, of course--if _that's_ any reason. "

"Not, not those people. My sort of people, I mean. People who believewhat I do, and wouldn't tie themselves up and lose their liberty foranything. "

"I agree with Lenin. He says liberty is a bourgeois dream. "

"Barry, I may keep my name, mayn't I? I may still be called GerdaBendish, by people in general?"

"Of course, if you like. Rather silly, isn't it? Because it won't _be_your name. But that's your concern. "

"It's the name I've always written and drawn under, you see. "

"Yes. I see your point. Of course you shall be Gerda Bendish anywhere youlike, only not on cheques, if you don't mind. "

"And I don't much want to wear a wedding ring, Barry. "

"That's as you like, too, of course. You might keep it in your purse whentravelling, to produce if censorious hotel keepers look askance at us. Even the most abandoned ladies do that sometimes, I believe. Or yourmarriage lines will do as well. .. . Gerda, you blessed darling, it's mostfrightfully decent and sporting of you to have changed your mind andowned up. Next time we differ I'll try and be the one to do it, Ihonestly will. .. . I say, let's come out by ourselves and dine and do atheatre, to celebrate the occasion. "

So they celebrated the triumph of institutionalism. 

3

Their life together, thought Barry, would be a keen, jolly, adventuringbusiness, an ardent thing, full of gallant dreams and endeavours. Itshould never grow tame or stale or placid, never lose its fine edge. There would be mountain peak beyond mountain peak to scale together. Theywould be co-workers, playmates, friends and lovers all at once, and theywould walk in liberty as in a bourgeois dream. 

So planned Barry Briscoe, the romantic, about whose head the visionsplendid always hovered, a realisable, capturable thing. 

Gerda thought, "I'm happy. Poetry and drawing and Barry. I've everythingI want, except a St. Bernard pup, and Kay's giving me that for Christmas. _I'm happy. _"

It was a tingling, intense, sensuous feeling, like stretching warm beforea good fire, or lying in fragrant thymy woods in June, in the old Juneswhen suns were hot. Life was a song and a dream and a summer morning. 

"You're happy, Gerda, " Neville said to her once, gladly but halfwistfully, and she nodded, with her small gleaming smile. 

"Go on being happy, " Neville told her, and Gerda did not know that shehad nearly added "for it's cost rather a lot, your happiness. " Gerdaseldom cared how much things had cost; she did not waste thought on suchmatters. She was happy. 

CHAPTER XV

THE DREAM

1

Barry and Gerda were married in January in a registry office, and, as allconcerned disliked wedding parties, there was no wedding party. 

After they had gone, Neville, recovered now from the lilies and languorsof illness, plunged into the roses and raptures of social life. Onemightn't, she said to herself, be able to accomplish much in this world, or imprint one's personality on one's environment by deeds andachievements, but one could at least enjoy life, be a pleasedparticipator in its spoils and pleasures, an enchanted spectator of itsnever-ending flux and pageant, its richly glowing moving pictures. Onecould watch the play out, even if one hadn't much of a part oneself. Music, art, drama, the company of eminent, pleasant and entertainingpersons, all the various forms of beauty, the carefully cultivatedrichness, graces and elegances which go to build up the world of thefortunate, the cultivated, the prosperous and the well-bred--Nevillewalked among these like the soul in the lordly pleasure house built forher by the poet Tennyson, or like Robert Browning glutting his sense uponthe world--"Miser, there waits the gold for thee!"--or Francis Thompsonswinging the earth a trinket at his wrist. In truth, she was at timesself-consciously afraid that she resembled all these three, whom (in themoods they thus expressed) she disliked beyond reason, finding themmorbid and hard to please. 

She too knew herself morbid and hard to please. If she had not beenso, to be Rodney's wife would surely have been enough; it would havesatisfied all her nature. Why didn't it? Was it perhaps really because, though she loved him, it was not with the uncritical devotion of theearly days? She had for so many years now seen clearly, through andbehind his charm, his weakness, his vanities, his scorching ambitionsand jealousies, his petulant angers, his dependence on praise andadmiration. She had no jealousy now of his frequent confidentialintimacies with other attractive women; they were harmless enough, andhe never lost the need of and dependence on her; but they may have helpedto clarify her vision of him. 

Rodney had no failings beyond what are the common need of human nature;he was certainly good enough for her. Their marriage was all right. Itwas only the foolish devil of egotism in her which goaded to unwholesomeactivity the other side of her nature, that need for self-expressionwhich marriage didn't satisfy. 

2

In February she suddenly tired of London and the British climate, and wasmoved by a desire to travel. So she went to Italy, and stayed in Capriwith Nan and Stephen Lumley, who were leading on that island lives byturns gaily indolent and fiercely industrious, finding the companystimulating and the climate agreeable and soothing to Stephen's defectivelungs. 

From Italy Neville went to Greece. Corinth, Athens, the islands, Tempe, Delphi, Crete--how good to have money and be able to see all these! Italyand Greece are Europe's pleasure grounds; there the cultivated and theprosperous traveller may satisfy his soul and forget carking cares andstabbing ambitions, and drug himself with loveliness. 

If Neville abruptly tired of it, and set her face homewards in earlyApril, it was partly because she felt the need of Rodney, and partlybecause she saw, fleetingly but day by day more lucidly, that one couldnot take one's stand, for satisfaction of desire, on the money which onehappened to have but which the majority bitterly and emptily lacked. Somecommon way there had to be, some freedom all might grasp, a liberty notfor the bourgeois only, but for the proletariat--the poor, the sad, thegay proletariat, who also grew old and lost their dreams, and had not thewherewithal to drug their souls, unless indeed they drank much liquor, and that is but a poor artificial way to peace. 

Voyaging homewards through the spring seas, Neville saw life as anentangling thicket, the Woods of Westermain she had loved in herchildhood, in which the scaly dragon squatted, the craving monster selfthat had to be subjugated before one could walk free in the enchantedwoods. 

 "Him shall change, transforming late, Wonderously renovate. .. . "

Dimly discerning through the thicket the steep path that climbed tosuch liberty as she sought, seeing far off the place towards which herstumbling feet were set, where life should be lived with alert readinessand response, oblivious of its personal achievements, its personal claimsand spoils, Neville the spoilt, vain, ambitious, disappointed egoist, strained her eyes into the distance and half smiled. It might be a dream, that liberty, but it was a dream worth a fight. .. . 

CHAPTER XVI

TIME

1

February at St. Mary's Bay. The small fire flickered and fluttered inthe grate with a sound like the windy beating of wings. The steady rainsloped against the closed windows of The Gulls, and dropped patteringlyon the asphalt pavements of Marine Crescent outside, and the cold greysea tumbled moaning. 

Grandmama sat in her arm-chair by the hearth, reading the Autobiographyof a Cabinet Minister's Wife and listening to the fire, the sea and therain, and sleeping a little now and again. 

Mrs. Hilary sat in another arm-chair, surrounded by bad novels, as if shehad been a reviewer. She was regarding them, too, with something of thereviewer's pained and inimical distaste, dipping now into one, shuttingit with a sharp sigh, trying another; flinging it on the floor with anejaculation of anger and fatigue. 

Grandmama woke with a start, and said "What fell? Did something fall?"and adjusted her glasses and opened the Autobiography again. 

"A sadly vulgar, untruthful and ill-written book. The sort ofautobiography Gilbert's wife will write when she has time. It reminds mevery much of her letters, and is, I am sure, still more like the diarywhich she no doubt keeps. Poor Gilbert. .. . " Grandmama seemed to beconfusing Gilbert momentarily with the Cabinet Minister. "I remember, "she went on, "meeting this young woman at Oxford, in the year of thefirst Jubilee. .. . A very bright talker. They can so seldomwrite. .. . " She dozed again. 

"Will this intolerable day, " Mrs. Hilary enquired of the housemaidwho came in to make up the fire, "never be over? I suppose it will bebed-time _some time_. .. . "

"It's just gone a quarter past six, ma'am, " said the housemaid, offeringlittle hope, and withdrew. 

Mrs. Hilary went to the window and drew back the curtains and looked outat Marine Crescent in the gloomy, rainy twilight. The long eveningstretched in front of her--the long evening which she had never learnt touse. Psycho-analysis, which had made her so much better while the courselasted, now that it was over (and it was too expensive to go on withforever) had left her worse than before. She was like a drunkard deprivedsuddenly of stimulants; she had nothing to turn to, no one now who tookan interest in her soul. She missed Mr. Cradock and that bi-weekly hour;she was like a creeper wrenched loose from its support and flung flat onthe ground. He had given her mental exercises and told her to continuethem; but she had always hated mental exercises; you might as well go infor the Pelman course and have done. What one needed was a _person_. Shewas left once more face to face with time, the enemy; time, which gaveitself to her lavishly with both hands when she had no use for it. Therewas nothing she wanted to do with time, except kill it. 

"What, dear?" murmured Grandmama, as she rattled the blind tassel againstthe sill. "How about a game of piquet?"

But Mrs. Hilary hated piquet, and all card games, and halma, anddominoes, and everything. Grandmama used to have friends in to play withher, or the little maid. This evening she rang for the little maid, May, who would rather have been writing to her young man, but liked to obligethe nice old lady, of whom the kitchen was fond. 

It was all very well for Grandmama, Mrs. Hilary thought, stormilyrevolting against that placidity by the hearth. All very well forGrandmama to sit by the fire contented with books and papers and gamesand sleep, unbitten by the murderous hatred of time that consumedherself. Everyone always thought that about Grandmama, that things wereall very well for her, and perhaps they were. For time could do littlemore hurt to Grandmama. She need not worry about killing time; time wouldkill her soon enough, if she left it alone. Time, so long to Mrs. Hilary, was short now to Grandmama, and would soon be gone. As to May, the littlemaid, to her time was fleeting, and flew before her face, like a bird shecould never catch. .. . 

Grandmama and May were playing casino. A bitter game, for you build andothers take, and your labour is but lost that builded; you sow and othersreap. But Grandmama and May were both good-tempered and ladylike. Theyplayed prettily together, age and youth. 

Why did life play one these tricks, Mrs. Hilary cried within herself. What had she done to life, that it should have deserted her and left herstranded on the shores of a watering-place, empty-handed and pitiful, alone with time the enemy, and with Grandmama, for whom it was all verywell?

2

In the Crescent music blared out--once more the Army, calling for strayedsheep in the rain. 

"Glory for you, glory for me!" it shouted. And then, presently:

 "Count--your--blessings! Count them one by one! And it will _surprise_ you what the Lord has done!"

Grandmama, as usual, was beating time with her hand on the arm of herchair. 

"Detestable creatures, " said Mrs. Hilary, with acrimony, as usual. 

"But a very racy tune, my dear, " said Grandmama, placidly, as usual. 

"Blood! Blood!" sang the Army, exultantly, as usual. 

May looked happy, and her attention strayed from the game. The Army wasone of the joys, one of the comic turns, of this watering-place. 

"Six and two are eight, " said Grandmama, and picked them up, recallingMay's attention. But she herself still beat time to the merry music-halltune and the ogreish words. 

Grandmama could afford to be tolerant, as she sat there, looking over theedge into eternity, with Time, his fangs drawn, stretched sleepily behindher back. Time, who flew, bird-like, before May's pursuing feet; time, who stared balefully into Mrs. Hilary's face, returning hate for hate, rested behind Grandmama's back like a faithful steed who had carried herthus far and whose service was nearly over. 

The Army moved on; its music blared away into the distance. The rainbeat steadily on wet asphalt roads; the edge of the cold sea tumbled andmoaned; the noise of the fire flickering was like unsteady breathing, orthe soft fluttering of wings. 

"Time is so long, " thought Mrs. Hilary. "I can't bear it. "

"Time gets on that quick, " thought May. "I can't keep up with it. "

"Time is dead, " thought Grandmama. "What next?"

CHAPTER XVII

THE KEY

1

Not Grandmama's and not Neville's should be, after all, the last word, but Pamela's. Pamela, who seemed lightly, and as it were casually, toswing a key to the door against which Neville, among many others, beat;Pamela, going about her work, keen, debonair and detached, ironic, cool and quiet, responsive to life and yet a thought disdainful of it, lightly holding and easily renouncing; the world's lover, yet not itsservant, her foot at times carelessly on its neck to prove her power overit--Pamela said blandly to Grandmama, when the old lady commented one dayon her admirable composure, "Life's so short, you see. Can anything whichlasts such a little while be worth making a fuss about?"

"Ah, " said Grandmama, "that's been my philosophy for ten years . .. Onlyten years. You've no business with it at your age, child. "

"Age, " returned Pamela, negligent and cool, "has extremely little to dowith anything that matters. The difference between one age and anotheris, as a rule, enormously exaggerated. How many years we've lived on thisridiculous planet--how many more we're going to live on it--what atrifle! Age is a matter of exceedingly little importance. "

"And so, you would imply, is everything else on the ridiculous planet, "said Grandmama, shrewdly. Pamela smiled, neither affirming nor denying. Lightly the key seemed to swing from her open hand. 

"I certainly don't see quite what all the fuss is about, " said Pamela.