The Sea, The Sea Part 7

'I really must go'

'That's right, sod off just when consciousness is becoming bearable, and the light of understanding has dawned. I have got a great deal more to say to you. Oh all right, sod off then! I think I'll come down to see you at your place by the sea, I'll come at Whitsun if the weather's decent, and we'll get drunk again'

'Goodbye, Peregrine. I'm sorry about Ireland.'

'You're drunk after all. f.u.c.k off.' As I went out of the door I heard him murmuring, 'So clean, so b.l.o.o.d.y clean', as his head slowly drooped towards the wine-stained tablecloth.

When I had finished writing the above, which brought my novel-diary up to date, I packed my suitcase and left my muddled awful little London flat, where I had not had the heart to so much as move a chair or unpack a cup. I had had my lunch (I finished up the macaroni cheese) and imagined that a blank uneventful interval now divided me from my evening train home (I was wrong). I decided to spend some of the time at a picture gallery. I am not very knowledgeable about pictures, but they give me a certain calm pleasure, and I like the atmosphere of galleries, whereas I detest the atmosphere of concert halls. I must confess too that I derive a lot of sheer erode satisfaction from pictures of women. The painters obviously did after all, so why not me?

After some indecision I decided to go to the Wallace Collection, where I had not been for some time. My father, who knew even less about pictures than I do, had taken me there once as a boy to see Frans Hals's 'Laughing Cavalier' on one of our rare visits to London, and I a.s.sociated the place with him. I think my father liked the gallery because it was so quiet and there was so much furniture as well as pictures, so it seemed like a palatial private house. He was particularly pleased by the many clocks (he liked clocks) which all, not quite at the same time and with varied chimes, struck the hour while we were there. The place, when I arrived, was almost empty, and I started wandering about in a sort of daze, looking at the pictures and thinking about Hartley. I was feeling a bit unreal as a result of the serious hangover which I had been fighting all the morning. The trouble with good wine is that it is very alcoholic bat you cannot publicly pour water into it. In spite of aspirins with my lunch I still had a headache. A sort of brown fuzz and some very volatile darting black spots intermittently marred my field of vision. I felt unsteady and somewhat oddly related to the ground, as if I had suddenly become extremely tall. Then it began to seem that so many of my women were there; only not Hartley. She was a vast absence, a pale partly disembodied being, her face hanging always just above my field of vision like an elusive moon. I had always run to women as to a refuge. What indeed are women but but refuges? And sometimes it had seemed that to be held close in a woman's arms was the only and perfect defence against any horror. Yes, they had, so many of them, been perfect to me, and yet... after a while... one leaves a refuge. Hartley was different, she travelled with me, I had never seen her as a place of safety. She had come inside the circle of myself and was within me, a pure substance of my being, like nerves, like blood. But the others, as I walked about, gliding and blinking and uncertainly related to the ground, they were there: Lizzie by Terborch, Jeanne by Nicolaes Maes, Rita by Domenichino, Rosina by Rubens, a perfectly delightful study by Greuze of Clement as she was when I first met her... Darling beautiful Clement, how she hated growing old. There was even a picture of my mother by Reynolds, a bit flattering but a likeness. Yes, I looked for Hartley. Some could have rendered her, Campin perhaps, Memling or Van Eyck. But she was not there. And then the clocks all began to strike four. refuges? And sometimes it had seemed that to be held close in a woman's arms was the only and perfect defence against any horror. Yes, they had, so many of them, been perfect to me, and yet... after a while... one leaves a refuge. Hartley was different, she travelled with me, I had never seen her as a place of safety. She had come inside the circle of myself and was within me, a pure substance of my being, like nerves, like blood. But the others, as I walked about, gliding and blinking and uncertainly related to the ground, they were there: Lizzie by Terborch, Jeanne by Nicolaes Maes, Rita by Domenichino, Rosina by Rubens, a perfectly delightful study by Greuze of Clement as she was when I first met her... Darling beautiful Clement, how she hated growing old. There was even a picture of my mother by Reynolds, a bit flattering but a likeness. Yes, I looked for Hartley. Some could have rendered her, Campin perhaps, Memling or Van Eyck. But she was not there. And then the clocks all began to strike four.

Some workmen were doing something or other downstairs, hammering a lot, flas.h.i.+ng lights swarmed and receded, blending with my headache. I found myself searching my mind for something that it was important to remember, to do with that night when I had lain out on the rocks and seen the ultimate cavern of the stars when the universe seemed to be turning inside out, and at the time this had reminded me of something, only I could not make out what; only now, as I seemed to see again that vast slowly changing infinitely deep dome of luminously golden stars, stars behind stars behind stars, did I recall what it was that I had been put in mind of. It was the changing lights in the Odeon cinema where I used to go with Hartley as a child!

I was in the big central gallery where my father had taken me to see the 'Laughing Cavalier,' and the light seemed a little hazy and chunky and sort of granulated and brownish, even though the sun was s.h.i.+ning outside, or perhaps it was just my hangover. The gallery was empty. Then I noticed something that seemed odd, a sort of resonant coincidence. I was gazing in a dazed way at t.i.tian's picture of Perseus and Andromeda, and I had been admiring the graceful naked figure of the girl, whose almost dancing pose as she struggles with her chains makes her seem as airborne as her rescuer, when I seemed to notice suddenly, though I had seen it many times before, the terrible fanged open mouth of the sea dragon, upon which Perseus was flying down head first. The sea dragon did not quite resemble my sea monster, but the mouth was very like, and the memory of that hallucination, or whatever it was, was suddenly more disquieting than it had ever been since the first shock of its appearance. I turned quickly away and found myself face to face with, directly opposite, Rembrandt's picture of t.i.tus. So t.i.tus was here too. t.i.tus and the sea monster and the stars and holding Hartley's hand in the cinema over forty years ago. I began to walk away down the long room and as I did so the hammering of the workmen down below seemed to be becoming more rhythmic, clearer, faster, more insistent, like the sound of those wooden clappers, which the j.a.panese call hyos.h.i.+gi hyos.h.i.+gi, and which are used to create suspense or announce doom in the j.a.panese theatre, and which I often used to use myself in my own plays. I began to walk away down the gallery and as I went my hangover seemed to be turning into a sort of fainting fit. When I reached the door at the end I stopped and turned round. A man had come into the room by the other door at the far end and was standing looking at me through the curiously brownish murky air. I reached out and put one hand on the wall. Of course I recognized him at once. He was my cousin James.

'Feeling better?'

'Yes, that stuff has worked a miracle, some old Tibetan hangover remedy no doubt.'

It was five o'clock and I was sitting in James's flat in Pimlico. James's flat resembles some chaotic oriental emporium, and I used to despise it accordingly until I realized that a great many of those tallhatted Buddhas and curvaceous s.h.i.+vas which I had taken to be made of bra.s.s were in fact made of gold. I recalled Toby Ellesmere once telling me that my cousin was a very rich man. (I have often wondered why I never managed to become rich.) He must have inherited plenty from his parents. Probably Ellesmere invested it for him. A lot of the stuff in the flat now does appear to me to be valuable, although as a collector or connoisseur I do not rate cousin James very high. He seems to have no conception of how to sort or arrange his possessions, they are dumped and piled rather than arranged, and elegant objets d'art objets d'art are juxtaposed with the merest oddments of the bazaar. Sentimentality, unworldliness, despair? are juxtaposed with the merest oddments of the bazaar. Sentimentality, unworldliness, despair?

The scene is such that it must be listed rather than described. James's rooms are full of what I can only call, though I daresay he would dislike the 'word, fetishes fetishes: oddly shaped stones, sticks, sh.e.l.ls, to which other things such as feathers have been (why, by whom?) tied or stuck, uneven bits of wood carved with crude faces, large teeth and even bones with strange marks (writing?) upon them. The walls are entirely covered either with books or with embroideries, or rather brilliant blue hangings, upon which have been fixed various far from rea.s.suring masks. A lot of necklaces (rosaries?) lie about, tangled in bowls or hanging down in front of scrolls or mandala-pictures or photos of a place picturesquely called k.u.mb.u.m. There are also a number of very exquisite have-worthy jade animals which I used to feel tempted to pocket, and plates and bowls of that heavenly Chinese grey sea-green colour wherein, beneath the deep glaze, when you have mopped the dust off with your handkerchief, you can descry lurking lotuses and chrysanthemums. On little lacquer altars, as I presume they are, stand, or sit, the Buddhas, what I take to be prayer wheels, and also miniature paG.o.das and curious boxes with complicated towers on top of them, some studded with coral and turquoise and other semi-precious stones. There is also, perched upon a bracket, an ornate paG.o.da-shaped wooden casket which James says is like the ones in which lamas are accustomed to keep demons prisoner. (When I asked if there was a demon in that one James just laughed.) Bejewelled too are the sheaths and handles of daggers, one of which (it is usually on James's desk) has a long curving golden handle. I once saw it lying on his bed. I sometimes think there is something rather childish about my cousin.

The flat has an odd unique sweetish smell which I attribute to incense, though when I once asked James about it he said 'mice', which was I suppose a joke. Odd intermittent tinkling sounds are caused (I think) by pendant gla.s.s ornaments hanging in the recesses of the rather long and obscure hallway. These sounds reminded me of the faint clicking of my bead curtain at Shruff End; and it gave me a weird feeling to think of my 'funny house' all empty and silent (at least I hope so!) except for the tap-tap of that curtain swaying gently in the moving air. James's flat is situated in one of those long Pimlico streets leading down to the river, which used to be so shabby but are now becoming so smart. It is a large flat, but unusually dark because of a lot of dusky and rather randomly placed painted screens, and of James's habit of keeping the curtains half drawn by day and lighting only one lamp in each room. It took me some time to appreciate James's stuff partly because it was usually too dark to see it. The place is also of course full of books, many in languages which I cannot identify. This has been James's London base for many years, and as he has been abroad so much it is perhaps no wonder that it looks like a mere cluttered-up dumping ground.

We had been drinking tea out of little incredibly frail transparent porcelain bowls, and eating the custard cream biscuits which I remember James liking so much when he was a boy. I had no sensibility about food when I was young, but James was always choosey and faddish. He is of course a vegetarian, but was so even as a child, having made his decision, then a very odd one, entirely by himself. He was now just opening a window (the room was very stuffy and fragrant of 'mice'), to let out a fly which he had carefully caught with a tumbler and a sheet of paper which I think he kept handy for this purpose. He closed the window. I sneezed. A distant bell tinkled. I wondered how long James had been watching me in the picture gallery before I noticed him, and why indeed he had been there at all on that particular day at that particular hour.

Let me now try once more to describe my cousin's appearance. His face seems dark though he is not really swarthy. He has to shave twice a day. Sometimes he looks positively dirty. His hair, now a fairly copious untidy ruff around a little bald spot, is dark brown, like Aunt Estelle's, only very dry and floppy, whereas hers was glossy. His eyes are a murky brown, an indeterminate unspecifiable shade which seems to change, now blackish, now a dark earthy yellow. He has a thin hooked nose and thin clever-looking lips. His face is unmemorable, by which I do not mean dull, it is indeed a rather intense face, but I mean that when I picture it in absence I can only conjure up a set of features, not a coherent whole. Perhaps it is just not a very coherent face. It is as if a fuzzy cloud hangs over it, and this goes with, or perhaps is, my idea that James is rather dark or dirty. At the same time, his inane boyish square-toothed grin can often make him look almost silly. His 'muddy look' is not furtive and certainly not sinister, but just somehow occluded. I wondered once again, as I now watched him smiling slightly as he let the fly out of the window, how exactly it was that he managed to resemble Aunt Estelle. Perhaps it was some trick of expression, a glow of concentration which in Aunt Estelle's case was a kind of joy, but in James's case was something quite else.

'So your house stands there by the sea, all alone, on the rocks really?'

'Yes.'

'That's good, that's good.' James's murky eyes widened and then became for an instant vacant, as if he were voyaging elsewhere. This momentary absence was characteristic too, it never lasted more than seconds. I used to wonder if he took drugs (many of those old eastern hands do) but it may simply have been boredom. How I used to worry when I was young about whether I bored James! 'But don't you miss the bustle of the theatre? You never had any hobbies that I can remember. Whatever do you do with yourself all day? Paint the house? I am told that's what retired people do.'

James did not always, in talking to me, avoid a perhaps instinctive reversion to a slightly patronizing jokey tone which used to madden me when we were boys, especially since he was the younger. The ba.n.a.l phrase 'the bustle of the theatre' and the equation of me with 'retired people' seemed with an easy gesture to consign my activities past and present to unimportance. Or perhaps I was still being too sensitive.

'I am writing my memoirs.'

'Theatre chat? Anecdotes about actresses?'

'Certainly not! I want to do the deep thing, real a.n.a.lysis, real autobiography'

'Not easy to do.'

'I know it's not easy to do!'

'We are such inward secret creatures, that inwardness is the most amazing thing about us, even more amazing than our reason. But we cannot just walk into the cavern and look around. Most of what we think we know about our minds is pseudo-knowledge. We are all such shocking poseurs, so good at inflating the importance of what we think we value. The heroes at Troy fought for a phantom Helen, according to Stesichorus. Vain wars for phantom goods. I hope you will allow yourself plenty of reflections on human vanity. People lie so, even we old men do. Though in a way, if there is art enough it doesn't matter, since there is another kind of truth in the art. Proust is our authority on French aristocrats. Who cares what they were really like? What does it mean even?'

'I should say it meant something simple and obvious, but then I am no philosopher! And I should say that it mattered too. It matters to the historian, it even matters to the critic.' Nor did I care for 'we old men'. Speak for yourself, cousin.

'Does it signify what really happened to Lawrence at Deraa? If even a dog's tooth is truly wors.h.i.+pped it glows with light. The venerated object is endowed with power, that is the simple sense of the ontological proof. And if there is art enough a lie can enlighten us as well as the truth. What is the truth anyway, that truth? As we know ourselves we are fake objects, fakes, bundles of illusions. Can you determine exactly what you felt or thought or did? We have to pretend in law courts that such things can be done, but that is just a matter of convenience. Well, well, it doesn't signify. I must come and see your seaside house and your birds. Are there gannets?'

'I don't know what gannets look like.'

James was silent, shocked.

I was beginning to have an old familiar sensation which, oddly enough, I tended to forget in the interim, a feeling of disappointment and frustrated helplessness, as if I had looked forward to talking to James and had then been deliberately excluded from some kind of treat; as if something significant which I wanted to tell him had been, inside my very soul, shrivelled, trivialized by a casual laser beam of his intelligence. James's mode of thought, his level of abstraction, was entirely unlike mine and he seemed to be sometimes almost frivolously intent upon exhibiting the impossibility of any communication between us. But of course really there was no intent, and indeed no treat, and in many ways my cousin could be seen as a bore, as an eccentric pedant with a kind of world-weariness which was simply tedious. He too after all had had his disappointments and about the most important of these I would doubtless never know. I suppose what I wanted was simply some ordinary amicable converse with James, which never happened, and which I was perhaps wrong in thinking that I could even imagine. After all, he was all that was left of my father and mother and Uncle Abel and Aunt Estelle.

'The sea, the sea, yes,' James went on. 'Did you know that Plato was descended from Poseidon on his father's side ? Do you have porpoises, seals?'

'There are seals, I'm told. I haven't seen any.'

I put my little fragile tea bowl down with such force that I had to lift it up again to make sure it was not cracked. I held on to the sides of my chair. It had just occurred to me that the weird feeling I had experienced in the gallery, and which James's potion had cured, was not just a hangover, but the threatened recommencement of the hallucination induced by LSD. I quite suddenly began to have something like the same feeling again, combined with a vivid image of the open mouth of t.i.tian's sea dragon.

'What is it, Charles? You're wrought up about something. You were distressed in the gallery. I was watching you. What is it? Are you ill?'

'Do you ever remember my mentioning a girl called Mary Hartley Smith?'

I had certainly not intended to talk to James about Hartley, I had not conceived of such a confidence. It was as if I had been driven into some corner or put under some spell where the only efficacious charm was the actual mention of her name.

James, reverting to his bored air, reflected, 'No, I can't say that I do.'

In fact I was pretty sure that I had been careful never to mention Hartley to James.

'Who is she then?'

'She was the first girl I ever loved, and I don't think I've ever really loved anyone else. She loved me too. We were at school together. Then she went off and married another man and disappeared. I never stopped thinking about her and caring about her, and that's why I never got married. Well, I've just come across her again, she's there, down there by the sea, living in the village with her husband, I've seen her, I've talked to her, it's incredible, and all that old love is still there, stretched out right from the beginning of my life till now'

'You relieve my mind,' said James, 'I thought you might be sickening for the 'flu, and I'm very very anxious not to catch it myself just now.' anxious not to catch it myself just now.'

'I've met her husband. He's nothing, a little ignorant bullying fellow. But sheoh she was so glad to see me, she still loves meI can't help feeling it's a sign, a new beginning'

'Is it the same man?'

'How do you meanoh yes, it's the same man.'

'Have they children?'

'A boy, eighteen or something, he's adopted, but he's run away and they don't know where he is, he's lost'

'Lostthat must be sad for them.'

'But ohHartley, of course she's changed, and yet she hasn't changed and I mean what incredible luck to meet her again like that, it's the hand of destiny. And she's had such an unhappy life, it's as if she has prayed for me and I have come.'

'And-so-?'

'Well, so, I shall rescue her and make her happy for whatever time remains to us.' Yes, it was simple, and nothing less than that great solution would serve. I lay back in my chair.

'More tea?'

'No thanks. I think I'd like a drink now. Dry sherry.'

James began fiddling in a cupboard. He poured out a gla.s.s for me. He seemed in no hurry to comment on my amazing revelation, as if he had already forgotten it. He continued quietly drinking tea.

'Well,' I said after a minute, 'that's enough about me. Tell me about yourself, James, how is the army treating you these days? Off to Hong Kong or somewhere?' Two could play at that game.

'I know you want me to say something', said James, 'but I can't think what to say, I don't know what it means. This old flame turning up, I don't know how to react. I have various thoughts '

'Tell me a few.'

'One is that you may be deluding yourself in thinking that you have really loved this woman all these years. What's the proof? And what is love anyway? Love's all over the mountains where the beautiful go to die no doubt, but I cannot attach much meaning to your idea of such a long-lasting love for someone you lost sight of so long ago. Perhaps it's something you've invented now. Though of course what follows from that that is another matter. Another thought I have is that your rescue idea is pure imagination, pure fiction. I feel you cannot be serious. Do you really know what her marriage is like? You say she's unhappy, most people are. A long marriage is very unifying, even if it's not ideal, and those old structures must be respected. You may not think much of her husband, but he may suit her, however impressed she is by meeting you again. Has she said she wants to be rescued?' is another matter. Another thought I have is that your rescue idea is pure imagination, pure fiction. I feel you cannot be serious. Do you really know what her marriage is like? You say she's unhappy, most people are. A long marriage is very unifying, even if it's not ideal, and those old structures must be respected. You may not think much of her husband, but he may suit her, however impressed she is by meeting you again. Has she said she wants to be rescued?'

'No, but-'

'What does the husband think of you?'

'He warned me off.'

'Well, my advice is stay warned.'

I was not completely surprised by James's line, his refusal to express a lively interest in my situation. I had noticed in the past that my cousin did not like any discussion of marriage. The subject embarra.s.sed, perhaps depressed him.

I said, 'The voice of reason.'

'Of instinct. I feel it could all end in tears. Better to cool down. One should not come too close to what one may intuit as the misery of others.'

'Thanks for your reactions, cousin. Now tell me about yourself.'

'You mustn't miss your train. But I can order a taxi by telephone, there is quite a reliable firm at Victoria. What is his name?'

'The husband?'

'No, sorry, I meant the lost boy, the son.'

't.i.tus.'

't.i.tus,' said James thoughtfully. He went on, 'And have they searched for him? Told the police and so on, whatever one does?'

'I don't know.'

'Has he been gone long, have they no clue, no theory about where he is? Have they had a letter?'

'I don't know, I don't know'

'It must be terrible'

'Yes, no doubt. Now let's forget my antics. What about your plans, what's the latest in army life?'

'The armyohI've left the army.'

'Left the army?' I was perhaps stupidly surprised and oddly dismayed, as if the army had somehow been keeping James safe, or safely caged up, or innocuously occupied, or something. I suppose I always felt that his soldiering made it happily impossible for us ever to collide or compete. Whereas now... 'Oh well, you've retired, of course, golden handshake and all that. So we are both retired generals!'

'Not exactly retired, no.'

'You mean?'

'I have, as the expression goes, left the army under a cloud.'

I put my gla.s.s down and sat up straight. Now I was really amazed and upset. 'No! James, you can'tI mean' Speculations, of a not too improbable kind, about what sort of cloud my cousin had left the army under, crowded my mind and reduced me to silence.

I looked at James's darkened face. He was sitting with his back to the lamp. The evening, through the gap in the curtains, was still brilliantly blue. James was smiling slightly, as he had smiled when he released the fly, and I saw now that he was looking at another fly which was perched on his finger. This fly was was.h.i.+ng its front paws, then it was vigorously drawing its paws forward over its head. It stopped was.h.i.+ng. James and the fly looked at each other.

'Not to worry however,' said James. He moved his finger and the fly flew off. 'I had effectively come to the end of my career in any case and I shall not lack occupations.'

'You can paint the house.'

James laughed. 'Would you like to see a picture of a gannet? Well, another time perhaps. A pity you aren't here tomorrow, we could go to Lord's. The Test Match is in an interesting condition. I had better telephone for your taxi. Here, take some of these biscuits, I know you like them. Aunt Marian always used to stuff some secretly into my pocket when I was leaving your place!'

After James had rung for the taxi I said, 'Who was that old man I saw here last time?' I had suddenly recalled, and felt that I had entirely forgotten in the interim, that on the last occasion in James's flat, and just as I was leaving, I had seen, through a half open door, in another room, a little oriental old man with a wispy beard, sitting quietly upon a chair.

James seemed a little surprised. 'Oh him no one in particular he's gone, I'm glad to say. There now, there's the bell for your taxi. I hope you'll get a decent dinner on the train.'

'But my dear Charles,' said Rosina, 'I know you are a most eccentric creature, but you cannot cannot want a woman who looks eighty and has a moustache and beard!' want a woman who looks eighty and has a moustache and beard!'

It was the following day. I had got back very late. The taxi was waiting at the station all right, but the run home was slow because of a thick fog. There was no dinner on the train because of a strike, so I had had to make do with the custard cream biscuits, which I felt annoyed and sad to think of my mother stuffing into James's pockets long ago. When I reached Shruff End I ate some bread and cheese. (The b.u.t.ter had all gone rancid.) My bed was uninvitingly damp, but I managed to find a hot water bottle and exhaustion sent me to sleep. I awoke late, feeling stiff and cold, and as I sat up my teeth began to chatter. Well might I be frightened of what I was proposing to do that day.

I put on my warmest available clothes, including the thick Irish woollen sweater which poor Doris gave me, but found myself still shuddering. Perhaps James's suspicion about the 'flu had been right after all? A thick grey-golden mist still covered the land and the sea, bringing with it a terrible blanketed silence. The sea, where it was, when I walked out, just visible, caressing the rocks, was oily-smooth. The air felt damp and chill though I suppose it was not really very cold. A s.h.i.+rt which I had left drying upon the lawn was soaking wet. The interior of the house on the other hand was really icy, tomb-like, with an entirely new smell of mildew, and the insides of the windows were streaming with water. I tried, and failed, to light the new paraffin heater which I had purchased at the Fishermen's Stores. I made some tea and was beginning to feel a little better when I heard a motor car hooting at the end of the causeway. I guessed rightly that it was Rosina, and felt for a few moments such intense irritation that I wanted to run out at her screaming. I also considered hiding, but I was beginning to feel hungry and did not see why I should abandon my house to a perhaps prolonged invasion. Then I conceived, an intelligent selfprotective device, the idea of simply telling telling her. It was the right move. We were sitting in the kitchen, with the calor gas stove on, eating dried apricots and cheddar cheese. (Dried apricots eaten with cake should be soaked and simmered first, eaten with cheese they should be aboriginally dry.) I was drinking tea, Rosina was drinking brandy, which she had demanded. The fog was now so thick that the room seemed to be curtained, and I had lit two candles which seemed strangely unable to spread any of their pale little illumination through the opaque brown twilight of the room. An 'exciting light', Rosina called it. I had decided to tell her some version of the Hartley story because I could not, in my present mood, with my present terrible plan, abide the prospect of lying and fencing and perhaps having a dangerous row. To tell the truth, I was almost superst.i.tiously afraid of Rosina's hatred. I wanted to neutralize her for the time, so as not to have to worry about her. I would soon have quite other dangers and decisions; and I had an intuitive conception, which turned out to be correct, of how she would react to my confidences. her. It was the right move. We were sitting in the kitchen, with the calor gas stove on, eating dried apricots and cheddar cheese. (Dried apricots eaten with cake should be soaked and simmered first, eaten with cheese they should be aboriginally dry.) I was drinking tea, Rosina was drinking brandy, which she had demanded. The fog was now so thick that the room seemed to be curtained, and I had lit two candles which seemed strangely unable to spread any of their pale little illumination through the opaque brown twilight of the room. An 'exciting light', Rosina called it. I had decided to tell her some version of the Hartley story because I could not, in my present mood, with my present terrible plan, abide the prospect of lying and fencing and perhaps having a dangerous row. To tell the truth, I was almost superst.i.tiously afraid of Rosina's hatred. I wanted to neutralize her for the time, so as not to have to worry about her. I would soon have quite other dangers and decisions; and I had an intuitive conception, which turned out to be correct, of how she would react to my confidences.

She opened hostilities by saying (as I expected) that she had not believed a word of my recent story about having given up Lizzie, and had not believed that I was going to stay in London, and how right she had been, and if I imagined I was going to get rid of herI cut this short by telling her, briefly and selectively, the story of the 'old flame'. How very convenient these cliche phrases are, how soothing to the pained mind, and how misleading, how concealing. Here I was, about to make a decisive move, tormented by love and fear and awful incipient jealousy, telling Rosina a bland, even humorous, story about an 'old flame' and thus, while telling the truth, deceiving her. Rosina was cool, intrigued, delighted, intelligent. She was a very different auditor from my cousin and a much more satisfactory one. In fact I found a certain relief in telling the edited tale to this clever and, as it turned out, not unsympathetic woman. What I had intuited at the start, seconds perhaps (so swift is the mind) after hearing the maddening impertinent hooting of the little red car, was that Rosina would view 'the Hartley question' in quite a different light from 'the Lizzie question'.

It is an interesting fact about jealousy (and jealousy is no doubt a major topic in this memoir) that although it is in so many respects a totally irrational as well as a totally irresistible emotion, it does show a certain limited reasonableness where temporal priority is concerned. I had taken up with Lizzie after I had met and appreciated Rosina, and it was fixed (quite erroneously) in Rosina's mind that Lizzie had somehow 'stolen me away'. Lizzie was moreover still an attractive woman. Such things made up a cla.s.sical picture and evoked a typical response. But Hartley, under the 'old flame' heading, was a different matter altogether, and here Rosina's sheer intelligence did work on the side of reason. Hartley belonged to my remote past, Hartley was 'old' (that is, my age), Hartley was unattractive and undistinguished and (a not unimportant point) thoroughly married. These data quick Rosina had taken in and a.s.sembled, I could almost see the computer working behind her sparkling crooked eyes. Rosina had a.s.sessed my chances and did not rate them high. Like James, she thought it would end in tears; and my truthful narrative subtly encouraged this belief.

It was soon clear that of course Rosina could not, from any point of view, regard Hartley as a serious rival; so much was this so that she was even able to pity her, not maliciously, but with a kind of interested objectivity. What Rosina had grasped was that the encounter with Hartley had withered my interest in Lizzie. So... when the whole foolish episode had ended in disaster... intelligent sympathetic Rosina would be there to pick up the pieces. Of course Rosina saw my relief at talking, my grat.i.tude for her lively clever responses; and indeed I was, just for this moment, pleased with her. And of course I did not tell her everything, least of all my immediate plans. So dedicatedly Machiavellian did I feel just then that I had no sense of treachery as I thus talked Hartley over with dangerous witty Rosina. I led led Rosina, and, where it was necessary to me, her own inventive cleverness conveniently deceived her. It was interesting that Rosina clearly remembered the occasion when the headlights of her car had revealed Hartley to me pinned against the rock. 'T thought I was going to squash the old bag like a beetle. Come, Charles, she is an old bag, the poor thing, you can't deny it.' Rosina, and, where it was necessary to me, her own inventive cleverness conveniently deceived her. It was interesting that Rosina clearly remembered the occasion when the headlights of her car had revealed Hartley to me pinned against the rock. 'T thought I was going to squash the old bag like a beetle. Come, Charles, she is an old bag, the poor thing, you can't deny it.'

'Love doesn't think like that. All right, it's blind as a bat'

'Bats have radar. Yours doesn't seem to be working.'

'Use your intelligence, anyone can love anyone, consider Perry's Uncle Peregrine.'

'Perry's what-?'

'Never mind'

'I knew you were fibbing that time I drove you to London. You're a rotten actor, I can't think why you ever went into the theatre at all. I knew there was something going on, but I thought it was Lizzie.'

'I never felt like this about Lizzie.'