PART THREE (continued 2)

She remembered Jennifer saying once, suddenly: “There’s one thing certain in my life: that is, that I shall always love you.” And afterwards her eyes had shone as if with tears and laughter. She remembered the surprise and joy, the flooding confidence of that moment; for it had been said so quietly, as if the realization of that “always” held for something sorrowful, a sobering sense of fate. Her manner had had a simplicity far removed from the usual effervescence and extravagance: she had seemed to state a fact to be believed in forever, without question. In her life where all else was uncertain, fluid and undirected, where all turned in mazes of heat and sound, that only was the deep unshaken foundation, the changeless thing.... She had seemed to mean that, sitting back in her chair, her arms laid along her lap, her hands folded together, everything about her quiet and tender, her eyes resting on Judith as they never had before or since, long and full, with a depth of untroubled love.

That had been on a day in late April, at the beginning of the last Summer term. The happiness of reunion had never before seemed so complete. She had been in Scotland, Judith in Paris with Mamma, living resentfully in a reflection of Mamma’s alien existence. And then they were together again, and the summer term had opened with its unfailing week or so of exquisite weather.

They had taken the green canoe one morning and wandered up the river to Grandchester. There was no one at all in the Orchard when they reached it.

“Thank God I see no grey flannels,” said Jennifer. “I suppose the grass is still too wet for undergraduates to sit out.”

A light breeze was blowing through the orchard, ruffling long grass, dandelions, buttercups, and daisies. Under the trees, the little white tables, set in the green silken brilliance, were dappled with running light and shadow, and the apple branches, clotted with full blossom, gleamed against the sky in a tender childish contrast of simple colours,—pale pink upon pale blue. The air was dazed with a bewilderment of bird-song.

A rough brown terrier with golden eyes came prancing out on them, making known their presence with barkings half-ferocious, half-friendly. The dark waitress came lazily from the house, reluctant to serve them.

‘Is the Orchard open?’

‘Oh yes, it’s open.’

‘Can you let us have lunch?’

‘Oh I dare say.’

‘What can you let us have?’

‘You can have a cheese omelette and some fruit-salad.’

‘Divine,’ said Jennifer, and leapt for joy.

‘You better have it in the shelter. The grass is wet.’

She wandered away, smoothing her black untidy hair. She would not smile. There was something arresting and romantic in the thin sallow dark-browed young woman, preserving her ugliness, her faint unrelaxing bitterness among all the laughing renewals of her surroundings.

‘I’d like to pick her up and shake her into life. Make her smile and be young. Make her cheeks pink and her eyes bright,’ said Jennifer. ‘If I were a man I’d fall bang in love with her. What is her name do you think? Jessica? Anne? Rosa?’

‘Miriam.’

‘Yes, Miriam.’

How the remembered insignificant words brought flooding back the irrecoverable quality of that day!

Tits and robins, perching all around them, and the golden-eyed dog, had helped them to finish their meal.

Then they had lain back in their chairs, staring and saying nothing. And then it was that Jennifer had turned and broken the silence with her quiet, inevitable-seeming declaration; and after it Judith had reached out to touch her hand for a moment; and continued to sit beside her and dream.

Later in the afternoon they had seen grey-flannelled legs approaching and risen to go.

They met the dark girl walking down the gravel path towards the orchard, carrying a trayful of crockery.

‘We’ve come to pay you,’ said Jennifer radiantly smiling.

She gave the price without a flicker.

‘Judith, have you that much on you, darling?’ said Jennifer, and added, turning again to the girl: ‘We have so enjoyed ourselves.’

There was no response save a quick suspicious glance.

Currant bushes, wallflowers, narcissi, pansies, yellow daisies and tulips blossomed richly on each side of the path.

‘What a delicious garden!’ said Jennifer. ‘It’s at its very best, isn’t it?’

‘It’s looking nice,’ she admitted.

Jennifer pointed to a clump of stiff, serious purple-black tulips.

‘Those tulips are like you,’ she said, her eyes and mouth, all her glowing face, coaxing and appealing.

And suddenly the girl gave a little laugh, looking with soft eyes first at Jennifer, then away, shyly and deprecatingly, as who should say: ‘The idea! Me like a tulip! Well, you are a one—Daft ...’ but gratified and amused all the same.

‘I shall always think of you when I see tulips like that,’ said Jennifer. ‘Good-bye!’

‘Good-bye, Miss....’ She smiled, almost mischievously this time, and hurried on with her tray.

‘She was quite human,’ said Jennifer. ‘I wonder if she’s got a lover or if she’s longing for one, or if she’s been jilted, or what.... What makes her all shadowy and tight inside herself?’

She stood looking after the girl, as if meditating going back to ask her.

How Jennifer struck sparks from ordinary people! She knew how to live. To be with her was to meet adventure; to see, round every corner, the bush become the burning bush.

In a little while she would have forgotten the girl whose problem was now so urgent and exciting; but you yourself would always remember,—seeing it all dramatically, seeing it as a quiet story, hearing it as an unknown tune: making of it a water colour painting in gay foolish colours, or an intricate pencil pattern of light and shadow.

They left the Orchard.

‘I think,’ said Jennifer, ‘we will never come here again.’

They had not come again. That time had remained unblurred by any subsequent return in a different mood, with more companions, in another weather or season.

But Judith had thought, while she nodded agreement: ‘Some day, when I’m much older, I’ll come back alone and think of her; and then perhaps write and say: do you remember? Or perhaps not, in case she has forgotten.’

And now, it seemed, far sooner even than Judith had feared, Jennifer was forgetting everything. They had meant to go away together during the summer vacation; go to Brittany, and bathe and walk and read: but in the end Jennifer’s don had said cold things regarding Jennifer’s progress, and requested her to attend college during the Long. Judith had gone on a reading party with three of the circle, and written Jennifer long letters which were answered briefly and at rare intervals. But that was not surprising. Jennifer’s letters had always been spasmodic, if passionately affectionate. Then the letters had ceased altogether. Judith had written asking if they could not spend September together, and Jennifer had answered in five lines, excusing herself. She was going to shoot in Scotland in September.

And then the third year had started, with everything as it had always been, or seeming so, for a few moments; and then in one more moment shivered to pieces.

She would not stay behind alone, after the others had gone, to say good-night. She ceased to talk with abandonment and excitement, her eyes shining to see you listening, to feel you understanding. There seemed nothing to say now. In particular, she would not speak of the Long.

It was, of course, Mabel who was the first to hint of ill-tidings. Eating doughnuts out of a bag, late one night, during one of Judith’s charity visits, she said:

‘Has that Miss Manners been up lately?’

‘Who’s Miss Manners?’

‘Why—that Miss Manners, Jennifer’s friend, who stayed with her so much during the Long.’

‘Oh yes——’

‘I was sure you must have heard about her, because they seemed such very great friends. They were always about together and always up to some lark.’ She gave a snigger. ‘We used to wonder, we really did, how long it would be before Jennifer got sent down, the way they used to go on, coming in so late and all. But somehow Jennifer never gets found out, does she?’ Another snigger. ‘What a striking-looking girl she is.’

‘Who?’

‘Miss Manners.’

‘Oh yes.... I’ve never seen her. Only photographs.’

‘Everybody said what a striking pair they made.... I expect she’ll be up soon again, don’t you?’

‘I don’t know at all,’ said Judith. ‘I expect so.’ Mabel looked solemn.

‘The wrestling matches they used to have out there on the lawn! I used to watch them from my window. I wonder they didn’t.... I really wonder ... any of the don.... It looked so ... throwing each other about like that.... It’s not the sort of thing you expect—quite, is it? I mean....’

‘Oh, wrestling’s glorious,’ said Judith. ‘I love it. Jennifer’s tried to teach me. But I’m not strong enough for her; the—the—Manners girl is much more of a match for her.’

Mabel pursed up her mouth and was silent.

It was necessary to leave her quickly for fear of striking her; because her deliberate intent was obvious; because she knew quite well now that you had never before heard of Miss Manners; because you were seeing that girl plainly, tall, dark and splendid, striding on the lawn with Jennifer, grasping her in strong arms, a match for her in all magnificent unfeminine physical ways, as you had never been. Her image was all at once there, ineffaceably presenting itself as the embodiment of all hitherto unco-ordinated and formless fears, the symbol for change, and dark alarms and confusions. And the unbearable image of Mabel was there too, watching by herself, gloating down from the window with glistening eyes that said:

‘At last!’

She stopped short in the corridor, and moaned aloud, aghast at the crowding panic of her thoughts.

Judith, returning from her bath, heard voices and laughter late at night behind Jennifer’s door. Should she stop? All the circle must be there as usual, laughing and talking as if nothing were amiss. She alone had excluded herself, sitting with a pile of books in her room, pretending to have important work. It was her own fault. She had said she was busy, and they had believed her and not invited her to join their gathering. She would go in, and sit among them and smoke, and tell them things,—tell them something to make them laugh; and all would be as before. They would drift away in the end and leave her behind; she would turn and look at Jennifer in the firelight, put out a hand and say: ‘Jennifer....’

She opened the door and looked in.

The voices stopped, cut off sharply.

In the strange, charged, ensuing silence, she saw that the curtains were flung back. Purple-black night pressed up against the windows, and one pane framed the blank white globe of the full moon. They were all lying on the floor. Dark forms, pallid, moon-touched faces and hands were dimly distinguishable; a few cigarette points burned in the faint hanging cloud of smoke across the room. The fire was almost out. Where was Jennifer?

‘Hullo, there’s Judith,’ said one.

‘Is there room for me?’ said Judith in a small voice. She came in softly among them all, and went directly over to the window and sat on the floor, with the moon behind her head. She was conscious of her own unnatural precision and economy of movement; of her long slender body wrapped in its kimono crossing the room in three light steps, sinking noiselessly down in its place and at once remaining motionless, expectant.

Where was Jennifer?

‘All in the dark,’ she said, in the same soft voice. And then: ‘What a moon! Don’t you know it’s very dangerous to let it shine on you like this? It will make you mad.’

One or two of them laughed. She could now recognize the three faces in front of her. Jennifer must be somewhere by the fireplace. There was constraint in the room. She thought with awful jealousy: ‘Ah, they hate my coming. They thought they were getting rid of me at last. They come here secretly without me, to insinuate themselves. They all want her. They have all hated me always.’ She said:

‘Give me a cigarette, someone.’

Jennifer’s voice broke in suddenly with a sort of harsh clangour. From her voice, Judith knew how wild her eyes must be.

‘Here, here’s a cigarette, Judith.... Have something to eat. Or some cocoa. Oh—there was a bottle of cherry-brandy, but I believe we’ve finished it.’

Horrible confusion in her voice, a stumbling hurry of noise....

‘I have just licked up the last dregs,’ said a deep voice.

‘Who’s that who spoke then?’ said Judith softly and sweetly.

‘Oh ...’ cried Jennifer shrilly, ‘Geraldine, you haven’t met Judith yet.’

What was she saying? Geraldine Manners was staying the week-end, no, was wrestling on the lawn with her; had just arrived, no, had been in the room for months, since the summer, for they were such very great friends....

‘How do you do? I’m guessing what you are like from the way you speak,’ said Judith softly, laughingly.

‘Oh, I’m no good at that.’

How bored, how careless a voice!

‘Shall I switch on the light?’ said someone.

‘No!’ said Judith loudly.

She lifted up her arm against the window. The kimono sleeve fell back from it, and it gleamed cold and frail in the moonlight, like a snake. She spread out her long fingers and stared at them.

‘I would like to be blind,’ she said. ‘I really wish I were blind. Then I might learn to see with my fingers. I might learn to hear properly too.’

And learn to be indifferent to Jennifer; never to be enslaved again by the lines and colours of her physical appearance, the ever new surprise and delight of them; learn, in calm perpetual darkness, how the eyes’ tyrannical compulsions had obscured and distorted all true values. To be struck blind now this moment, so that the dreadful face of the voice by the fireplace remained for ever unknown!... Soon the light would go on, and painfully, hungrily, with awful haste and reluctance, the eyes would begin their work again, fly to their target.

‘Don’t be absurd, Judith,’ said someone. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about’; and went on to talk of work among the blind, of blinded soldiers, of St. Dunstan’s.

The conversation became general and followed the usual lines: it was better to be deaf than blind, blind than deaf. Jennifer and Geraldine were silent.

‘Oh, it’s time we went to bed,’ said someone. ‘Jennifer, I must go to bed. I’m almost asleep. What’s the time?’

Now the light would go on.

It went on. The room suddenly revealed its confusion of girls, cushions, chairs, cups, plates and cigarette-ends. Everybody was getting up, standing about and talking.

Jennifer was on her feet, voluble, calling loud good-nights. They made a group round her and round somebody still sitting on the floor beside her. Judith caught a glimpse of a dark head leaning motionless against the mantelpiece. Now they were all going away. Judith followed them slowly to the door and there paused, looking over her shoulder towards the fireplace.

‘Stay,’ said Jennifer shrilly. She was standing and staring at Judith with wild eyes; pale, with a deep patch of colour in each cheek, and lips parted.

‘No, I must go. I’ve got some work,’ said Judith, smiling over her shoulder. She let her eyes drop from Jennifer’s face to the other one.

At last it confronted her, the silent-looking face, watching behind its narrowed eyes. The hair was black, short, brushed straight back from the forehead, leaving small beautiful ears exposed. The heavy eyebrows came low and level on the low broad brow; the eyes were long slits, dark-circled, the cheeks were pale, the jaw heavy and masculine. All the meaning of the face was concentrated in the mouth, the strange wide lips laid rather flat on the face, sulky, passionate, weary, eager. She was not a young girl. It was the face of a woman of thirty or more; but in years she might have been younger. She was tall, deep-breasted, with long, heavy but shapely limbs. She wore a black frock and a pearl necklace, and large pearl earrings.

Judith said politely:

‘Is this the first time you have been here?’

‘No.’ She laughed. Her voice was an insolent voice.

‘I’m tired,’ said Jennifer suddenly, like a child.

‘You look it,’ said Judith. ‘Go to bed.’

‘I’ll get undressed.’ Jennifer passed a hand across her forehead and sighed.

The woman by the fireplace fitted a cigarette into an amber holder slowly, and lit it.

‘I’m not sleepy yet,’ she said. ‘I’ll wait till you’re in bed and come and tuck you up.’

‘This room feels——’ cried Jennifer staring around her in horror. She dashed to the window and flung it wide open; then disappeared into her bedroom; and there was not another sound from her.

The woman started singing to herself very low, as if forgetful of Judith’s presence; then broke off to say:

‘I like your kimono.’

Judith wrapped the long red and blue silk garment more closely round her hips.

‘Yes. It was brought me from Japan. I gave Jennifer one. A purple one.’

‘Oh, that one. She’s lent it to me. I forgot to bring a dressing-gown.’

She turned her head away, as if to intimate that so far as she was concerned conversation was neither interesting nor necessary.

Judith bit back the ‘Good-night, Jennifer’ which she was about to call; for she was never going to care any more what happened to Jennifer; never again soothe her when she was weary and excited, comfort her when she was unhappy. She would look at Jennifer coldly, observe her vagaries and entanglements with a shrug, comment upon them with detached and cynical amusement: hurt her, if possible, oh, hurt her, hurt her.

Now she would leave her with Geraldine and not trouble to ask herself once what profound and secret intimacies would be restored by her withdrawal.

She smiled over her shoulder and left the room.

10

A week later, Geraldine was still there. She and Judith had not met again; when she and Jennifer, arm in arm, were seen approaching, Judith avoided them; and changing her place at Hall—her place which had been beside Jennifer for two years—went and sat where she could not see the sleek dark head next to the fair one, turning and nodding in response.

All day they were invisible. Geraldine had a car, and they must go miles and miles into the country in the soft late autumn weather.

It seemed to Judith that life had ceased to bear her along upon its tide. It flowed past her, away from her; and she must stay behind, passive and of no account, while the current of Jennifer met and gaily mingled with a fresh current and fled on. It seemed as if even the opportunity for the gesture of relinquishment was to be denied her. And then, wearily returning from lectures one morning she found upon her table a torn scrap of paper scrawled over violently in an unknown hand.

‘Please be in your room at six o’clock this evening. I want to see you.

‘Geraldine Manners.’

It was an insolent note. She would ignore such a command. She would put a notice up on her door: Engaged—and turn the key; and when the woman came she would just have to go away again.

But at six o’clock Geraldine knocked loudly and she cried: ‘Come in.’ They stood facing each other.

‘Sit down,’ said Judith. But neither of them made any movement.

‘I wanted to see you.’ Her voice was low and emotional—angry perhaps; and Judith had a moment’s fainting sense of impotence. The woman was so magnificent, so mature and well-dressed; if there was to be a fight, what chance was there for a thin young student in a woollen jumper?

She leaned against the mantelpiece and, staring at Judith, flung at her:

‘What’s all this about?’

Judith sat down again, without a word, and waited, steadily holding the green eyes with her own. She heard the blood beat deafeningly in her ears.

Geraldine went on:

‘I think it’s the damnedest bit of impertinence I ever heard. Schoolgirls! My God!’ She flung her head back theatrically.

Judith thought, with a shudder of excitement and anguish: ‘Wait, wait. It is because you are unused to it that it seems like physical blows. Soon you will be able to collect yourself. This is anger and you are the cause. You are being insulted and called to account for the first time in your life. Carry it off. Carry it off.’

And her blood went on repeating ‘Jennifer’ in her ears.

Geraldine took a gold cigarette case and the amber holder from a gold chain bag with a sapphire clasp.

‘It’s pretty awful, isn’t it, to be so mean and petty? I’m sorry for you, I must say.’

‘Please don’t be sorry for me.’ She noted her own voice, icy and polite.

Geraldine had inserted a thin, yellow cigarette in the holder and was searching for a match.

‘Here,’ said Judith. She got up, took the matchbox from the mantelpiece and struck a light. Geraldine stooped her head down over the little flare. White lids, black curling lashes, broad cheek-bones, Egyptian lips—the heaviness, the thick waxen texture of the whole face: Judith saw them all with an aching and terrible intensity, her eyes clinging to the head bowed above her hand. She should have smelt like a gardenia.

‘Thank you,’ said Geraldine. She lifted her head, narrowed her eyes and puffed out smoke, moving and stretching her mouth faintly round the amber. She smoked like a man.

Judith sat down again.

Geraldine seemed now very much at her ease. She leaned against the mantelpiece, dominating the room: and she seemed of gigantic height and significance.

‘Are you a friend of Jennifer’s?’ she said.

‘Jennifer—is a person I know well.’

She looked at Judith as if in surprise at her tone and manner.

‘I had no idea of that. She never mentioned you.’

For a moment that dealt a blinding blow, with its instantaneous implications of dishonesty and indifference. But she repeated:

‘I’ve known her well for two years. You can ask her. She might admit it.’ And as she spoke the last words she thought with sudden excitement: ‘Just as I never mentioned Roddy....’

‘Oh, I can’t get anything out of her,’ said Geraldine and added truculently: ‘You might as well tell me what it’s all about.’

‘I have nothing whatever to tell you. I don’t know why you’ve come. I’d like you to tell me what it’s all about—or else go away, please.’ She was conscious all at once of a terrible inward trembling, and got up again. The other watched her in silence, and she added: ‘I haven’t been near her—since that night in her room. I’ve kept away—you know that night....’

‘What night?’

Judith broke into a sort of laugh; and then checked herself with a vast effort: for the suppressed hysteria of weeks was climbing upwards within her and if it broke loose, it might never, never cease.

‘Well—one night,’ she said, ‘I thought perhaps you remembered.’

There was not a flicker on Geraldine’s face. She must be very stupid or very cruel.

‘What beats me,’ said Geraldine, ‘is why this dead set against me?—against her and me. What do you want to interfere with us for? It’s not your business, any of you. I thought I’d come and tell you so.’

There was a curious coarseness about her: almost a vulgarity. It was difficult to combat.

Judith lifted her eyes and looked at her in silence.

‘So you’ve all sent Jennifer to Coventry.’ She laughed. ‘It’s marvellous. A female institution is really marvellous. At least it would be if it weren’t so nauseating.’ Still Judith was silent, and she added contemptuously:

‘I should have thought a bit better of you if you’d come yourself. Do you generally get other people to do your dirty work for you?’

Judith got up and went towards the door.

‘Where are you going?’ said Geraldine sharply.

‘To Jennifer, to ask her to explain.’

‘You can’t do that.’ The change in her voice and manner was noticeable. ‘Jennifer’s lying down. I left her trying to sleep. She mustn’t be disturbed.’

‘I can go to Jennifer whenever I like. I can always go to Jennifer. I don’t ask you whether I am to or not.’

At last this was anger, anger! At last she was able to want to wound, to cry: ‘I! I! I!’ brutally, aggressively, triumphantly in the face of her enemy. Pure anger for the first time in life.

‘Please! Listen,’ Geraldine took a few steps towards her. ‘Please, don’t go now. She’s very much upset. I left her crying.’

Crying—crying? Oh, that was a good thing. It was splendid that Jennifer should have been made to cry.... And yet ... if this woman had made her cry—poor Jennifer, darling Jennifer—you would——

The situation seemed suddenly to have become reversed. Judith felt herself momentarily strong in self-assurance; and Geraldine was hesitating, as if doubtful what to say.

‘What’s she crying about? It takes a good deal to make Jennifer cry.’

Geraldine shot her a glance and said venomously:

‘Yes. As far as I can make out, one of your charming friends must have taken a good deal of trouble to make her cry this morning. Anyway she seemed to have got it into her head that she’s treated somebody, or one of you, very badly—and that somebody was hurt—you were hurt—because she’d been neglecting you for me.’

‘How do you know she meant me?’

She was silent, and then said:

‘She was crying a good deal and thoroughly upset and I heard her say your name. So I went and asked someone where your room was and came straight. But you were out.’

‘Did she tell you to come?’

‘She didn’t tell me not to.’

‘Then she told you where my room was. She knows you’re here.’

‘I didn’t ask her where your room was. I—found out.’

‘And does she know you’re here?’

‘No.’ She added after a silence. ‘I didn’t come here to be cross-questioned.’

‘What did you come here for?’

‘Just to tell you we care that’—she snapped her fingers—‘for your mean little jealousies.’

‘Oh, it seems scarcely worth coming, just for that. It wasn’t worth losing your temper over, was it? Little jealousies are so common—in a female institution. I do think you over-estimate their importance. It isn’t as if you cared what we said, because you’ve just told me you don’t—either of you.’

‘And,’ she said, raising her voice angrily; ‘and to tell you I consider you owe me an apology—me and Jennifer.’

‘Oh!’ Judith buried her face in her hands and laughed. ‘Oh! that’s very funny.’

She looked up at Geraldine with a sudden fantastic hope that she would see her laughing too; but the face presented to her was hostile and heavy. At sight of it she felt the laughter begin to shake her terrifyingly; and checked it with a gasp.

Geraldine said:

‘I suppose you will deny having anything to do with this?’

‘Oh, deny it—of course I do,’ said Judith with weary contempt.

‘Deny having insinuated—suggested——’ she began loudly.

‘I have never bothered to mention your name to anyone. Why should I? It’s nothing to do with me.’

‘No,’ she said, her face and voice rousing a little from their heavy deliberate monotony. ‘It’s nothing to do with you.’ She thought a moment and added slowly: ‘Then there’s some misunderstanding.’

‘Yes, some misunderstanding. Why go on treating it as if it were important?’

After a silence she said:

‘Anything, however slight, that comes between me and Jennifer is important.’

Judith felt herself start to tremble again. Those slow words rang a doom for her; and her spurious advantage was at an end.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said uncertainly, ‘if I have come between you and Jennifer.’

‘Not you,’ she said. (Yes, she was a stupid or a cruel woman.) ‘But I know what people’s mischievous tongues can do, and I wanted to get to the bottom of it before I go away. Just to assure myself that I’m not leaving her to face anything—unpleasant or distressing.’

‘Ah, so you realize how easily she’s influenced.’

That was it then: the woman was afraid. She had given herself away at last: she knew the terrible insecurity of loving Jennifer. Judith felt a quiver of new emotion dart through her: it seemed like a faint pity.

‘I don’t want her bothered,’ said Geraldine aggressively. ‘I loathe this interfering.’

‘You don’t quite understand,’ said Judith in a voice of calm explanation, ‘how much Jennifer means to some people—a lot of people here. They love her. Naturally they resent it a little when somebody else comes in and claims all her attention. They miss her. Isn’t it natural? And then you see, since you’ve been here I believe she’s been getting into awful trouble for neglecting her work. I heard one of them say so a day or two ago—and another one said it was time someone spoke to her or she’d be sent down. So I daresay that’s what happened: somebody tried to give her a sort of warning. Of course it was silly: but then, as you say, girls are silly. It was meant kindly.’ She paused, feeling a kind of faintness, took a deep sighing breath and continued:

‘If my name was brought into it, it was because I have had—I think—a certain amount of influence with Jennifer. She and I were a good deal together at one time. But lately I have been working very hard. They have no business at all....’

She felt her voice dwindling and stopped, trembling now uncontrollably.

Geraldine lit another cigarette and leaned back against the mantelpiece. Oh, she was going to lean there for ever! If only she would allow you to soften her into some emotion of pity and understanding so that you might fling yourself down and weep, crying: “Now you must understand. Now I have told you all. Leave me.” But there was no hope of that. Her hostility was hardening. She was more alert now; and she seemed to be taking note for the first time since her sweeping entrance of Judith’s person. Her eyes went attentively over face, hands, feet, hair, clothes, and over the whole room. Something alive was rearing itself from the stony envelope. She was silent for a long time, and then said uncertainly:

‘I hope you won’t—mention all this to her.’ Judith laughed.

‘I can’t quite promise that,’ she said. ‘You see, we’ve been used to telling each other most things. There’s no reason to make a mystery of it. Is there?’

She was silent again; and then said:

‘I think it would be best not to say anything to her. I don’t want her to think there’s been any fuss. I don’t think she’ll care to hear any more about it. She was very unwilling to—to dwell——’

That brought home Jennifer’s attitude with painful clarity. She was, of course, flying to escape. Why should she go free always, always? This time it would be easy to make her uncomfortable, if not to hurt her. And yet, it could not be done. Once more she felt the faintest stir of sympathy with Geraldine. She said with a shrug:

‘Very well, I won’t refer to it.’

‘We’ll agree,’ said Geraldine, ‘to keep it to ourselves.’

Judith nodded.

Geraldine threw away her cigarette, smoothed her sleek hair, stood upright as if preparing to go and said with brisk indifference:

‘Well, I’m sorry if I’ve been a nuisance.’

‘Oh, you haven’t been a nuisance.’

Judith crushed her cold hands into her lap. Now it was almost over: soon she could let herself collapse. But Geraldine still lingered, looking about her.

‘You’ve got nice things,’ she said. ‘Most of the rooms I’ve seen are too frightful.’

‘I’m luckier than most girls here. I have more money.’

‘Do you like being here?’

‘I have liked it—and disliked it.’

‘Hmm. Jennifer hates it. I don’t wonder. I think I’ve persuaded her to leave and come abroad with me.’

Defeat at last. She had no answer to that, not one weapon left. She stared before her, paralyzed.

‘I can’t think,’ added Geraldine, ‘how she’s stuck it so long.’

Judith heard herself say slowly, softly:

‘As I told you, there are a great many people here who love her. That makes a difference, doesn’t it? People have to love Jennifer.’ She buried her face in her hands, and thought aloud, in a sort of whisper: ‘People have to love her and then she seems cruel. But she doesn’t mean to be. There’s something about her—people don’t seem to be able to love her clearly and serenely: they have to love her too much. Everything gets dark and confused and aching, and they want to—touch her and be the only one near her; they want to look after her and give her everything she wants. It’s tiring. And then when they’re tired she gives them back life. She pours life into them from herself.’

She stopped short, seeing in a flash how it had always been between herself and Jennifer. Tired, you had come again and again to her, pressing close to be replenished from her vitality. But Jennifer had not drunk life from you in return: quietness and tenderness and understanding, but not life. And the quietness had passed into sadness—yes, you knew now you had seen it happening sometimes,—sadness, flatness: the virtue had gone out of her in the incessant giving of herself, the incessant taking on of an alien quietness. You had wanted too much, you had worn her out. Perhaps after all you had been unlucky to Jennifer, committed that crime of trying to possess her separateness,—craved more than even she could give without destroying herself. So in the end she had gone to someone more wholesome for her nature. Perhaps after all the balance had been sorely ill-adjusted: she your creator, you her destroyer. Perhaps she should be surrendered to Geraldine now, ungrudgingly. She said, looking up at Geraldine:

‘I daresay you make her very happy.’

Geraldine said, answering Judith’s gaze unwaveringly:

‘Yes, we are very happy together. Absolutely happy.’

‘She is a good companion, isn’t she?’

‘Oh yes,’ she said, her heavy lips lifting in a faint curious smile.

What was in her voice?—insolence?—triumph?—malice?—an obscure challenge? She seemed to be implying that she knew things about Jennifer of which you had no knowledge. She was a terrible woman.

Judith could find no words, and the other continued:

‘She’s starting to find herself. It’s very interesting. Of course nobody’s understood her here.’

‘And you think you do?’

‘I do, yes.’

‘Oh, but I’d never dare say that about a person I loved! You might seem to touch everywhere and all the time be strangers.’ Judith clasped her hands and spoke urgently:

‘Oh, don’t you feel how you might long to say to someone you love: I give you all myself, all myself—and all the time be sad because with all your efforts and longing you know you never could—that the core can’t ever be stirred at all? It seems such dreadful arrogance to say—’ she stopped short, pressing her hand to her lips, shutting her eyes. After a pause she added quickly: ‘But I don’t doubt you love her ...’ she sighed. ‘Thank God this term is nearly over. This is a terrible place for getting overwrought.’

Geraldine seemed to be thinking deeply. Her face was awake and preoccupied behind its heavy mask.

‘It’s very odd,’ said Judith, ‘how she doesn’t value her brains in the very least—isn’t interested in them—can’t be bothered. I suppose you know she’s the most brilliant history student of her year. Easily. Of course she’s never worked, but she could have done anything she liked. In spite of all her idleness and irresponsibility they were still excited about her—they thought she’d do something in the end. And I was going to make her pull it off. I could have—in one term. I mean I could have once. Not now of course.’

Her voice ceased drearily. As if it would matter to Geraldine how much Jennifer wasted brains, or academic opportunities ... as if it would move her!

The bell started to ring for Hall.

‘There!’ said Judith, ‘I must brush my hair I suppose, and go down. Are you coming to Hall?’

‘No. I’m going to dine in Cambridge.’

Judith rose and stood before her, looking full at her for the last time. She thought suddenly: ‘But she’s not beautiful! She’s hideously ugly, repulsive.’

That broad heavy face and thick neck, those coarse and masculine features, that hothouse skin: What taste Jennifer must have to find her attractive!...

Oh no, it was no good saying that. In spite of all, she was beautiful: her person held an appalling fascination. She was beautiful, beautiful. You would never be able to forget her face, her form. You would see it and dream of it with painful desire: as if she could satisfy something, some hunger, if she would. But she was not for you. The secret of her magnetism, her rareness must be for ever beyond reach; but not beyond imagination.

Judith cried out inwardly: ‘Tell me all your life!’ All about herself, where she had come from, why she was alone and mysterious, why she wore such clothes, such pearls, how she and Jennifer had met, what knowledge her expression half-hid, half-revealed. Time had swept her down one moment out of space, portentously, and now was sweeping her away again, unknown. And now, in the end, you wanted to implore her to stay, to let herself be known, to let you love her. Yes, to let you love her. It was not true that you must hate your enemies. What was all this hatred and jealousy? Something so terrifyingly near to love, you dared not contemplate it. You could love her in a moment, passionately, for her voice, her eyes, her beautiful white hands, for loving Jennifer—anything.

The bell stopped ringing.

‘Good-bye,’ said Judith. ‘I’m late.’ She held out her hand.

Geraldine took it. Her hand was cool, smooth and firm.

‘Good-bye.’

‘Are you—staying much longer?’

‘I’m going away to-morrow.’

‘I’d like to have known you better,’ said Judith, very low, and she lifted her eyes to the long, hidden eyes of Geraldine. ‘I hope you and she will be happy when you go abroad.’ She opened the door politely, and then said, smiling: ‘We won’t forget each other, will we?’

‘No,’ said Geraldine, still watching her. But she did not smile.

They went their different ways along the corridor.

Now to go down to the dull food and clamour, to sit among them all and torture herself with fancying intercepted glances which might have pity in them; to hear perhaps, her name and Jennifer’s in a whispered aside; to try with anguish to guess which of them it was who had dared to drag her pain from its hiding-place and proclaim it aloud.

11

JENNIFER lay in bed; and on her door was pinned a notice signed by the matron: No visitors allowed.

Her friends were disconsolate, and the evening gatherings were leaden spirited. It was certain there had not been so much evening work done before in the whole two years. There was nothing better to do now: no excitement, no laughter or colour. They went on tiptoe past the shut door and the notice: for Jennifer, so it was said, was threatened with nervous collapse, and her only chance lay in sleep and quiet. But in all the rumours, discussions and communications which went on over Jennifer’s case, Judith took no part.

Once indeed when they were all at Hall and the corridor was empty of echoes, Judith had crept up to the door, lingered hesitating, then noiselessly turned the handle and looked in.

The electric lamp shone beside the bed and Jennifer lay with her face turned to the wall. All that was visible was her hair, tossed in a rough mass over the pillow and palely burning where the dim light struck it. Her death-like unconsciousness was intolerable pain. She should have stirred at least, feeling a presence through all the seals of sleep.... But she did not move; and night after night the sight of that unstirring hair upon the pillow returned, mocking her longing to reach to Jennifer with a picture that seemed the symbol for all that was eternally uncommunicating and imperturbable.

They said she was to be sent home before the end of term; then that her mother had arrived, was to take her away on the morrow.

That night the message came: Jennifer wanted to say good-bye to Judith.

Jennifer’s boxes stood packed and strapped in a corner. Her personality had already, terrifyingly, been drained from her two rooms. There was now only a melancholy whisper of that which, during the two years of her tenancy, had filled the little space between her walls with a warm mystery. She had become identified with the quickening of imagination, the lyrical impulse. Oh, how ridiculous, how sad, to have made one person into all poetry! To-morrow it would all be finished.

Judith went softly from the sitting-room into the bedroom: and there was Jennifer lying back on her pillow and waiting.

‘Hullo, darling,’ she said. Her voice was low and mournful.

‘Jennifer!’

She put out her hand and Judith took it, clung to it, while Jennifer drew her down beside her on the bed.

‘Jennifer, darling, how are you?’

‘I’m better, I’ve slept. I was so tired. But I’m going away.’

‘I know.’

‘Don’t tell anyone, Judith, but I’m not coming back.’

‘Oh, Jennifer, what shall I do without you?’

‘Darling, I can’t come back,’ she said in an urgent, painful whisper.

‘I know. I know. And I must come back, I suppose. I’m like that: I can’t uproot. You’re wise, you never grow roots. So you can go away when you want to without making a wound in yourself. It’s no good my pretending I could do the same. I must wait; though goodness knows for what: the examinations I suppose. This place without you.... Oh!’

She pressed her forehead against the hand that still held hers, abandoning, with her last words, the effort to speak lightly.

‘Darling,’ said Jennifer. ‘It is making a wound—you ought to know. You’re making a wound.’

‘Then why do you go away from me?’

‘Oh, Judith, I’ve got to go!’ She sighed wearily. ‘What I really wanted to say to you was: please forgive me for everything.’

‘Forgive.... Oh, Jennifer....’

‘Don’t say there’s nothing to forgive. Say I forgive you.’

‘I forgive you then.’

‘Because I have hurt you, haven’t I?’

‘It wasn’t your fault. Nothing’s been your fault.’

‘I’ve been unhappy too. I thought I was going off my head a little while ago.’ She sighed again. ‘It’s all such a muddle. I do get into such muddles. I’m so used to flying to you to be got out of them, I can’t think how I shall manage without you.’

Judith was silent, her throat aching with tears. Never to hear Jennifer’s step hurrying along the corridor, never again to see her burst flushed and desperate into the room crying: ‘Oh, darling, I’m in such a muddle....’ That had been such a thing to look forward to: it had been such pleasure to comfort, advise, explain, even though the muddles had generally been found to be laughable trifles.

‘I wanted to say some more things, but it’s so difficult,’ Jennifer went on. ‘Now you’re here I can’t say anything.’

‘Don’t try, darling. I’m quite happy.’

Her face had got thinner, thought Judith, her expression had little if anything of the child left in it, and her lips which had always been slightly parted in repose were now folded together in an unnatural line.

‘Mother’s come to fetch me.’ She laughed. ‘She is being extremely dutiful and chilling and grieved at me. I hope you haven’t come across her. She’s not a bit nice. I’m going to Scotland. Oh, the moors! I’ll soon get better there. Then I’ll go abroad or something.’ She laughed again. ‘I suppose Mother’ll try to send me back here next term. I shall have some glorious wrangling. Perhaps they’ll wash their hands of me for ever. If only they would! Oh, if I could be on my own!—no ties!’

Her eyes sparkled at the thought of breaking her fetters. Already, in spite of her sorrow, she was thinking with excitement: What next? She was ready to contemplate a fresh start. Soon her indomitable vitality would light upon and kindle fresh objects; and all around her would live, as once you had lived, in her glow. She would have no time, no room, to remember what had once absorbed her. Judith turned her head away, tasting despair; for it seemed that the zest for life they had both shared burned in Jennifer undiminished now that the time of sharing was over; while for her it had gone out, like a snuffed candle.

Jennifer fastened her great eyes upon her, whispering: ‘You don’t know how I shall miss you.’

Ah, she saw she had wounded,—was trying, too late, to make amends. Judith answered, making her voice harsh and scornful:

‘Oh no, you won’t. You’ll find heaps of new thrilling people and you’ll soon forget me.’

‘Oh——’ was all Jennifer said, beneath her breath. She shut her eyes, and Judith saw her mouth alter and quiver. ‘You don’t understand,’ she whispered after a long time. ‘No, you don’t understand. God, I’m in such a muddle.’

It was no use trying to find comfort from hurting Jennifer. There was nothing but pain to be had from the spectacle of that beloved face shrinking and helpless. Whatever it cost all must be made easy for her.

‘I’m sorry, Jennifer, I’m sorry, my darling. There! don’t worry. I understand. Don’t cry. Listen: it’s like this, isn’t it? You’re not happy here any more. You’re restless. And you’ve been—been living too hard and you’re worn out. So you want to get away from all the people you’ve been with—all the ones you associate with feeling ill and awful—you want to start afresh, somewhere quite new. Isn’t that it?’

‘Partly,’ whispered Jennifer.

‘Things have all gone wrong lately. And I’m involved, aren’t I? It’s really about me that things have gone wrong. I don’t know why—but I know it is so. So you really can’t bear to see me any more.’

‘Oh, Judith!’ She hid her face. ‘It sounds so terrible when you say it like that: “Can’t bear to see me any more”.... Oh!’

‘But I’m right, aren’t I, Jennifer?’

‘Oh, it sounds as if it were your fault, as if you thought it was something you’d done——’

‘Then it’s not—something I’ve done?’

‘God, no!’

The relief of that fierce denial brought a momentary illusion of happiness, for she had painfully persisted in trying to fasten the chief blame on herself.

‘I’m glad.... But it is true, isn’t it, that I’m involved in all that’s gone wrong; and that you must get away from me?’

‘Oh yes, oh yes, because I can’t bear myself—because I must forget—because the thought of you is such a reproach ... the way I’ve treated you——’ her voice was almost inaudible.

‘Don’t, Jennifer, don’t. You’ve nothing to blame yourself for. It’s just the way things happen. That’s how I look at it. As long as it’s not anything I’ve done, as long as you tell me I haven’t—disappointed you somehow, I don’t mind—much not understanding——’

‘Oh, you’re so good to me, you’re so kind. And there’s nothing I can do except hurt you. I’ve never done anything for you.’

‘Oh, Jennifer, you’ve been all my happiness for two years.’

‘It was very silly of you to be made happy by a person like me. You might have known I’d let you down in the end.’

‘You haven’t let me down.’

‘Yes. I’ve made you unhappy.’

It was not much use denying that.

Geraldine seemed to be in the room, watching and listening. Judith felt her head droop as if beneath a tangible weight, and a most dreary sense of impotence fastened upon her. What was the use of talking, when all the time Geraldine, absent and untalked-of, controlled their secret decisions? To ignore her made a mockery of all attempted solutions and consolations, and yet to speak of her seemed impossible.

‘Well, you’ve been unhappy too.’

‘Yes. Oh yes. Oh, Judith! There’s something I must ask you.’

She put her face against Judith’s arm, and the desperate pressure of her eyes, nose, lips upon the bare flesh was strange and breath-taking. Her lips searched blindly over wrist and forearm into the hollow of the elbow where they paused and parted; and Judith felt the faint and thrilling touch of her teeth....

But then Jennifer flung her arm away and said in a dry and careful voice.

‘I wanted to know: did you cry in your room night after night because I—because of the way I was behaving?’

‘I’ve never cried, Jennifer.’

That was true enough. There were no tears to soften such arid and infecund griefs.

‘Ah!’ she said. ‘You say that as if——’

‘Why did you think I’d cried?’

‘Oh, it was just an idea I got. Something somebody said put it into my head and I couldn’t get rid of it. But now—I don’t know. The way you spoke makes me almost wish you had cried: because you seemed to mean you hadn’t been able to.’

She shut her eyes and lay still.

‘Jennifer, don’t. Don’t let’s go on. What’s the use? You know we’re not putting anything right or doing each other any good. It’s getting late—so I’d better go. You’ll be so tired to-morrow and it’ll be my fault. I ought never to have come.’

‘Oh, don’t go yet!’ she besought. ‘Look. We won’t talk any more. There’s some things I must say, but perhaps I’ll be able to say them later.’ She sat up in bed. ‘I’ve been feeling so gloomy! Let’s try to be cheerful for a change. Really, my gloom has been beyond a joke. I’ve wanted to hide in a dark hole. Imagine! I think my hair must look awful. Fetch me my brush, darling. I simply haven’t had the heart to give it a good brushing for ages.’

Her spirits were rising: the tone of her voice had changed, and the peculiar individuality of her manner of speech had returned with surprising suddenness.

‘Would you like me to brush it?’ asked Judith.

‘Oh yes, darling. You’ve a lovely hand with the hair brush. Geraldine would brush my hair for me every night, and my God, the agony!’

The brush wavered and stopped for a moment in Judith’s hand. But Jennifer seemed unaware of any cause for embarrassment. It was as if she had cast from her the self whose lips were sealed upon that name. It was of no more account to her in her present mood to announce that Geraldine had brushed her hair than to declare, as she did in the next breath, that her hair needed washing. Geraldine no longer existed for her as a person of dark significance. She had become dissolved like all other grave perplexities into a uniform light ebullience and froth; and her name had been thrown off unconcernedly and forgotten on the instant.

Amazing, terrifying, admirable creature—thought Judith—who, when life pressed too heavily upon her, could resolve life into airy meaninglessness; could pause, as it were deliberately, and re-charge herself with vitality.

Judith brushed out the strange, springy electric stuff, and then buried her face in it a moment. Surely Jennifer’s secret lay in her hair: perhaps, if it were cut off the virtue would go out of her.

‘I’m hungry,’ said Jennifer. ‘Darling, there’s some cake in the cupboard. Mother brought it. She does know how to minister to the flesh I will say. She’s that sort of woman you know: holds you with hot-water bottles and pudding and destroys you spiritually. And would you like to make some chocolate, darling? Let’s feel bilious together for the last time.’ She laughed cheerfully.

They ate and drank, and then Judith came and lay on the bed beside her, and she slipped her arm beneath Judith’s thin shoulder, patting it as she talked.

‘I forgive all my enemies,’ said Jennifer. ‘Tell Mabel I forgive her and I hope God will cure her spots in time. She has been an enemy, hasn’t she? She’d like to knife me. Give all my chemistry and biology books to Dorothy. She can’t afford to buy any. I shan’t ever look at them again, thank God. If I have to earn my living I shall direct my talents towards something more flashy. Where shall I be, I wonder, by the summer? When you’re all sweating over your exams I shall laugh to think of you.

‘Darling, I’ve left you my copper bowl. You always said it had nice lights in it. If I go to Italy I’ll send you a crate of oranges for it. It looks its best with oranges. It’s the nicest thing I’ve ever had, so of course it’s for you. Take it and don’t forget me.’ She lay back looking white and tired.

‘Oh, Jennifer——’ Judith clutched her hand and was speechless. After a while she added: ‘I shall feel I haven’t quite lost you. Your lovely bowl. It’s always seemed such a part of you.’

‘It’s all of me,’ whispered Jennifer. ‘I leave it to you.’

The momentary lightness was now past, vanishing as swiftly as it had come. There was now such a sense of approaching desolation as had never been before in life. This was the end.

‘Then I must say good-bye,’ said Judith.

‘Draw back the curtain.’

Judith obeyed. As she went to the window she felt Jennifer’s eyes upon her.

The night was frosty, dark and still, and the midnight stars glittered in trembling cold multitudes over the arch of the sky. Below the window the unmoving trees made a blot of yet profounder darkness. Across the court, the opposite wing of the building was just distinguishable, a mass impenetrably deep; but there were no lights in the windows: not even in Mabel’s. Everybody in College was asleep.

‘Oh!’ sighed Jennifer. ‘The smell of the limes, and the nightingales! I’d like to have had them once again.’

Judith let the curtain drop and came quickly and sank on her knees by the bed.

‘Then come back, Jennifer, and have them with me. Why not, why not? You’ll be well by next term. Everything will be forgotten. Our last term ... Jennifer!’

‘No!’ she covered her face with her hands. ‘No, Judith, I could never come back here. Everything’s gone all wrong. Everything’s as if—as if it had been poisoned. I must go away and get it straight. Listen.’ She put both arms around Judith’s neck and held her in a hard painful embrace. ‘The things I meant to say,—I don’t think I can say them. I thought I could before I saw you, but now you’re here it doesn’t seem clear any more. I don’t really know what I think—what I mean, and if I tried to explain you might—might not understand. Oh, Judith!’

She began to cry, and stopped herself. ‘There are things in life you’ve no idea about. I can’t explain. You’re such a baby really, aren’t you? I always think of you as the most innocent thing in the world.’

‘Jennifer, you know you can tell me anything.’

Yet she knew, while she pleaded, that she shrank from knowing.

‘Oh yes, it’s true, you understand everything.’ Jennifer tightened her arms desperately and seemed to be hesitating, then said at last: ‘No, I’m in a muddle. I’m afraid. I should explain all wrong, as I always do. But I’ll write to you, darling. I may not write to you for some time: or it may be to-morrow. But I swear I’ll write. And then I’ll explain everything.’

‘And we’ll see each other again, Jennifer? We’ll meet often?’

‘Perhaps. I don’t know. It depends,’ she whispered. Her face was still hidden, her arms firm in their strangling grip.

‘Oh yes, yes, Jennifer! Oh please! Why these mysteries? Jennifer—if—if there’s somebody else you’re fond of I don’t mind. Why should it make any difference to you and me? I’m not jealous.’

‘I’ll write to you,’ repeated Jennifer, very wearily whispering.

‘Soon then, soon, Jennifer. Tell me how you are, what you’re going to do. Tell me if you go abroad, who—who you go with. Tell me everything. Because I shall wonder and wonder. I shall imagine all sorts of things.... Jennifer....’

‘Hush, darling. I’ll be all right, I swear. And I swear that directly everything gets clear I’ll write to you. And then we’ll see. You do trust me, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you must promise me to answer.’

‘Yes.’

‘But don’t write before I write to you.’

‘No.’

‘Good-bye, my darling.’ She let her arms fall to her sides.

At the door Judith turned, forcing her mouth into a smile, but Jennifer was not looking at her. Once again, only the tangle of her hair was visible, burning in the lamplight.

The end of the term.

There had been no word from Jennifer. She had vanished. But she was to be trusted: you had only to wait and she would write. Or was she not to be trusted?

Her copper bowl stood on the table, and there seemed no other rumour of her left in the whole place, save on the tongues of people; and even they were sparing of her name, spoke it with doubt and hesitation.

On the last day of term, Judith, peering a moment into the aching emptiness of Jennifer’s room, saw the cord of her old manly Jaeger dressing-gown lying in the grate.

12

Then, for months, there was nothing in life save work: a careful planning out of day and night in order that sleeping and eating and exercise might encroach as little as possible on the working hours.

Soon, Midsummer term was back with unprecedented profusion of blossom on the fruit trees, buttercups in the meadows, nightingale choruses in the cedars and limes. But now it seemed neither exciting nor delightful to be kept awake till dawn by nightingales; for sleepless nights lowered your examination value. By day the two thrilling and unearthly pipe-notes of the cuckoo seemed a mechanical instrument of torture: you found yourself desperately counting the calls, waiting between each, with a shrinking of all the nerves, for the next to strike. Almost you resented the flowery orchards and meadows with their pagan-like riot of renewal. You noted them with a dull eye from behind the stiff ponderous academic entrenchment of your mind. But sometimes in the night, in dreams, the orchards would not be denied: they descended upon you and shook out fragrance like a blessing; they shone in pale drifts, in clouds, in seas,—all the orchards of England came before you, luminous and stirring beneath the moon.

From early morning till late at night the desperate meek untidy heads of girls were bowed over tables in the library, their faces when they lifted them were feverish and blurred with work.

Pages rustled; pencils whispered; squeaking shoes tiptoed in and out. Somebody tapped out a dreary tune on her teeth; somebody had a running cold; somebody giggled beneath her breath; somebody sighed and sighed.

Outside, in the sunshine, tennis racquets struck vibrantly. Long ago, you also had played tennis in May.

Mabel had a fortification of dictionaries around her corner; whenever you looked up she caught your eye and smiled weakly from a hollow and twisted face. Mabel had wished evil to Jennifer. But that was so long ago it had ceased to matter.

‘Mabel, you’ve worked four hours on end. Come to lunch now.’

‘No, thank you, Judith. I feel I don’t want any lunch. I’d rather go straight on and perhaps have a cup of tea later.’

‘Mabel, you’re to come with me.’

She came. But as often as not she laid down her fork after one mouthful and sat and stared in front of her; then crept back to the library.

The copper bowl was filled this term with golden tulips or with dark brown wallflowers.

Where was Jennifer?

Examination week. The sky was fiercely blue all day; the air breathless, heavy. To walk into the town was to walk into a steam bath, where footsteps moved ever more languidly, and the dogs lay panting on the pavement, and the clocks seemed to collect themselves with a vast effort for their chiming.

This week there was nothing in your mind save the machine which obeyed you smoothly, turning out dates and biographies, contrasting, discussing, theorizing.

Judith walked in a dream among the pale examination faces that flowed to their doom. Already at nine o’clock the heat struck up from the streets, rolled downwards from the roofs. By midday it would be extremely unpleasant in Cambridge.

This was the great examination hall. Girls were filing in, each carrying a glass of water, and searching in a sort of panic for her place. Here was a white ticket labelled Earle, J. So Judith Earle really was expected, an integral part of this grotesque organized unreality. No hope now.

The bench was hard. Beside her sat a kind broad cow-like creature with sandy hair and lashes. Her ruminative and prominent eyes shed pity and encouragement. She was a good omen.

All over the room girls’ heads turned, nodding and winking at friends, whispering, giggling and grimacing with desperate bravery. One simulated suicide by leaning her bosom on her fountain pen.

Just behind sat Mabel. Her face was glistening and ghastly, and she sniffed at a bottle of smelling salts.

‘Mabel, are you going to faint?’

‘No, I don’t think so. I generally feel faintlike first thing in the morning. I’ll get better later.’

‘Mabel, you’re not fit—you mustn’t——’

‘Sh! I’m all right. Only it makes my head feel stupid.’ She stared aghast. ‘I don’t seem to be able to remember a thing.’

‘Don’t worry, Mabel. It’ll all come back when you settle down to it. I’ll look around now and then and see if you’re all right.’

‘Thanks, Judith.’

‘Poor Mabel! Good luck. Wait for me afterwards and I’ll take you to have a cup of coffee. That’ll do you good.’

‘I shall enjoy that. Good luck, Judith.’

She summoned a smile, even flushed faintly with pleasure.

Then panic descended suddenly upon Judith. Her head was like a floating bubble; there was nothing in it at all. She caught at threads of knowledge and they broke, withered and dissolved like cobwebs in the hand. She struggled to throw off a crowding confusion of half-remembered words.

Unarm Eros, the long day’s task is done. And we must sleep.... Peace! Peace! Dost thou not see my baby at my breast That sucks the nurse asleep?... Who said that? Who could have said such a thing? I am Duchess of Malfi still.... Cover her face. Mine eyes dazzle. She died young. Beatrice died young too. Here Mother ... bind up this hair in any simple knot ... ay that does well.... Prithee undo this button.... Thank you, Sir.... Cordelia! Cordelia! So many of them died young. There were those two, you had forgotten their names now, and Cordelia, and Desdemona too. O, thou weed!... It might be useful to remember them.... But they had already slipped away. This was the parting that they had Beside the haystack in the floods. William Morris. Speak but one word to me over the corn. Over the tender bowed locks of the corn. Gold cornfield like Jennifer. A bracelet of bright hair about the bone. That had always been Jennifer’s bright hair. Only a woman’s hair.... Calm hair, meandering in pellucid gold. But Jennifer’s hair had never been calm.... Speak but one word to me. Roddy, one whisper from you!

It was Tennyson who said: The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls.... And Browning who said: The old June weather Blue above lane and wall. Keats, Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Shelley.... What had they said? and Blake:

Bring me my bow of burning gold; Bring me my arrows of desire.... Once you had composed a tune for that. Bring me my bow of burning gold.... Oh, stop saying that now. Think about the origins of drama, the rise of the universities, the development of the guilds, the order of Shakespeare’s plays.... O God! A headful of useless scraps rattling about in emptiness—

The clock struck nine.

‘You can begin now,’ said a thin voice from the däis.

There was an enormous sigh, a rustling of paper, then silence.

The questions had, nearly all, at first glance a familiar reassuring look. It was all right. Panic vanished, the mind assembled its energies, cooly, precisely, the pen flew.

After an hour the first pause to cool her forehead with a stick of frozen Eau de Cologne and to sip some water. Behind, poor Mabel’s dry little cough and sniff went on. The head bowed low over her writing looked as if it could never raise itself again.

Girls were wriggling and biting their pens. Somewhere the tooth-tapper was playing her dreary tune. The Cow looked up, shed a peaceful smile around her and continued to write, with deliberation, a little impeded by her bosom.

Another hour fled. The trouble was having too much to say, rather than too little. The room was rigid, dark with concentration now. There came an appalling confusion of haste and noise, and a girl rose and ran from the room, supported by the invigilator. The handkerchief she held to her nose was stained sickeningly with scarlet. She returned in a little while, pallid and tearful, resumed her seat, bowed herself once more over the paper.

Three hours. It was over. You could not remember what you had written; but you had never felt more firm and sure of mind. Three hours nearer to life.

Into the street once more, beneath the noon sun’s merciless down-beating. But now its rays seemed feeble: their warmth scarcely penetrated chilled hands and feet, or shivering, aching back.

A troop of undergraduates passed on the way from their examination room. They looked amused and exhilarated. They stuffed their papers into their pockets, lit pipes, straightened their shoulders and went cheerfully to lunch.

The girls crept out in twos and threes, earnestly talking, comparing the white slips they carried.

‘Did you do this one?’

‘What did you put for that?’

‘Oh, I say! Will they take off marks do you think?’

‘It was a beast.’

‘Oh, it might have been worse.’

Girls really should be trained to be less obviously female students. It only needed a little discipline.

There was Mabel to be looked after. She was grateful, passive: she drank much coffee but refused food. She broke the heavy silence once to say with a quiet smile: ‘Of course I see now I shan’t pass—It seems a pity, after all that work—My memory is practically gone——’

Back to the vault now for another three hours.

Suddenly round the corner came a slender, dark, sallow boy. He walked with an idle grace, leaning slightly forward. His faint likeness to Roddy made the heart leap; and his expression was dejected and obstinate, just as Roddy’s would be if he were forced to spend an afternoon scribbling infernal rubbish.

Judith paused at the entrance of the vault and looked back. His eyes were eagerly fixed on her: and she smiled at him.

He was delighted. His funny boy face lost its heaviness and broke up with intimate twinklings; and flashed a shyly daring inquiry at her before he vanished round the corner.

It was like a message from Roddy, sent forward to meet her from the new life, to say: ‘Remember I am coming.’

That day passed smoothly; and the next. The days sinking to evenings drenched with the smell of honeysuckle and draining to phantasmal and translucent twilights of blossom and tree-tops and starry skies, flowed imperceptibly to their end.

Suddenly there were no answers to be written from nine till twelve, from two till five—no lectures, no coachings, no notes, no fixed working hours. Instead, a great idleness under whose burden you felt lost and oppressed. The academic years were gone for ever.

13

The evening before the end of term.

Judith walked with the rest of the circle arm in arm across the grass, down the wooded path, past the honeysuckle for the last time.

The garden spread out all her beauties that were hers alone, overburdening the watchers, insisting:

‘See what you are leaving. Look at what you will never have again.’

The whole shrine lay wide open for the last time, baring its mysteries of cedar and limes and nightingales, of lawns and mown hay, of blossoming shrubs and wild flowers growing beneath them, of copper beeches and all the high enclosing tree-tops, serenely swimming like clouds in the last of the light.

They chose careers for each other, light-heartedly discussing the future, and making plans for regular reunions.

‘But what’s the good?’ said one. ‘We shall all be scattered really. We can’t come back year after year as if things would all be the same. There’s nothing more awful than those gatherings of elderly people trying to be girls together again. The ghastliness of pretending to get back to where one was! If we meet again, let it be in the big world. I shall never come back here.’

‘Oh, but I shan’t have the strength to resist it,’ said another. ‘You see I more or less know I shall never be so happy again. I’ve got to teach brats algebra. I shall be pulled back to indulge in vain regrets.’

‘Does it mean so much to you?’ murmured Judith. ‘You talk as if your life was over.’

‘Something that matters—terribly to me is over,’ she said, almost fiercely.

‘Oh!’ Judith sighed.

‘Doesn’t it mean anything to you then?’

Judith was silent, thinking how it had all meant the single tremendous calamitous significance of Jennifer; how since her going it had been like the muddy bed of a lake whose waters have been sapped day after day in a long drought; like a tasteless meal to be swallowed without appetite; like a grey drizzling unwholesome weather. Nothing had brought even a momentary illusion of restored contentment: nothing save her copper bowl glowing for her sake with flowers or fruit. Not one of those to whom she had turned had been able to sooth the gnawing perpetual sore, or bury for a single day that one face. And they knew it. The three years’ absorption in Jennifer had separated her irrevocably from them, and, though they had kindly welcomed her, it had been with the tacit assumption that she was not of them.

They were so charming, so gentle, so sensitive and intelligent: fascinating creatures: how fascinating she had never troubled to realize and would never know now. To all, save Jennifer, that had offered itself, she had turned an unheeding ear, a blind eye. And so much that might have been of enduring value had offered itself: so many possible interests and opportunities had been neglected.

There had been that girl the first year who, from the pinnacle of her third-year eminence, had stooped, blushing and timid, with her invitation to an evening alone. Frail temples, narrow exquisite bone of cheek and jaw, clear little face with lips whose composure seemed the result of a vast nervous effort, so still were they, so nearly quivering, so vulnerable; eyes with a sad liquid brilliance in their steadfast gaze; small head with smooth brown hair parted in the middle; narrow hands folded in her lap; she had sat, the most important scholar in the College, like a shadow, a moth, a bird, listening, questioning, listening again.

She was a poet. She never showed her verses, but to you she promised to show them. She had a mind of such immaculate clarity that you feared to touch it: yet she was offering it to you, all that evening.

It had come to nothing after all. She had retired very soon, shrinking from Jennifer as if she were afraid.

There had been the girl with the torturing love affair that had gone wrong. One night she had suddenly spoken of it, telling you all. You had lingered by her with a little tenderness and pity and then passed on. She had said, “You won’t tell Jennifer, will you?”

There had been the girl who drew portraits and who had wanted you for a model. There had been the silent girl who read “The Book of the Dead” night after night in her room, who was studying, so it was whispered, to raise the devil and who looked at you with a secret smile, half malice, half something else; there had been that most beautiful young girl in the first year, with her cold angelic face and shining silver-fair hair; all those and countless others had offered themselves. There had been Martin ignored and neglected because he disliked Jennifer. And there had been books, far more books in far more libraries: and new poetry, new music, new plays,—a hundred intellectual diversions which you had but brushed against or missed altogether by secluding yourself within the limits of an unprofitable dream.

She said at last:

‘Oh yes. It means something. I don’t know yet how much. I’m afraid now I’ve missed a lot.’

They were all silent, and she thought with nervous dread that they were all thinking of Jennifer.

‘Isn’t it extraordinary,’ said another, ‘how time seems to have stood still in this place? Nothing’s moved since we’ve been here. Even though I suppose it’s all been advancing towards the Tripos, I don’t feel as if there’d been any step forward. Everything—what’s the word?—static. Or else just making circles. I feel I’ve been sitting in a quiet safe pool for three years.’

‘And now we’re going to be emptied out.’

And swept into new life, thought Judith longingly. Yet her heart misgave her. The building, caressed with sunset, looked motherly and benign, spreading its sheltering breast for the last time above its midgets. New life might find nothing so secure and tranquil as its dispassionate protection.

The clock struck the hour pensively.

‘Well, I think it’s beastly,’ said one. ‘I’m going in to finish packing.’

Where, on this calm lime-scented last evening, was Jennifer?

14

In the end there was no time to say good-bye to anyone. Girls were scattering, flying about with labels and suitcases, or with flat-irons to press the frocks they were to wear in May Week.

May Week had been fun last year: five nights’ dancing on end, with Jennifer and a young cousin of hers at Trinity, and a boy in the Navy. This year it had not seemed worth while to accept invitations.

While Judith was engaged in strapping her boxes and throwing the accumulated rubbish of three years out of drawers and cupboards into a heap on the floor, a maid came smiling and said a gentleman was waiting downstairs.

It was Martin.

‘Martin! Oh, my dear!’

‘I came on the chance, Judith. I motored up to see a man who’s going abroad. Are you—are you staying up for May Week?’

‘No, Martin. I’m catching a train in about two hours and going straight home.’

‘Really home, do you mean? Next door to us?’

‘Yes. Thank Heaven. It’s not let any more. Mother and I will be there part of the summer anyway. Will you—will any of you be there?’

‘Mariella’s down there now, with the boy. And Roddy and I are going for a bit. In fact I’m going to-day—motoring. That’s what I came for—to see if you’d care to motor back with me.’

‘Drive home? Oh, how marvellous! You are an angel, Martin, to think of me.’

He was as shy as ever, bending his head as he talked to her. Observing him she thought that she herself had grown up. The loss of Jennifer had given her a kind of self-assurance and maturity of manner, a staidness. For the first time she was seeing Martin from an entirely detached and unromantic angle, and she thought: “Then this is how I shall see Roddy. He won’t confuse and entangle me any more. All that sort of thing is over for me.”

‘It’s very nice to see you again, Judith. It’s ages since.... You look a bit thin, don’t you?’

‘It’s those miserable exams, Martin. I did work so hard.... I don’t know why.’

‘Oh! You shouldn’t have.’

He seemed quite overcome.

Dear Martin!... In some corner of her heart a weight was lifting.... Jennifer was suddenly remote.

‘Wait for me, Martin.... I’ll be ready in a quarter of an hour.’

She had not said good-bye to Mabel. She had been dreading that last duty.... No time now, thank heaven, for anything prolonged.... Simplest to write a little note and tell someone to stick it in her door.

She wrote:

‘Dear Mabel,

‘I have been called for unexpectedly in a car. I have only ten minutes to finish packing and do all the last things. I knocked on your door a little while ago but got no answer.’

She hesitated. Was it too gross? It was; but it must stand now; it could not be crossed out.

‘And now I’m afraid I haven’t a minute to try and find you. I’m dreadfully sorry not to see you to say good-bye, Mabel. Won’t it be sad when next October comes to think we shan’t all be meeting again? You must write and tell me what happens to you, and I will write to you. I dare say we shall see each other again. You must let me know if you ever come my way——’ That must stand too.... What else?... Results would be out to-morrow—Better not to refer to them; for Mabel had certainly failed. She had not been able to remember anything in the end. The last three days she had given in one of two sheets of paper blank save for a few uncertain lines.

She finished:

‘I do hope you are going to get a good long rest. You do need it. You worked so marvellously. Nobody ever could have worked harder. We’ve all been so sorry for you feeling so ill during tripos week. It was terribly hard luck.

‘Good-bye and love from

‘Judith.’

Nothing could be added—There was nothing more to be said. Mabel’s face this last week came before her, blank, haggard, still watching her from moribund eyes, and she dismissed it. She had thought she would have to kiss Mabel good-bye: and now she would not have to.

She must be quick now, for Martin.

The car turned out of the drive and took the dusty road.

Almost she forgot to look back to see the last of those red walls.

‘I’m saying good-bye to it, Martin. Ugh! I hate it. I love it.’

The poplars seemed to grow all in a moment and hide it. It was gone.

‘Well, Martin, how are you? What’s been happening to everybody? How are they all?’

She was slipping back, she was slipping back.

They left Cambridge behind them, and she tried to recall it, to make it come before her eyes, and could not. The dream of wake, the dream of sleep—which had it been?

She wondered if she would ever remember it again.

Yesterday Martin had been standing with her under the cherry tree.

Now he was telling her about his home in Hampshire. He acted as estate agent for his mother now that his father was dead. She must really come and stay with them and meet his mother. He was perfectly happy farming his own land: he never wanted to do anything else. He was improving the fishing and shooting: they had just bought a bit of land they had been after for two years: half a mile more river and a biggish wood. Forestry was the most fascinating subject: he was going to take it up more seriously. Martin’s life seemed very happy, very ordered, very clear and useful. He knew what he wanted.

The cousins had all been scattered this last year or so. Mariella had been working with a woman vet. in London. She had spent most of last summer at his home because she had been hard up and obliged to let the house on the river. Peter had been there too. He seemed a nice enough little chap, but nervy. He had a nursery governess now, and Mariella seemed to think more about her dogs than him. At least that was the impression she gave. Mariella, so Martin said, had not changed at all.

Julian he had scarcely seen. He thought he wrote about music for one or two weeklies, but he didn’t know which. Also he had heard that he was writing a ballet, or an opera or something; but he did not suppose it was serious. He had developed asthma since the war, poor chap, and he spent all the winter abroad and sometimes the summer too.

And Roddy. Oh, Roddy seemed to be messing about in Paris or in London nearly always, doing a bit of drawing and modelling. Nobody could get him to do any work: though last year he had done some sort of theatrical work in Paris—designing some scenery or something—which had been very successful. He was saying now that he would like to go on the stage. Martin laughingly said he was afraid Roddy was a bit of a waster. Anyway he was coming for a week or so, and Judith would see him for herself.

At six o’clock in the evening they stopped before the front door of her home. There, waiting to enfold her again, was the garden. The air was sweet with the smell of roses and syringa, the sun-flooded lawn stretched away towards the river, and the herbaceous border was burning miraculously with blue delphinium spires, white and yellow lilies, and great poppies.

‘Good-bye, Martin. It’s been lovely. We’ll meet soon, won’t we? Come and fetch me.’

She went into the cool and shadowed hall. There was the old butler hastening forward to receive her; and her mother’s voice came from the drawing-room saying softly:

‘Is that my girl?’