The Black Prince (Penguin Classics) (21 page)

At the tube station I saw Arnold coming through the ticket barrier, smiling secretively to himself. I moved to the other side and he did not see me. When I reached my flat Francis Marloe was waiting outside the door. I amazed him by asking him in. Of what passed between us then I shall speak later.

 

 

 

One of the many respects, dear friend, in which life is unlike art is this: characters in art can have unassailable dignity, whereas characters in life have none. Yet of course life, in this respect as in others, pathetically and continually aspires to the condition of art. A sheer concern for one’s dignity, a sense of form, a sense of style, inspires more of our baser actions than any conventional analysis of possible sins is likely to bring to light. A good man often appears
gauche
simply because he does not take advantage of the myriad mean little chances of making himself look stylish. Preferring truth to form, he is not constantly at work upon the façade of his appearance.

A decent proper man (such as I am not) would have run awkwardly away from Rachel before anything had ‘happened’. Of course I did not want to ‛oflend’ her. But I was far more concerned about cutting a masterly figure. I was quite interested in kissing her before: very much more so after. So things begin and work. A serious kiss can alter the world and should not be allowed to take place simply because the scene will be disfigured without it. These considerations will no doubt seem to the young unutterably prudish and fussy. But precisely because they are young they cannot see how all things have their consequences. (This thing had its consequences, including some very unexpected ones.) There are no spare unrecorded encapsulated moments in which we can behave ‘anyhow’ and then expect to resume life where we left off. The wicked regard time as discontinuous, the wicked dull their sense of natural causality. The good feel being as a total dense mesh of tiny interconnections. My lightest whim can affect the whole future. Because I smoke a cigarette and smile over an unworthy thought another man may die in torment. I kissed Rachel and hid from Arnold and got drunk with Francis. I also put myself into a totally different ‛life – mood’ which had extensive and surprising results. Of course, my dear, I cannot, how could I, altogether regret what has happened. But the past must be justly judged, whatever marvels may have sprung out of one’s faults through the incomprehensible operation of grace.
O felix culpa!
does not excuse anything.

For an artist, everything connects with his work, and can feed it. I should perhaps explain more fully what my frame of mind was at that time. The context of this could be: on the day after the evening of the balloon I awoke with a crippling sense of anxiety. I asked myself, should I not go at once to Patara and take Priscilla with me? To do this would solve several problems. I would be tending my sister. A simple hard obligation to do this remained with me, a palpable thorn in the flesh of my versatile egoism. I would also be getting her away from Christian, and I would be getting away from Christian myself. Sheer physical distance can help, perhaps always helps, in the case of these cruder enchantments. I saw Christian as a witch in my life, and a low demon, though [ did not in doing so excuse myself. There are people who occasion in one, as it seems automatically, obsessive egoistic anxiety and preoccupying resentment. When confronted with such people one should if possible run: or else deaden the mind to them. (Or behave in some ‘saintly’ manner not here relevant.) I knew that if I stayed in London I should certainly see Christian again. I would have to do so because of Arnold, to find out what was going on. And I would have to do so because I would have to do so. Those who have such obsessions will understand my state.

When I say that I
also
thought I ought to leave London because of what had just happened between me and Rachel I would not be understood as suggesting that I was entirely moved by delicate conscientious scruples, though I did in fact feel such scruples. I felt rather more, about Rachel, a kind of curious detached satisfaction which had many ingredients. One ingredient of a less than worthy sort was a crude and simple sense of scoring off Arnold. Or perhaps that indeed puts it too crudely. I felt that I was now, in a new way, defended against Arnold. There was something important to him which I knew and he did not. (Only later did it occur to me that Rachel might decide to tell Arnold of our kisses.) Such knowledges are always deeply reassuring. Though, to do myself justice, there was in this no intent of going any further with the matter. What was remarkable was how far we had, in our little exchange, actually gone. And that we had gone so far suggested, as Rachel herself later said, that in both our minds the ground had long been prepared. Such dialectical leaps from quantity into quality are common in human relations. This was another reason for going away. I now had more than enough to brood upon and I wanted to brood without the intrusive interference of any real developments. As it was, we had carried the thing off well, with dignity and intelligence. It had a certain completeness. Rachel’s gesture had enormously comforted me. I felt no guilt. And I wanted to bask at peace in the rays of that comfort.

However it appeared, when I attempted to be realistic about it, that I could not thus solve my problems all together. Priscilla and myself at Patara was simply not a viable idea. I knew I could not possibly work with my sister in the house. Not only would her sheer nervous presence make work impossible. I knew that she would soon irritate me into all sorts of beastliness. Besides, how ill was she really? Ought she to have medical attention, psychiatric treatment, electric shocks? What ought I to do now about Roger and Marigold and the crystal and lapis necklace and the mink stole? Until these things were clarified Priscilla would have to remain in London and so would I.

The burden of all these unpredictable arrangements annoyed me, when I reflected upon them, to the point of screaming. My desire to get away and write had been coming to a climax. I felt, as artists so felicitously sometimes do, ‘under orders’. I was not at this time my own master. That which I had long served with such exemplary humility and with so little return was preparing to reward me. I had within me at last a great book. There was a fearful urgency about it. I needed darkness, purity, solitude. This was not a time for wasting with the trivia of superficial planning and
ad hoc
rescue operations and annoying interviews. To begin with there was the problem of extracting Priscilla from Christian, who had even
said
that she regarded her in the light of a hostage. Could this be done without a confrontation? Would I have to invoke Rachel’s help and muddy those waters after all?

I let Francis into my house because Rachel had kissed me. At that stage, a fluid all – conquering confidence was still making me feel benevolent and full of power. So I surprised Francis by letting him in. Also I wanted a drinking companion, I wanted for once to
chatter
: not about what had happened of course, but about quite other things. When one has a secret source of satisfaction it is pleasing to talk of everything in the world
but
that. It was also important that I felt myself so immeasurably superior to Francis. Some clever writer (probably a Frenchman) has said: it is not enough to succeed; others must fail. So I felt gracious that evening towards Francis because he was what he was and I was what I was. We both took in a lot of drink and I let him play the fool for my benefit, encouraging him to speculate about methods of getting money out of his sister, a subject on which he was droll. He said, ‘Of course Arnold wants to bring you and Christian together again.’ I laughed like a maniac. He also said, ‘Why shouldn’t I stay here and nurse Priscilla?’ I laughed again. I threw him out just after midnight.

The next morning I had a headache and that illusion of not having slept at all, which insomniacs know so well. I decided I must telephone my doctor for more pills. The awful anxiety about. Priscilla was combined with a frenetic desire to get away and write my book. I also felt, together with this, a tender gratitude in the direction of Rachel and a self – indulgent desire to write her an ambiguous letter. In this respect however it turned out that she had forestalled me. As I emerged again into my little hallway after finishing my breakfast, or rather after drinking my tea, since I never eat at breakfast time, I found on the mat a long letter from her which had evidently just been delivered by hand. This letter ran as follows.

My dearest Bradley, please forgive my writing to you at once like this. (Arnold is asleep. I am alone in the lounge. It is one in the morning. An owl is hooting.) You ran away so quickly, I was not able to say properly half the things which I wanted to say. What a schoolboy you are. Do you know that you
blushed
so beautifully? It is years since I have seen a man blush like that. It is also years since I have kissed anybody properly. And it was a very important kiss, wasn’t it? (Two very important kisses!) My dear, I have wanted to kiss you like that for a long time. Bradley, I want and need your love. I don’t mean an affair. I mean your love. I said to you yesterday that I did not mean what I said about Arnold when you saw me on that awful day up in the bedroom. That was not entirely true. I half meant it. Of course I love Arnold, but I can hate him too, and it can go along with love that one never forgives certain things. I thought for a short while that I should never forgive
you
for having seen me in that unspeakable moment of defeat – a wife crying upstairs while her husband shrugs his shoulders and talks about ‘women’ to a man friend. (That’s what hell is about.) But it has worked otherwise. In fact, it made me kiss you. I have
got
to have you as an ally now. Not in any ‘battle’ against my husband. I cannot fight him. But just because I am a lonely ageing woman and you are an old friend and I want to put my arms round your neck. It is also important that you love and admire Arnold so much. Bradley, you asked me if I thought Arnold was in love with Christian and I gave you no answer. After seeing him tonight I begin to think that he is. He
laughed and laughed
, he seemed so
happy
. (I suspect he spent the day with her.) He kept talking about you. but he was thinking about her. I cannot express to you what pain this gives me. This is, my dear, another reason why I
need
you. Bradley, we must have an alliance which is forever. Nothing else will do, and only
you
will do. I must live with my husband as best I can, with his infidelities and his tempers, which no outsider, not even you, really knows of or will believe in, and also with my own indelible hate, which is part of my love. I cannot cannot forgive. When I lay that day with the sheet over my bruised face I made a pact with hell. Yet I love him. Isn’t that odd, and can one keep sane so?
You must help
me.
You are the only person who does and can know the truth, some of it anyway, and I love you with a special love which you
must
reciprocate. There is a bond between us now which cannot be broken and also a vow of silence. I will never speak of our‘ alliance’ to Arnold, and I know that you will not. Bradley, I must see you
soon
now, and see you
often.
You
must
get Priscilla away from Christian and bring her here, and you can visit her here, and I will look after her. Will you
please
telephone me this morning? I will drop this in on you early and then go home again. If Arnold is in the house when you ring I’ll talk in a conventional way, you’ll understand at once, and then you can ring again later. Oh Bradley, I need your love so much, I’m relying on you now and forever. Much much love

R.

PS I’ve read the review and enclose it with this letter. I think you shouldn’t publish it. It would hurt Arnold so much. You and he must love each other. That is so important. Oh help me to remain sane.

 

I was upset, touched, annoyed, pleased and thoroughly frightened by this emotional and jumbled missive. What large new thing was happening now and what consequences would it have? Why did women have to make things so definite? Why could she not have let our strange experience drift in a pleasant vagueness? I had dimly thought of her as an ‘ally’ against (against?) Arnold. She had made this horrible idea explicit. And if I was to be made mad by a relationship between Arnold and Christian would it help me at all that Rachel was made mad too? How I feared these ‘needs’. I now wanted very much to see Arnold and have a frank talk, even a shouting match. But a frank talk with Arnold was something which seemed to be becoming more and more impossible. In utter dismay I sat down where I was upon a chair in the hall to think it all over. Then the telephone rang.

‛Hello, Pearson? Hartbourne here. I’m thinking of giving a little office party.’

‘A little what?’

‘A little office party. I thought of inviting Bingley and Matheson and Hadley – Smith and Caldicott and Dyson, and the wives of course, and Miss Wellington and Miss Searle and Mrs Bradshaw – ’

‛How nice.’

‛But I want to be sure you can come. You’ll be by way of being the guest of honour, you know!’

‘How kind.’

‘Now you tell me a day that would suit you and I’ll issue the invitations. It’ll be quite like old times. People so often ask after you, I thought – ’

‘Any day suits me.’

‘Monday?’

‛Fine.’

‘Good. Then eight o’clock at my place. By the way, shall I invite Grey – Pelham? He won’t bring his wife, so it should be all right.’

‘Fine. Fine.’

‘And I’d like to make a lunch date with you.’

‛I’ ll ring you. I haven’t got my diary.’

‘Well, don’t forget about the party, will you?’

‛I’ m writing it down now. Thank you so much.’

As I put the telephone down someone began ringing the door bell. I went and opened the door. It was Priscilla. She marched past me into the sitting – room and immediately began to cry.