The Well of Loneliness (11 page)

‘Hold your back up, you’re stooping.’

Or Puddle exclaim crossly: ‘What on earth’s the matter, Stephen!’ All of which only added to Stephen’s tribulation by making her still more self-conscious.

With other young girls she had nothing in common, while they, in their turn, found her irritating. She was shy to primness regarding certain subjects, and would actually blush if they happened to be mentioned. This would strike her companions as queer and absurd—after all, between girls—surely every one knew that at times one ought not to get one’s feet wet, that one didn’t play games, not at certain times—there was nothing to make all this fuss about surely! To see Stephen Gordon’s expression of horror if one so much as threw out a hint on the subject, was to feel that the thing must in some way be shameful, a kind of disgrace, a humiliation! And then she was odd about other things too; there were so many things that she didn’t like mentioned.

In the end, they completely lost patience with her, and they left her alone with her fads and her fancies, disliking the check that her presence imposed, disliking to feel that they dare not allude to even the necessary functions of nature without being made to feel immodest.

But at times Stephen hated her own isolation, and then she would make little awkward advances, while her eyes would grow rather apologetic, like the eyes of a dog who has been out of favour. She would try to appear quite at ease with her companions, as she joined in their light-hearted conversation. Strolling up to a group of young girls at a party, she would grin as though their small jokes amused her, or else listen gravely while they talked about clothes or some popular actor who had visited Malvern. As long as they refrained from too intimate details, she would fondly imagine that her interest passed muster. There she would stand with her strong arms folded, and her face somewhat strained in an effort of attention. While despising these girls, she yet longed to be like them—yes, indeed, at such moments she longed to be like them. It would suddenly strike her that they seemed very happy, very sure of themselves as they gossiped together. There was something so secure in their feminine conclaves, a secure sense of oneness, of mutual understanding; each in turn understood the other’s ambitions. They might have their jealousies, their quarrels even, but always she discerned underneath, that sense of oneness.

Poor Stephen! She could never impose upon them; they always saw through her as though she were a window. They knew well enough that she cared not so much as a jot about clothes and popular actors. Conversation would falter, then die down completely, her presence would dry up their springs of inspiration. She spoilt things while trying to make herself agreeable; they really liked her better when she was grumpy.

Could Stephen have met men on equal terms, she would always have chosen them as her companions; she preferred them because of their blunt, open outlook, and with men she had much in common—sport for instance. But men found her too clever if she ventured to expand, and too dull if she suddenly subsided into shyness. In addition to this there was something about her that antagonized slightly, an unconscious presumption. Shy though she might be, they sensed this presumption; it annoyed them, it made them feel on the defensive. She was handsome but much too large and unyielding both in body and mind, and they liked clinging women. They were oak-trees, preferring the feminine ivy. It might cling rather close, it might finally strangle, it frequently did, and yet they preferred it, and this being so, they resented Stephen, suspecting something of the acorn about her.

3

Stephen’s worst ordeals at this time were the dinners given in turn by a hospitable county. They were long, these dinners, overloaded with courses; they were heavy, being weighted with polite conversation; they were stately, by reason of the family silver; above all they were firmly conservative in spirit, as conservative as the marriage service itself, and almost as insistent upon sex distinction.

‘Captain Ramsay, will you take Miss Gordon in to dinner?’ A politely crooked arm: ‘Delighted, Miss Gordon.’

Then the solemn and very ridiculous procession, animals marching into Noah’s Ark two by two, very sure of divine protection—male and female created He them! Stephen’s skirt would be long and her foot might get entangled, and she with but one free hand at her disposal—the procession would stop and she would have stopped it! Intolerable thought, she had stopped the procession!

‘I’m so sorry, Captain Ramsay!’

‘I say, can I help you?’

‘No—it’s really—all right, I think I can manage—’

But oh, the utter confusion of spirit, the humiliating feeling that someone must be laughing, the resentment at having to cling to his arm for support, while Captain Ramsay looked patient.

‘Not much damage, I think you’ve just torn the frill, but I often wonder how you women manage. Imagine a man in a dress like that, too awful to think of—imagine me in it!’ Then a laugh, not unkindly but a trifle self-conscious, and rather more than a trifle complacent.

Safely steered to her seat at the long dinner-table, Stephen would struggle to smile and talk brightly, while her partner would think: ‘Lord, she’s heavy in hand; I wish I had the mother; now there’s a lovely woman!’

And Stephen would think: ‘I’m a bore, why is it?’ Then, ‘But if I were he I wouldn’t be a bore, I could just be myself; I’d feel perfectly natural.’

Her face would grow splotched with resentment and worry; she would feel her neck flush and her hands become awkward. Embarrassed, she would sit staring down at her hands, which would seem to be growing more and more awkward. No escape! No escape! Captain Ramsay was kind-hearted, he would try very hard to be complimentary; his grey eyes would try to express admiration, polite admiration as they rested on Stephen. His voice would sound softer and more confidential, the voice that nice men reserve for good women, protective, respectful, yet a little sex-conscious, a little expectant of a tentative response. But Stephen would feel herself growing more rigid with every kind word and gallant allusion. Openly hostile she would be feeling, as poor Captain Ramsay or some other victim was manfully trying to do his duty.

In such a mood as this she had once drunk champagne, one glass only, the first she had ever tasted. She had gulped it all down in sheer desperation—the result had not been Dutch courage but hiccups. Violent, insistent, incorrigible hiccups had echoed along the whole length of the table. One of those weird conversational lulls had been filled, as it were, to the brim with her hiccups. Then Anna had started to talk very loudly; Mrs. Antrim had smiled and so had their hostess. Their hostess had finally beckoned to the butler: ‘Give Miss Gordon a glass of water,’ she had whispered. After that, Stephen shunned champagne like the plague—better hopeless depression, she decided, than hiccups!

It was strange how little her fine brain seemed able to help her when she was trying to be social; in spite of her confident boasting to Raftery, it did not seem able to help her at all. Perhaps it was the clothes, for she lost all conceit the moment she was dressed as Anna would have her; at this period clothes greatly influenced Stephen, giving her confidence or the reverse. But be that as it might, people thought her peculiar, and with them that was tantamount to disapproval.

And thus, it was being borne in upon Stephen, that for her there was no real abiding city beyond the strong, friendly old gates of Morton, and she clung more and more to her home and to her father. Perplexed and unhappy she would seek out her father on all social occasions and would sit down beside him. Like a very small child this large muscular creature would sit down beside him because she felt lonely, and because youth most rightly resents isolation, and because she had not yet learnt her hard lesson—she had not yet learnt that the loneliest place in this world is the no-man’s-land of sex.

Sir Philip and his daughter had a new common interest; they could now discuss books and the making of books and the feel and the smell and the essence of books—a mighty bond this, and one full of enchantment. They could talk of these things with mutual understanding; they did so for hours in the father’s study, and Sir Philip discovered a secret ambition that had lain in the girl like a seed in deep soil; and he, the good gardener of her body and spirit, hoed the soil and watered this seed of ambition. Stephen would show him her queer compositions, and would wait very breathless and still while he read them; then one evening he looked up and saw her expression, and he smiled:

‘So that’s it, you want to be a writer. Well, why not? You’ve got plenty of talent, Stephen; I should be a proud man if you were a writer.’ After which their discussions on the making of books held an even more vital enchantment.

But Anna came less and less often to the study, and she would be sitting alone and idle. Puddle, upstairs at work in the schoolroom, might be swotting at her Greek to keep pace with Stephen, but Anna would be sitting with her hands in her lap in the vast drawing-room so beautifully proportioned, so restfully furnished in old polished walnut, so redolent of beeswax and orris root and violets—all alone in its vastness would Anna be sitting, with her white hands folded and idle.

A lovely and most comfortable woman she had been, and still was, in spite of her gentle ageing, but not learned, oh, no, very far from learned—that, indeed, was why Sir Philip had loved her, that was why he had found her so infinitely restful, that was why he still loved her after very many years; her simplicity was stronger to hold him than learning. But now Anna went less and less often to the study.

It was not that they failed to make her feel welcome, but rather that they could not conceal their deep interest in subjects of which she knew little or nothing. What did she know of or care for the Classics? What interest had she in the works of Erasmus? Her theology needed no erudite discussion, her philosophy consisted of a home swept and garnished, and as for the poets, she liked simple verses; for the rest her poetry lay in her husband. All this she well knew and had no wish to alter, yet lately there had come upon Anna an aching, a tormenting aching that she dared give no name to. It nagged at her heart when she went to that study and saw Sir Philip together with their daughter, and knew that her presence contributed nothing to his happiness when he sat reading to Stephen.

Staring at the girl she would see the strange resemblance, the invidious likeness of the child to the father, she would notice their movements so grotesquely alike; their hands were alike, they made the same gestures, and her mind would recoil with that nameless resentment, the while she reproached herself; penitent and trembling. Yet penitent and trembling though Anna might be, she would sometimes hear herself speaking to Stephen in a way that would make her feel secretly ashamed. She would hear herself covertly, cleverly gibing, with such skill that the girl would look up at her bewildered; with such skill that even Sir Philip himself could not well take exception to what she was saying; then, as like as not, she would laugh it off lightly, as though all the time she had only been jesting, and Stephen would laugh too, a big, friendly laugh. But Sir Philip would not laugh, and his eyes would seek Anna’s questioning, amazed, incredulous and angry. That was why she now went so seldom to the study when Sir Philip and his daughter were together.

But sometimes, when she was alone with her husband, Anna would suddenly cling to him in silence. She would hide her face against his hard shoulder clinging closer and closer, as though she were frightened, as though she were afraid for this great love of theirs. He would stand very still, forbearing to move, forbearing to question, for why should he question? He knew already, and she knew that he knew. Yet neither of them spoke it, this most unhappy thing, and their silence spread round them like a poisonous miasma. The spectre that was Stephen would seem to be watching, and Sir Philip would gently release himself from Anna, while she, looking up, would see his tired eyes, not angry any more, only very unhappy. She would think that those eyes were pleading, beseeching; she would think: ‘He’s pleading with me for Stephen.’ Then her own eyes would fill with tears of contrition, and that night she would kneel long in prayer to her Maker:

Give me peace,’ she would entreat, ‘and enlighten my spirit, so that I may learn how to love my own child.’

2

Sir Philip looked older now than his age, and seeing this, Anna could scarcely endure it. Everything in her cried out in rebellion so that she wanted to thrust back the years, to hold them at bay with her own weak body. Had the years been an army of naked swords she would gladly have held them at bay with her body.

He would constantly now remain in his study right into the early hours of the morning. This habit of his had been growing on him lately, and Anna, waking to find herself alone, and feeling uneasy would steal down to listen. Backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards! She would hear his desolate sounding footsteps. Why was he pacing backwards and forwards, and why was she always afraid to ask him? Why was the hand she stretched out to the door always fearful when it came to turning the handle? Oh, but it was strong, this thing that stood between them, strong with the strength of their united bodies. It had drawn its own life from their youth, their passion, from the splendid and purposeful meaning of their passion—that was how it had leapt full of power into life, and now it had thrust in between them. They were ageing, they had little left but their loving—that gentler loving, perhaps the more perfect—and their faith in each other, which was part of that loving, and their peace, which was part of the peace of Morton. Backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards! Those incessant and desolate sounding footsteps. Peace: There was surely no peace in that study, but rather some affliction, menacing, prophetic! Yet prophetic of what? She dared not ask him, she dared not so much as turn the door-handle, a haunting premonition of disaster would make her creep away with her question unasked.