«Poor child.»
«Oh she's all right, she's lucky. And as you say, it's the human condition. Well, good night, Bradley. I know you want to get away from me.»
«No, no-«I don't mean it in a nasty way! You're so shy. I love it. Kiss me.»
I kissed her quickly but very fully in the darkness underneath the tree.
«I may write to you,» she said.
«Do that.»
«Don't worry. Nothing for worry.»
«I know. Good night. And thanks.»
Rachel gave a weird little laugh and vanished into the obscurity. I began to walk quickly along the next road in the direction of the tube station.
I found that my heart was beating rather violently. I could not make out whether something very important had happened or not. I thought, I shall know tomorrow. Now there was nothing to be done except to rest upon an immediate sense of the experience. Rachel still hovered round me like a perfume. But in my mind with great clarity I saw Arnold, as if he were looking at me from the far end of an illuminated corridor. Whatever had happened had happened to Arnold too.
Just then I saw the balloon again. It was moving slowly along, a little ahead of me, over the tops of the houses. It was lower than it had been before and seemed to be very gradually descending. The street lamps had been turned on, giving a local ineffectual light beneath a sky which was glowing but nearly dark, and in which the pale object was barely visible. A few people were walking along the road, but no one except myself seemed to have noticed the strange wanderer. I began to hurry, trying to gauge its direction. In the suburban villas rectangles of light were appearing in the lower rooms. Sometimes undrawn curtains showed insipid pastel-shaded interiors and sometimes the blue flicker of television. Up above, the neat silhouettes of roofs and the bunchy silhouettes of trees were outlined against a dark bluish sky through which the faint globe, its tail now entirely invisible, floated onward. I began to run.
For a moment it was invisible behind a tree. Then suddenly, wafted faster by a momentary breeze, it swept down over the street, moving into the arc of the lamplight. For a second or two it appeared in front of me, huge and yellow, its tail of pendant bows swaying crazily. I could even see the string. I raced towards it. Something lightly brushed my face. The street lamps dazzled me as I clutched above my head, and clutched again. And then it was all gone. The balloon had vanished, descending into some dark and farther maze of suburban gardens. I continued for some while to hurry to and fro among the little intersecting streets, but I did not set eyes again upon the travelling portent.
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.
Q ne 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 fagade of his appearance.
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.
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.
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 Math– eson and Hadley-Smith and Caldicott and Dyson, and the wives of course, and Miss Wellington and Miss Searle and Mrs. Brad– shaw-«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 doorbell. I went and opened the door. It was Priscilla. She marched past me into the sitting-room and immediately began to cry.
«Oh God, Priscilla, do stop.»
«You only want me to stop crying.»
«All right, I only want you to stop crying. Stop crying.»
She lay back in the big «Hartbourne» armchair and in fact stopped. Her hair was in ugly disorder, the darkened parting zigzagging across her head. She lay back limply, gracelessly, with her legs spread and her mouth open. There was a hole in her stocking at the knee through which pink spotty flesh bulged in a little mound.
«Oh Priscilla, I am so sorry.»
«Yes. Be sorry. Bradley, I think you're right. I'd better go back to Roger.»
«Priscilla, you can't-«
«Why not? Have you changed your mind? You were saying so much I should go back. You said he was so unhappy and the house was so awful. He needs me, I suppose. And it is my home. Nowhere else is. Perhaps he'll be nicer to me now. Bradley, I think I'm going mad, I'm going out of my mind. What's it like when people go mad, does one know one's going mad?»
«Of course you aren't going mad.»
«I think I'll go to bed if you don't mind.»
«I'm sorry, I still haven't made up the spare bed.»
«Bradley, your cabinet looks different, something's gone. Where have you put the water-buffalo lady?»
«The water-buffalo lady?» I looked at the gaping empty space. «Oh yes. I gave her away. I gave her to Julian Baffin.»
«Oh Bradley, how could you, she was mine, she was mine.» Priscilla gave a little moan and the tears began to flow again. She started to fumble vainly in her bag looking for a handkerchief.
«You couldn't even keep that for me.»