'Yes, and for the matter of that Jesus certainly wasn't
sentimental, either. In fact, He could be damned ruthless on
occasion,' said Tony.' "Whoso shall offend one of these little
ones, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged
about his neck and he were drowned in the depth of the
sea."'
'Oh, Tony, don't!' cried Kathe, so sharply that we both
jumped.
'Sorry!' said Tony in surprise. 'Well, all I meant was that
I sense almost a kind of grim relish in that. You know, like
Weir of Hermiston - "I was glad to get Jopp haangit, and
what for would I pretend I wasna?" '
'You don't refute Kathe, though - about the physical
Aphrodite?'
'No, I reckon she's got a fair point. The Church is fairly
well on to it nowadays, as a matter of fact, but I fully admit
it's not covered in the gospels. I suppose one could say a
whole lot more, but I'm not a believer in the hard sell, as
you know. The product's good enough to sell itself to any
thinking person, given time. And all too often a hot gospeller's
only shoving things down on top of other stuff that
really needs to come out first, so that after a bit the stuff
underneath pushes all the undigested hot gospelling up and
out, and the victim's back at square one.'
'Well, this lover feels generous enough to the rest of the
world, anyway,' I said, 'and so he darned well should, I
reckon. If you listen you'll hear me fairly bawling the Te
Deum tomorrow morning - or even if you don't listen, I
dare say.'
' 'Tell you what,' said Kathe, Til come and bawl it too,
if you like.'
As I looked at her in happy surprise she murmured, as
though to herself, 'Go there - well, perhaps -' Then, pointing
across the river, 'Can you see the water-rat running about
over there, on that mud by the fluffy pink flowers - what
d'you call them?'
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'Hemp agrimony. They deserve a better name, I always
think.'
'Gretchen-by-the-brook? The milkmaid's flounces?'
'The parson's duster. What are you holding forth on tomorrow,
Tony? Got a text?'
'Acts i, 7. "It is not for you to know the times or the
seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power." And
talking of times and seasons, I'd better be getting back for
a quick bite before the Boys' Club. You and I can agree on
one thing, anyway, Kathe -'
'I don't believe it!'
'- That is a rising trout. He's just risen for about the fifth
time in the same place. Could you catch him, Alan?'
'I wish it was my water. I'd have a damned good try.'
'Perhaps it may be before long. You'll be able to afford it.
What would you use?'
'Oh, I don't know - sedge, black gnat. Coachman, perhaps
- it's getting quite dark.'
There was a mist coming off the water, and a cool, river
smell of reeds and mud. The spiders were at work already,
twining between the tall grasses. Looking upstream as we
re-crossed the plank bridge, I saw the new moon setting in
a green, western sky. However things might turn out, I
thought, Kathe and I could hardly be more fortunate and
happy.
Stepping off the bridge she turned and asked, 'What are
you thinking?'
'Only what I'm always thinking. "Countries, Townes,
Courts: Beg from above a patterne of your love."'
'Well, I'm quite ready to give it to them; but d'you think
some of them might get more than they bargained for?' She
put her hand in mine. 'Dear Alan, will you take me out to
dinner? I really would love it this evening.'
'Why, you're trembling, Kathe!'
'Spannung! It's all the excitement, Alan! Heaven knows
there's enough to feel excited about, don't you think?'
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To my eyes there was an almost regal quality about Kathe's
appearance at church next morning. Not that she appeared
to be putting herself forward; on the contrary, she was
positively demure. But just as she had looked beyond all
doubt a swimmer on the banks of the Itchetucknee, so now
she seemed to effuse a kind of soft, involuntary lustre of
femininity. I suppose people - women, anyway - have always
enjoyed making a fuss of a newly-married girl. At
least, they appear to be making a fuss", but it is also their
way of sniffing her over - a new member of the pack. After
the service, as Tony stood at the porch shaking hands and
making himself agreeable, as clergymen do, several ladies
came up to chat to Kathe and me in the sunshine, asking her
how she liked England, whether she found the food in our
restaurants as awful as foreigners always seem to think, how
the shops compared with Denmark, how Newbury struck
her and so on. She could not have responded more graciously,
modestly or acceptably. It was obvious that they were delighted
with her.
In the middle of all this Phil Mannion, one of our churchwardens,
took me aside to talk about the arrangements for
Harvest Festival. He wanted to borrow some large bowls and
dishes from my stock. Phil was always a great arranger well
in advance and maker of mountains out of molehills. He got
my agreement, which was all he really needed, quickly
enough, but then said, 'If you could just come back inside for
a moment, Alan, I'd like to show you what I've got in mind.'
'All right,' I said, 'as long as it is just for a moment. Only
I hardly like to leave my wife alone at the mercy of that lot.
Just look at them, putting her through the hoop!'
'Well, she seems to be doing fine; girl like that, get away
with murder. But look, Alan, by the door here, I thought if
we had a really huge dish with something of everything on
it - you know, eggs, vegetables, flowers and so on. What's
the biggest dish you could let us have?'
As we leant against the wall of the west tower, he talking
on and I idly agreeing with this and that, I became abstracted,
looking up the noble sixteenth-century arcades of
284
the nave and imagining Kathe and myself standing at the
chancel steps. 'Those whom God hath joined together, let no
man put asunder.' A private service, with my mother and
Flick and perhaps one or two friends. Surely in time it would
come about. But it must wait for Kathe's readiness. I remembered
Tony's remark about trying to push stuff down on top
of things that still needed to come out. One day she'd suggest
it herself.
St Nicholas's has a fine set of Victorian stained-glass
windows, like a great picture-book - miracles one side,
parables the other. I looked at the sower and his seed (the
seed is falling from his hand in a sort of fan-shaped, semisolid
plane) and the marriage in Cana of Galilee. Pity, I
thought, that we couldn't invite the White Horse to our
wedding. I'd love to see him come clumping up the aisle, like
Don Giovanni's Stone Guest: I'd give him a bucket of champagne.
<
br /> Just now I could do with a pint of bitter myself - the
thirst after righteousness, as my father used to call it. Perhaps
Phil would be through in a minute.
Next morning I telephoned the V. & A. and made an appointment
to see Mr John Mallet on Tuesday afternoon.
'Are you coming up with me, Kathe?'
She was arranging four or five pieces of Royal Copenhagen
and Bing & Gr0ndahl on an occasional table to one side of
the shop. She put down the plate she was holding and
turned round, gazing at me with the look I knew, of restrained,
indulgent amusement.
'I said, "Are you coming up to the V. & A. with me?" '
Smiling now, she shook her head.
'Oh, but why not? It's your discovery - the credit's all
yours. Don't you want to be there when it's authenticated?'
'I don't need to be told. The White Horse told me.'
All that morning she was quiet and distant, withdrawn
into her beautiful self like a leopard gazing out past sightseers
to whom it has ceased to pay any attention. About
noon I went out to the bank; and on my return found her
285
sitting in the office, reading Lane and Charleston's 1960
paper about the Girl in a Swing in my bound Transactions of
the English Ceramic Circle.
I put a hand on her shoulder. 'Learnt anything?'
'Nothing you didn't tell me. Das stimmt damit ein."
'Coming out for a bite?'
'Mrs Taswell's gone out already. I'll mind the shop and go
when you come back.'
'You're all right, darling, are you?'
She got up, put the book back on the shelf and stood
looking at me in something of the dismissive way in which
she had looked at the students drifting down the Florida
river.
'I was never better.'
I was moved by her serenity and confidence. Pray God it
would be justified, I thought. Often I felt myself her follower
and servant. If, now, for whatever reason, she wanted to be
solitary, it was no business of mine. I went out to lunch.
When I came back she had already gone home, leaving a
note in which she assured me that nothing was wrong - 'on
the contrary, believe me, my dearest' - and hoped I would
myself return as early as I could.
That evening it rained - a light, summer rain, portending
no real break-up of the fine weather - and I, who would
have preferred to be working in the garden as a relief for my
tension, fell to dusting and re-arranging the ceramic collection;
taking pieces out of their cabinets, fingering the glazes
and placing each in turn under a light on the Stannards'
occasional table.
Kathe spent some time finishing her letter of thanks to
Flick and writing another to my mother, but then, having
opened the French windows on the wet garden, sat at the
piano and began playing bits of Schumann's 'Carnaval'.
After a time the graceful, charming music began to have its
effect on me, and I gave over my restless re-arranging and
sat by the windows, watching the quick bobbing of the leaves
under the raindrops and, farther off, the grey, undulating
drift across the cornfield and the distant downs. When at
length she paused I said, 'You've restored my peace of mind.'
286
'Not peace but a sword.'
'How?'
'Oh - well, a knife and fork, anyway. I'll make you a huge
chive omelette if you like, and after that I'm going to have
a whole hour in the bath.'
But when I came upstairs myself she was already in bed,
neither reading nor drowsing, but awaiting me with a kind
of alert expectancy. This I guessed to be her way of reacting
to the anxiety and excitement of the day, to which she
would not admit. Once in bed myself, I took her in my arms
but then, sensing that for once she was not inclined for
pleasure, lay beside her in silence, holding her hand.
Our little custom was that it was Kathe who always put
out the light, either before or after love-making, just as she
had a mind to. Tonight she did not put it out, and after
a while I dropped off to sleep. Later, waking for a few
moments, I saw that the light was still on and she was
awake. Whether she had yet slept I could not tell, but I was
myself so drowsy that I returned to sleep at once: and in
this second sleep I had a dream.
I was approaching the V. & A. for my meeting with Mallet,
carrying the Girl in a Swing in her box. I came down the
Brompton Road, up the steps and in through the revolving
doors. But as soon as I got inside, I found myself in a vast
hall, so big that I could not even see the walls. In the centre
was a raised dais and on this a girl was standing - a living
girl, and yet she was porcelain; white, naked and very beautiful.
She might have been the Sevres Galatea of Falconet,
or Boizot's Bather. All around her, below, stood a concourse
of people, both men and women; and these, too, were all
porcelain or pottery, alive and waiting intently. Looking
about me I recognized many of them, just as I might have
recognized real people at a concert or in church. The Bow
Liberty and Matrimony were there, Bustelli's Nymphenburg
Columbine, the Longton Hall goatherd, the Chelsea ratcatcher,
the Derby Diana; yes, and Garibaldi in his rough,
red shirt - he was there. These and many more stood gazing
at me and waiting. Slowly, at their silent invitation, I approached
the dais; and as I did so realized that the white
287
girl was Kathe. She held out her arms to me and I, halfshrinking
from what I now knew to be the conferment of
great honour, ascended the dais and took her hands in mine.
The people below still stood in silence, but all smiling, their
uplifted faces expressing their joy. We were a monarch and
his queen and these were our subjects, waiting for us to
establish our kingdom - their kingdom - and to claim
for them the recognition due to their beauty, the admiration
of the world.
In the dream I could feel within my encircling arm both
the warm, living flesh and the cool, hard glaze of my queen.
I saw the quaint enamelled eyes of the people shining as
they stared up at us, the most beautiful and splendid court
the world had ever known. And suddenly, in the very moment
of this exaltation, I became appallingly aware of what they
themselves did not realize - their own fragility. They were
helpless, more vulnerable than any people in the world, for
ever dependent on seclusion and protection, and doomed at
last, one day, to be smashed. One step outside and I could
not defend them, could not save them from being shattered
on the pavements and broken against the walls. And as I
stood helplessly, miserably looking down at their happy
faces, they faded, receding towards the distant edges of the
hall, and I woke to find Kathe's arms about me.
We lay without speaking. I was beyond desire, or any
feeling but
the memory of the dream. I shed tears, yet she
asked no questions, only continuing to embrace me, as
though we ourselves had been those porcelain people, capable
of movement and feeling though not of speech. At last
she whispered, 'It has to be'; in a tone not of comfort or
sympathy, but of such conviction and apparent understanding
that for one groping instant I wondered whether she,
too, had dreamt my dream.
I fell asleep again and did not wake until well after eight.
Kathe had made tea, run my bath and brushed a dark, go-toLondon
suit. She seemed altogether her usual self and said
nothing about the strange night we had passed.
'I don't think I'd put on the waistcoat, darling,' she said.
'Just look outside - that purple rim round the sky - it's
288
going to be the hottest day yet. The dew's nearly all off the
grass already. I don't envy you your trip, but y'all take care
now - plural - you and your porcelain girl.'
London. A sweltering afternoon at the V. & A. The attendants
in shirt-sleeve order and Mr John Mallet in a light-weight,
white jacket - tall, scholarly and courteous.
'My goodness, what a hot day, isn't it?' he said as we sat
down together in his office. 'Like the Mediterranean. Have
you come up from the country, Mr Desland? Going back
there tonight? I'm sure you'll be glad to get out of London.'
'Well, that'll rather depend on what you're going to tell
me.' It sounded abrupt, but I couldn't help it. Now that the
moment was upon me, I felt nervous.
'A serious matter, eh? Well, we'll do our best to help as
far as we can. Does that mysterious parcel contain what
you've brought to show me?'
'It does.'
I opened the box and stood the figure on his desk. A silence
ensued, while he looked at it carefully for some time.
'This is - er - rather remarkable, Mr Desland,' said Mallet
at length. 'I wonder, might I ask you to tell me what you
think about it yourself - and perhaps where you got it, if
that's not being unduly inquisitive?'
'My wife saw it at a country sale and bought it for twenty
pounds.'
'Great heavens! What a wonderful lady!'
'Yes. The - er - enamelling strikes me particularly, and you
might like to glance at the under-side of the base.'
'Good gracious!' As he put it back on the desk I said,
'You asked me what I think. I think it's a third figure of the
Girl in a Swing, unique in being enamelled, with features that
suggest that it may have been made at a factory at or near
Bow, or at any rate more closely connected with Bow than
with Chelsea.'
'Yes. Yes, I see.' Mallet, still examining, paused for a good
half-minute. 'Well,' he went on at length, 'what my advice
comes down to, Mr Desland, is that I should say you were
289
probably right. As you know, it used to be thought, largely
on the evidence of Simeon Shaw's History of the Staffordshire
Potteries, that the potters who migrated from there to London
in the seventeen-forties and 'fifties went only to the
Chelsea factory. Shaw refers to the existence of a second
Chelsea factory, and it used to be supposed that this and
the Girl-in-a-Swing factory must have been one and the
same. But we now know that in fact some of those Staffordshire
potters went to Bow. Samuel Parr, for instance - well,
you know about Phoebe Parr, I suppose?'
'Yes, I know about Phoebe Parr.' I could not suppress a
shudder. Even now, the little girl at the bottom of the sea
was something I did not care to recall.
'Very sad, isn't it? So many children died in those days.
Well, she proves Samuel Parr for one, and then there was
Joshua Astbury. Shaw didn't tell us everything, that's about
the size of it. Chelsea wasn't the only factory to go in for
slip-casting. I think the truth is that there was a good deal
of to-ing and fro-ing by potters between Chelsea and Bow.
We know, of course, that Thomas Frye had a porcelain
factory at Bow; and we know that in 1754 John Fry - whoever
he may have been - paid tax on some land apparently
owned by that factory.
I waited without speaking, but my hands were not steady.
Mallet turned back to the figure on the desk.
'And now you come along with this lady. And there are
three most interesting things about her. First of all, she's a
third Girl in a Swing all right. There's not a doubt of that.
She's slip-cast, and her glaze is quite unmistakable. Then,
secondly, she's got this very exciting incised name, "John
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