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?’
‘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?’
‘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.’
‘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 breathtaking. 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 quivering 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?’
‘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 tomorrow and it’ll be my fault. I ought never to have come.’
‘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 need to announce that Geraldine had brushed her hair than to declare, as she did in the nest 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 come 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 come 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 history and economics 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.
‘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, but 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 tomorrow. 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! 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 y
our 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 entrenchments 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?
Dusty Answer Page 20
