Sunflower

by Rebecca West

  ‘I didn’t eat much tonight.’

  ‘No. But it isn’t dinner that matters, in point of fact. It’s tea that does it. Crumpets, cakes, sweet biscuits, all these little things. That’s what gives the slight thickness round the jaw that just takes away the … But you’re all right, dear, at present.’

  ‘Well, I ought to be,’ said Sunflower, shortly, ‘for I don’t have any tea. And I’m fit to drop.’ She raised her finger and ran it round her jaw. Surely it was not so bad. Perhaps, it was a bit heavy. Of course she did weigh a lot compared to all this new lot who were as thin as paper-knives. Still theirs was the type that seemed to be liked nowadays, so maybe being perfect in her type was as bad as being fat. Oh, now that he had started her worrying she probably wouldn’t sleep for hours, and she was aching with tiredness. ‘Now I’m going to bed.’

  He apparently had not heard her, for he went on thoughtfully. ‘But anyway that doesn’t matter. It isn’t in physical type that they’ve beaten you. It’s in intelligence. You’re—’ he made a sad grimace into his glass, and gulped the last of his drink, ‘slow, Sunflower, slow!’ It was extraordinary how she had never quite got the hang of his moods. Of course he had all the time, from the moment she had told him to go away, been frenzied with rage against her. ‘My God, the way you kept on coming back and back to it tonight! The way you kept on making a fool of yourself—and me again and again!’

  As soon as she had seen that he was angry she had resolved not to answer him back, no matter what he said; but when he reminded her of what had happened at dinner she began to blush again, and the pain of the blunt pricking where the blood swept over her breasts made her cry out, ‘Oh! Oh! I never did! It was you made a fool of me!’

  He looked at her with eyes narrowed by hate. She cried, ‘I don’t know what you mean! It was you! I didn’t say a thing!’

  Softly he said, ‘Are you so densely, so cretinously stupid that you didn’t see that you were giving away the most intimate details of our private life to Pitt and his sister?’

  This was something more than mere blind malignity. He was showing that mixture of hatred of her folly and gloating delight in the fresh evidence he had collected concerning it which usually meant that she had done something really silly. Shivering she said, ‘Whatever do you mean? I wish you’d tell me right out.’

  ‘Why, that imbecile story you’d dragged home from the Assize Court—’ his gaze suddenly grew wild and hard with a different, madder accusation. ‘Sunflower!’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘How did you come to be at that court? Had you fixed up the whole thing beforehand? Had you arranged with Sandbury to be down at Clussingford when he was there?’

  She gaped. ‘Why, I never saw the old man before!’

  He clapped his hands over his ears. ‘My God, that Cockney whine! I thought I’d cured you of … And I wonder, I wonder. Sunflower. I’m not sure about you. You can manage that pure, hurt look wonderfully. But I’m not sure about you. I was looking at your letters before you came in. There are two bills from dressmakers. Big bills. What do you want with all those clothes if it isn’t to attract other men?’

  ‘I’ve told you a hundred times I have to dress because I’m on the stage. You wouldn’t think it had anything to do with acting but it has. And you know I’m all right! Tell me what I did tonight. Why shouldn’t I have told that story about Alice Hester? You don’t mean that either of them had been in trouble for bigamy—or anything—’

  ‘Oh, God above! You fool! You unspeakable fool! Didn’t you realise the way you told it gave away that you wanted children, that you were perpetually worrying me to give you a child! You went on and on at it, you wouldn’t leave it alone. When one thought the thing was safely thrown out of doors you reappeared at the window with the thing in your mouth.’

  She had risen and was standing quite still, with her clenched hands covering her mouth and her round eyes on him.

  ‘Don’t you understand even now? You kept on saying, “She wasn’t happy though she had lots of children.” “I suppose if you’ve got lots of children nothing can hurt you.” “She couldn’t have borne not to have a child.” If you had told them in a crude sentence exactly what you wanted you couldn’t have been more indecent. And the Pitts are nice people. They were out to be nice to you. When I asked Francis Pitt to dine here tonight he suggested himself that he should bring his sister. Said she admired you very much and that they quite understood this wasn’t the same as any other irregular mnage. I should think they went away regretting it. I’ve never had such a ghastly time in my life. And now, to round off the evening you start this nonsense about leaving me. I would have thought you’d done enough, after this appalling exhibition. Oh, my God, can’t you say something? Need you stand there looking half-witted?’

  She drew a shuddering breath. ‘I don’t see there’s anything I can say. I suppose that must have been it. There certainly was something that made them look at me. I’m sorry.’

  ‘This isn’t a thing sorrow can wipe out. It was the last straw, to have the thing dragged up in public, when I’m sick of being pestered about it in private.’

  ‘Oh, Ess,’ she said, ‘I haven’t pestered you. I’ve hardly ever spoken of it … except … except when I’ve liked you very much. And you’ve spoken of it then as much as me. You know I’ve never asked you for that … by daylight. Oh, I didn’t think you’d ever bring that up against me. It doesn’t seem the sort of thing that ought to come back to me like this …’ She bit her knuckles.

  He pointed a finger at her and waggled it from side to side. ‘That’s it,’ he said.

  She stared. ‘What?’

  ‘That thing you’re doing to your hands. A silly false movement. No effect. That’s how you let down the big scene in “Leonora". No, Sunflower, you shouldn’t have been an actress.’ He moved towards the table, where the whisky and syphons were, making her feel as he passed her by an exasperated flutter of his fine hands, that it was a piece of intolerable clumsiness for her to be standing where she was. He poured out a glass of soda-water only. Even at this moment he was not forgetful of his austere rule never to drink more than one glass of weak whisky-and-soda after dinner. Having refreshed himself, he went on. ‘Yes, I’m inclined to think that if I took you seriously and got out it would be the best thing. I’m sick of this constant suggestion that I’ve wasted your life, that I’m an old man who’s eaten up your youth, that as soon as I got out of politics I should have deserted my poor loyal little Ethel and married you and given you children. I’m bored to death with that story, Sunflower.’

  Amazed she asked, ‘But whenever did I say all that? You know I never did. Let’s not quarrel, let’s be friends, like you said we ought to be. I’ve never said such things. I’ve never thought them. I’ve always seen it as I did at the beginning. You’re the cleverest man in the world, and I was of no use to you, and I didn’t believe it made any difference whether a clergyman said things over you or not, so of course I didn’t hold back. I knew it wouldn’t be all jam, and it hasn’t been, but I haven’t ever brought it up against you. Oh, you know I haven’t.’

  Meeting her eyes he looked away from her, said ‘Mm’ into his silver feelers, and admitted, ‘Well, perhaps you’ve never said it in so many words. Still the feeling—’ again he waved his long hands, ‘is about. Perhaps,’ he suggested in a stronger tone, ‘you said it without meaning to, as you did tonight.’

  The shame of what she had done came over her again. ‘Oh, I am stupid,’ she said. ‘I do say silly things.’ She began to cry.

  ‘Oh God, now you’re crying!’ exclaimed Essington, as if in surprise and despair. ‘Haven’t you any consideration? Now, Sunflower, dear, try and hold yourself up. I’m always holding you up, and I … I can’t go on with it. I’m tired. And I’m old. Some people might think it was time I had a little peace. Now do pull yourself together …’

  But she had already stopped crying. She was looking at him with a deep furrow between her brows. H
e wailed, ‘Oh, for God’s sake, don’t look so silly,’ but she continued to gaze at him thoughtfully. ‘I don’t understand what you feel about me,’ she said. ‘You say you love me. But you don’t. If you loved me you’d want always to be kind to me and look after me. When I was silly and stupid you’d do something to stop me from going on. You wouldn’t do what you did tonight, and stand by while I blundered into it, and then push me further in. And it’s all like that. I believe you hate me. If things are bad with me you always make me worse. You know perfectly well I loathe being an actress and that I have to be one and there’s no getting out of it now, and all the time you go telling me how bad I am as if I didn’t know it. I’ve never told you of trouble I’ve had at rehearsals without your looking pained and saying I must have made a fool of myself. I’ve never had bad notices after a first night without you coming and sitting on my bed and picking out the worst ones in a thoughtful kind of way and saying what a pity it all was. Not that that’s what I mind, for most of it is true, though any fool feels nowadays that when he hasn’t got anything else to be funny about there’s always my acting. What I mind is that you sort of say to me all the time, “Yes, you are a bad actress, and maybe if you keep on like this maybe I’ll get rid of you.” It is as if when you come here tired out I was to taunt you for having been bested by that nasty little Bryce Atkin at Versailles and say that maybe I wouldn’t have you here any more because of it. Which I wouldn’t ever do. Now if you loved me you’d say that however I failed on the stage you’d always love me. But you don’t because you hate me. It’s meat and drink to you to see me miserable. About this marriage business, you’ve set me thinking. You know I haven’t ever talked about it like you said I did, but now I’m wondering. You say you live like this with me because you don’t believe in marriage, but you do. You really think it’s good of another woman to come and see you because I’m living with you without being married. If you think that then it’s wrong of you to live with me. But I’m not at all sure if you don’t live with me like this just because it puts me all the time into positions I hate. Staying with me at hotels where people look at me. Like Madeira. While you were in politics you couldn’t afford to do that, you just made me cry here, but the minute you were free you rushed at this public thing. And yet it isn’t as if I bored you and you wanted to get rid of me. You never leave me alone. I haven’t had six weeks on end away from you in twelve years. You just like being with me to hurt me. And yet … and yet … it’s me you like making love to. Oh,’ she gasped, shaking her head in horror. ‘That—that’s what’s so awful. It’s dreadful. It isn’t natural.’

  She stared at him earnestly until, beneath his silver feelers, his lips pursed, and she put out a defensive hand. ‘Ah,’ she interrupted, ‘You’ve thought of something clever that’ll make me feel like cat’s meat. Well, what’s the good of that? I am cat’s meat, I suppose. But I’m not going to listen to this one. I know it all.’

  As she laid her hand on the door-knob she looked over her shoulder, fearful at her own rebellion. He was wearing the utterly amazed and shocked expression that a bowler in a county match might wear if a batsman suddenly walked off the pitch in the middle of play. ‘Ah, it’s a game to him,’ she thought. ‘But, oh, he is looking like a cat. A great, fine handsome cat. It was when he looked like that we used to make up that fairy story about him being King of the Cats and me the Blue Persian Princess. That was a jolly story. Such funny things he thought of …’ But something in her that was feeling old and desperate cried out, ‘You can’t give up what’s left of your life for a fairy story.’ She slammed the door between them.

  She ran upstairs, and went into her bedroom, locked the door, sat down in front of her dressing-table, shook her head at the disordered image in the mirror, and said, ‘He’s mad, he’s mad.’ Well, it was all over now. The funny thing was that she felt lonely. She would have liked to go and ring someone up and tell them all about it, but there was nobody she knew well enough except Maxine, and most likely she and her husband would be in bed by this time; and she always felt that George was a bit jealous of Maxine being so fond of her. Of course, if Marty Lomax had been alive, she would have gone straight to the telephone and said, ‘Mayfair 287169,’ and then, ‘Is that you, Marty? Well, it’s happened like you wanted it to. I’m free,’ and he would have answered something slow, something that would have caused her to feel unruffled and full of consequence, and made arrangements to come and see her at some hour on the next day, after which she would never have needed to bother about anything. Marty had been a dear. Alice Hester’s ploughman must have been just like him. She put her hand into the back of the drawer under her mirror and took out the little box in which she kept her most private things: the wreath of violets she had worn in ‘Farandole’, which for some years afterwards she had believed had brought her luck; a photograph of her brother Maurice as a baby; a photograph of herself and Maxine at the first theatrical garden party at which they had been asked to take a stall; and Marty’s letter, the only one he had ever written to her.

  Hotel Splendide,

  Cannes.

  Darling Sunflower,

  I wish you were here.

  Measles has broken out in the hotel. I am awfully sorry for the girl who got them first. I danced with her the day before she got ill.

  There is all the usual crowd here. I went up to the Carlton yesterday and saw Fitz playing. He asked after you. He is a good sort.

  How old is Irene Temple? I have a bet on it.

  I wish you were here. Do remember that any time you cut off I am ready for you. If you wired I would come right back. Or if you think there would be a fuss in London we could meet and get married in Paris. There is a way of doing it that is as simple as it is in London. Metcalfe and Doris did it. I wish you would.

  The ponies are all right. I think I shall sell Trefoil to Garside after all. I don’t really like her. Never did. So Garside might as well have her.

  Roger Westcott is coming tomorrow. His brother is here, and his sister, who married Brixham. I like them all.

  I wish you were here.

  Much love,

  Yours ever,

  Marty.

  Well, Marty was dead. She kissed the letter, put it back in the little box and shut the drawer. There was nobody now who would care whether she left Essington or not. Since he had come out of politics he had made her live such a secluded life that she knew hardly anybody except the people in the theatre. Or it might be that she was getting old and fat, and people were not bothering about her as much as they used to do. After all there were lots of women under thirty.

  She looked hard at her reflection in the mirror. Her thoughts rambled on. ‘How big I am. I would make two of Perdita Godly. Perhaps it’s because I’m so big that I do clumsy things like that tonight. Oh, how silly I am. As if being big in your body could make you clumsy in your mind.’ But for all that she felt at the back of her mind a sense that she was unhappy because of something to do with her body; something that, if it was not grossness, had a like contrast with the standards of the world, something that at any rate was in the nature of excess. Puzzled, she continued to gaze at herself. The two lights on each side of the mirror made her bare arms gleam, and she found herself saying aloud, in accents unaccountably tinged with bitterness, ‘I could have scrubbed floors pretty well.’ Surely she could not really be regretting that life had not sent her an opportunity of scrubbing floors. It was dreadful to be so stupid that you did not know even what you were thinking. The word ‘bankruptcy’ which came into her head whenever she thought of her relationship with Essington came once again, and she rose and went quickly into her bathroom and turned on her bath. She stripped off her clothes and sat on the edge of the bath, brushing her hair, for she did not want to ring for Luttrell. After all, there were still all sorts of things that people could not spoil by making scenes. She had made this a lovely bathroom; she looked round at its walls that were marbled blue and green like a breaking wave, at the emp
ire dressing-table with the gold legs fine as a high-bred animal, the mirror borne by eagles who seemed to be taking an ecstatic respite from lectern work (but that was Essington’s joke); at the array on the broad shelves of bubble-tinted Venetian glass jars and bowls holding the lotions and powders and salts which she hardly ever used, but kept as an assurance to some unformulated power that she was humble, that she knew time was passing. Whatever happened, this was pretty. And through the open door she could look back at her bedroom, at the curtains of rich stuff drawn in solemn folds, and the waiting bed, with the dim lamp beside it. That would always be a good place to sleep. Indeed, she was clever about choosing things. There was perfection everywhere, in the gold hairbrush in her hand, in the Molyneux dress which lay across the chair, in the chemise and knickers beside it, which were of very thick white crpe-de-chine bound with apple-green, almost as good as any she had got. She looked at them benignly until she was surprised to find herself throwing the brush at them and crying out, ‘Well, what’s the good of them! I can’t eat ’em, can I?’ Suddenly the room seemed flimsy as a Chinese lantern. She stood up, waiting for the feeling of solidity to come back to her. The fact was she was so tired she was light-headed. That was it.

  She lay in the bath for a little while, thinking of Alice Hester, and sometimes whimpering Essington’s name. Then the wedge of vibrant, light-blue summer night that thrust downwards at the top of the two green taffeta window curtains began to torment her. She felt that she ought to go out into the night and do something that would bring her peace. There must be something somewhere that would bring her peace; and she must find it all at once because time was going so fast. This was all nonsense, of course, but she was quite light-headed. Still it made her so restless that she had to get out and dry herself. She was glad she had such nice fleecy bath towels. She did love good linen. If Marty and she had married they would have taken one of those houses that are advertised at the beginning of Country Life, and she would have had to buy heaps and heaps of linen for it. She would have liked that. Marty would have left it all to her, he wasn’t fussy about that sort of thing. Now, Francis Pitt wouldn’t be a bit like that. He’d be most particular, and he’d want everything to be marked with a rather heavy monogram, probably black on white.