Sunflower

by Rebecca West

  Lifting her chin, she answered, ‘I love you as a woman loves a man.’

  He made a growling sound of delight, his hands fluttered in front of him, but still he held himself back. Bringing his chin down on his poutering shirt-front and bending forward his broad shoulders till they were curved like a prie-dieu, he went on in this heavy, scrupulous, explanatory way. ‘You understand, Sunflower, I want you to give me your whole life? Would you do that for me?’

  She asked, amazed, ‘Why, what else would I want to do with it?’ Again he made that growling sound. He jerked his head about, as if there were a bit in his mouth and he thought he could break it, and muttered drunkenly, ‘Sunflower, Sunflower …’ A questing, formless bulk, he thrust himself against her without moving his arms from his side. Softly, like somebody encouraging a child to walk, she said, ‘Kiss me, kiss me.’ Slowly his short, strong arms struggled free of his side, as if there were bands to be broken. When they gripped her he swayed clumsily, as if he were indeed a lion walking on its hind legs. She whispered, ‘Kiss me, oh, kiss me!’ His great head dropped forward into the hollow between her shoulder and her neck. He sighed deeply, and rolled it from side to side. Then he lifted it, and his mouth came down on hers like a blow.

  Again the silver hammer struck her nerves, again she drowned in a deep sea, again she slowly rose into the sunshine of her garden. She was saying, ‘I’ve always thought I’d like an Aberdeen. I do think it’s funny the way they look so like Scotch people …’ That sounded all right. It was the kind of thing they printed in interviews with her, and there wasn’t any trouble unless Essington happened to see them. Shyly she glanced from face to face to see if any of them had noticed how far she had been away, but as before Harrowby was resting cheek by cheek with his own shadow on the wall, and the three women in the printed dresses were still smiling into the sunshine with a benignity that was as likely as not caused by the sunshine and nothing else. For it was a lovely day. Surely it was a specially lovely day. The few clouds were so thin they were no more than whorls in a glass bowl where the blower’s breath faltered, the unveiled sun softened the day with an apricot down and made all things wish not to move quickly, not to move at all, so that it was like the round cheek of a sunburned, sleeping child. Also everything seemed to be falling into a rhythm, into a pattern. In an infatuated search for the last drop the hedgehog was beating its little nose on the bottom of the saucer so that it spun on the stone like a top, and the two plump women leaning on the window-sill, the thin one standing alone, kept time in their lazy laughter. Looking about her, she saw for the first time that the three trees at the end of the garden grew like trees in a holy picture, as if their trunks had heard of the trinity and brought forth three branches apiece to its glory, as if the little twigs knew of other doctrines and busily sprouted this way and that to tell of them, like lesser brothers in a monastery bustling here and there on minor duties. She would not have been surprised if the dark houses behind them had been changed to the blue mountains that are seen in the country dreamed about by piety, blue as distance might be if it were ascetic, exalted but without the virility of rock, and if their leaves had become a golden treasury. She would not have been surprised if the falling acacia flowers had been supported before they reached the ground by a wind of intention and carried to her breast, where they would form a sign; or if the city thrushes, which were making short, circumscribed flights above her that were more like human aviation than the long surrenders to the air and victories over it which birds make in country skies, had suddenly flown down, slowly and straightly, and come to rest on her shoulders and her head. She stopped talking, she did not feel the need of keeping appearances going, she felt that if she trusted herself to this sunlit hour she would be all right.

  It was lovely, just standing there in the brightness. It would not be so bad to be an image of a saint that stood for ever out of doors, in a shrine at the turn of the road above a valley, watching the sun burn the green corn to brown usefulness, watching the spears of rain strike down into the earth, which they do not kill but make more living since they change dust to wet mould, until that day when lightning flashes, and mountains are cleaved to their stony roots, and all images become flesh. During one’s waiting one would give hospitality to little creatures. Within the hollows of one’s gilt diadem a bird might build its nest, and soon short flights of nestlings would proceed from one’s head like rays; and she had heard of a wayside Madonna, creviced by weather within whom wild bees had made their honey. That pleased her. She became quite still, enacting to herself how it would be to stand in rain and shine with full wooden skirts about one, while in a hollow of one’s body dark buzzing principles of life built up cell upon cell of golden, feeding sweetness; and on her face she felt the sweet smile all images of holy women wear.

  But Harrowby was saying something. She looked at him and was appalled. He had stepped clear of the wall and had one arm flung out. For a second she thought he was going to give her notice in some very insulting way, like the chauffeur before him, who had seemed so nice and jolly and devoted, but who had got terribly gloomy and taken to getting drunk, and when she went to discharge him had shouted at her that he would be glad to leave her and go into the service of respectable married people, and had flung his month’s money on the floor.

  Whatever had given her that idea? His arm was flung out simply because he was pointing to the library window and all he was saying, and that quite without rudeness, indeed with the flattest lack of any emotion, was, ‘The telephone is ringing, Madam.’

  It was Francis Pitt. She knew that at once.

  She cried, ‘Oh!’ and looked up at the house as if she expected to see him tapping on the glass and beckoning her. Then she began to run towards the iron steps, but stopped herself at once. This time, surely, she had given herself away! When she glanced round at the three women in print dresses they were all paying attention to other things in the way that was a little too good to be true, like the way people unanimously pretend not to have heard when you have said something stupid so that you know they all have. Cook and Martyn had developed a sudden interest in the cat, which was twitching its ears in annoyance at being abruptly patted from both sides at once; and Parkyns was trying to suggest by angular movements that she well knew her duty was to answer the telephone but that her mistress seemed to want to answer it herself, and anyway she was absorbed in the hedgehog.

  She said, ‘Parkyns, please …’

  But it occurred to her that it would be dreadful when Parkyns came to the window and said, ‘Mr Pitt to speak to you, Madam.’ Then she would look so that they would all be certain. She said, ‘No … No … I’ll go … It may be … those photographs …’ and ran up the stairs.

  At the top she halted. She wanted everyone, everything to be happy. ‘Look after the hedgehog! Put a box over it or something. We’d better take care of it for a few days. It did seem so hungry …’ They called up to her reassuring things, promises to do what they could. There was a special significant cordiality in their voices, as if they were trying to wish her good luck without saying the words. That made her feel shy, but all the same it was sweet of them to want her to be happy; and anyway they would all have to know quite soon. Probably she would be able to tell them herself, to put it into words. Surely he had meant that. She must see to it that they did not waste their money buying her wedding presents.

  She had been quite right. It was one of the sleek-headed young secretaries saying, ‘Mr Francis Pitt would like to speak to Miss Fassendyll.’ Her voice went husky as she answered, ‘It’s me, speaking.’

  She had to sit down while she waited, her heart was beating so. She smiled to see how the whole of her life was subordinated to her love. Henceforward she would think of the telephone in a specialised sense, just as something that Francis Pitt rang her up on.

  ‘At last,’ he spoke gruffly, softly. ‘Is that you, Sunflower?’

  She knew just how it was with him. He too was shaking so that
speech was difficult. She murmured, ‘Good morning, dear.’

  There was a long silence. Then he said, ‘About that little party of ours tonight …’

  She realised there was someone sitting at his elbow. She laughed shyly at the way he had had to put it.

  ‘Do you mind coming late? I find I cannot get away as early as I thought.’

  Caressingly she asked, ‘How late, my dear? Half past eight?’

  ‘Yes. No, later than that. A quarter to nine.’

  She had to smile at him. He was being so discreet, yet the sound of his voice which was rolling and echoing with emotion must have given away his secret to the stranger sitting by him. ‘Very well, I’ll come at a quarter to nine. Goodbye. And, Francis, I love you.’

  She hung up the receiver and went to the window. They were all still there, the sun had cleared the trees on its way up to noon, the unshadowed snapdragons glowed like jewels. Parkyns’s skirts gleamed like an angel’s robes. She would have liked to go out and see what they were doing with the hedgehog, but she was afraid she looked too happy. To make sure she went over to the mirror, and had to cry out, ‘Oh, it isn’t decent!’ There was the letter to Lily still lying on the writing desk, but she thought it would be better to leave it till tomorrow. Then she could tell her everything. But she felt too restless to sit down and do nothing. She would go upstairs and choose her dress for tonight.

  They had drawn down the blinds in her bedroom and uncovered the two jars of potpourri, so it was nice in there. She went to the big cupboard where her evening dresses were kept, and looked at them hanging in their black silk bags, feeling very fortunate because there were such a lot of them and they were all so beautiful. She sat down on the floor of the cupboard and with her back to the dresses and her chin cupped in her hands, thought them over one by one. ‘Nothing too fancy,’ she told herself solemnly. And she must not wear the green and gold, though she looked better in that than anything, because it made her look very tall, and he was much shorter than her anyway. The pale green chiffon from Chanel, the Molyneux gold lace, the flesh-coloured satin from Nicole Groult. They would be all right. She turned to find them, to try them on to make a choice. But her hand dropped from the silk it grasped, her lip began to tremble. It had occurred to her that these and all her other dresses had the grave fault that she had worn them before.

  This thing had not come to her quite perfectly. That it had come at all was a blessed miracle. But all the same it had not come quite perfectly. It had been bad last night when he had repeated, ‘I do not mind at all, Sunflower, I swear I do not mind,’ and her hands, travelling up to hold his face so that she could kiss it gratefully, stiffened and slid down to his sides, because they found that even as he was saying he was not jealous, the sweat of jealousy was drenching his brow. Of course he had been sweet when she had whispered, ‘I knew that you would mind, I knew you could not help it,’ and had taken her to him; and surely she had put it all right when at last he had stuttered, ‘But it is true I do not mind, it is only that sometimes I thought I would go mad when you and he went home together and I was left here …’ For then she had wound her arms tightly round his neck and pressed her mouth close to his ear, because it was an awful thing to talk about, and told him he need not feel bad about that, since lately Essington had been very good to her in that way. Even on those weekends he had not seemed to want anything of her except to lie in her arms. Sometimes she had thought this was not just because she was very tired but because he was very kind, for he had a way just now of lying in bed as still as if he were asleep but with his eyes staring in front of him and his mouth a little open, as he used to when he was in the Cabinet and there was something difficult to be thought out. She had to tell this to Francis Pitt, so that he would realise what an exceptionally fine nature Essington had, and that was dreadful because he kept on not being able to hear and making her repeat it. At last he said, ‘I will not mind at all when nobody has been more to you than I have …’ And that would be tonight. She would not have to worry about this at all after tonight. But all the same, this thing had not come to her quite perfectly.

  She rose and shut the cupboard door on all the dresses and stood for a time in the dusk, pressing her forehead against the cool wood. She would go down into the garden and see what they were doing for the hedgehog. And after lunch she would go out and buy a new white dress.

  It would not have surprised her if there had been angels hovering over Hanover Square, one at each corner, blowing trumpets, as they do on old maps, that show coronations and royal weddings winding their pomp round cities. Really, there was something strangely appropriate to her happiness about the place. It was square, you know, square. Her happiness was foursquare. Built foursquare to the elements. And the sparrows fluttering dust through their feathers as ill-bred little boys like to blow imaginary bubbles through protruded lips made one remember that not a sparrow falls. And the taxi-drivers lounging against the railings, not of the same species as the sparrows but of the same class, told as plainly that the harsher laws of life were only illusions and did not really operate. They lived by getting fares, you would think it would be terrible for them unless they got fares, and yet there they were without any fares and yet they didn’t look as if anything so terrible was happening, showing that their condition was not so hard-pressed as one had thought it, that possibly nothing was ever hard-pressed, if one only knew. Everything was all right, and the frame of everything matched it, for the afternoon was very hot and clear. The powers had pushed back awning after awning in the upper air, and had reached the topmost one of all which is faded to the palest blue because it is so near the sun. Wonderful strong stuff it must be, never for all the wear it has had to split and let through the dazzling white nothingness. Because of these things she smiled blindly at the taxi-driver as if he were Harrowby, left him skimmingly, and was inside Maribonne’s saying, as if it were a prayer, ‘Surely he will let me buy a model straight off the mannequin, he has before, he is so keen that I should stop going to Paris and get my things from him,’ before the commissionaire touched her on the arm and asked her if she wanted the taxi to wait.

  Blushing and smiling, as if this were a grave mistake but it would all work out for the best, she fled upwards to the driver, ‘I thought it was my own car.’

  Anyone would, wouldn’t they, miss!’ That fetched him out of his seat. He had the door open, he was patting the upholstery as if it were the hide of a pet he had raised by hand. It appeared that this was the first day he had had it out, that this was the first day in his whole life he had worked as his own master.

  More than a fortunate coincidence, an omen.

  ‘Fresh flowers in the ‘older,’ he recited, prodding them.

  ‘I noticed that! I noticed that!’ she assured him. She wished someone would come along the pavement now, to sell her flowers, to be overpaid. Was there nothing she could do for this nice man? People wanted her to write testimonials to face-creams and powders, couldn’t she write a testimonial to a taxi-cab? But it would be difficult to find anything to say. About powders one said, ‘I find nothing gives the skin such a velvety surface,’ but one couldn’t do any good by saying a taxi ran in a velvety way, for that would give credit to the kind it was, not to that particular one. And this poor man wouldn’t be able to afford to put an advertisement in the papers, anyway. Really there wasn’t anything one could do for him. But she need not worry, because he would be sure to do well since they had met on this day. Beaming with confidence in both their futures, she disengaged herself from him, because there were stirring in her mind imperative commands about the dress she must buy for that night. It must be of white satin, because that is the one white stuff which does not seem poor when one thinks of real things. White velvet is like snow lying under a sober sky, but not so good, and all the white crêpes are like sunlit snow crisped by winds of different forces, but none of them so good, and the thinner weaves are not so white and fine as the filaments of frost. But white satin i
s a human idea, a human triumph. There is nothing like it in nature save the contented face of the cream in its broad bowl on the dairy shelf, and that is not so beautiful, for it looks not quite right, as it tastes not quite right, because of the greasiness which reminds you that the cow is a bit of a silly and does not answer as a horse does when you speak to it over the gate. Thick white satin is like light made solid for a woman’s wearing when she wants to think of nothing but pure light, when colours are all wrong because they are stains which refer to passing moods, and there is nothing now on hand but a feeling that is going on for the rest of one’s life. It should be simply made, for light takes simple forms, the path of the moon on the water is quite straight, the lightning through the cloud traces a pattern simpler than a branch. It was lovely that there were artists who attended to such things, who would make her a dress for tonight.

  It held her body closely, brightly, borrowing from the greenness of her dressing-room, and its image in the triple mirror gave green reflections such as one sees in blocks of ice, with which it snarled in the hollow between her breasts, streaked the long tapering of her waist beneath them. Her body was nice enough, that was all right, but her face looked so queer. She had gone white, with the dead whiteness of a white flower in shadow, and her lips, which until now she had hardly ever needed to rouge off the stage, were very pale pink, like pink roses ruined by the rain. And there was something new about her expression.

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