Ripeness is All

by Eric Linklater

  ‘The moon has raised her lamp above,

  To light the way to thee, my love,

  To li – ight the wa – y

  To the – ee my lo – ove!’

  ‘Hush!’ cried Wilfrid. ‘Hush, Arthur, hush! You’ll wake Daisy, if you’re not careful.’

  ‘Poof!’ said Arthur. ‘Pish-posh-poof!’ But he put away the bottles and glasses, and carefully replacing the slab of stone, arranged a negligent fringe of climbing plants across it.

  ‘I really must go,’ said Wilfrid nervously.

  ‘This way, then,’ said Arthur, and started to scramble up the rockery. His hand encountered a cushion of moss and one or two surviving flowers. He pulled one, and held it up to the moon. ‘Edelweiss,’ he said happily, and began to yodel.

  ‘Oh, do be quiet,’ cried Wilfrid.

  ‘Tirra-lye-eee-ooh!’ shrilled Arthur, and with miraculous dexterity leapt from rock to rock and came down safely on the other side, caught Wilfrid’s arm, and ran with him across the lawn. The lower part of the house was in darkness, for Katherine had long since gone home, and Daisy had retired to bed. Wilfrid led his host to the front door and begged him to be careful as he went upstairs.

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Arthur, ‘trust an old campaigner. I’m sleeping in my own room now, so there’s not the slightest, smallest possible danger. And don’t you worry about Stephen. Remember that Nature’s centrifugal: it’s just as centrifugal as my hat.’ And with a magnificent gesture Arthur threw his bowler hat high into the tall naked branches of a tree, and before Wilfrid could protest he had flung open the door and gone noisily into the house.

  Wilfrid hesitated. He would have liked to retrieve Arthur’s hat for him. But the beech tree was tall, and its smooth trunk felt so icy cold that he abandoned the thought of climbing it. Reluctantly he closed the gate behind him – among the thin branches the bowler hat was black against the moon – and hurrying now, for he was colder than ever, he trotted up Hornbeam Lane towards the Ridge. He was quite sober, for in addition to owning a harder head than Arthur’s, he had drunk less, a lot less, and his preoccupation with the threat to Stephen’s happiness had sensibly diminished the exhilarating effect of the gin. He felt rather breathless when he reached the Ridge road, but still he hurried, for he was anxious to get home and drive Bolivia away.

  Chapter 9

  Bolivia had shown considerable resource and a most admirable self-discipline in the wooing of Stephen. Nothing had been said or done that was likely to alarm him. She had not repeated the impulsive embrace with which she had bade him good night after the dinner-party à trois, but a week or so later she had kissed him, coolly and casually, on the cheek, and having accustomed him to this non-committal salute by a seemingly careless repetition of it, she had ultimately been rewarded by his regular expectation of it, his apparent enjoyment of it, and even by reciprocation. Habit, however, had not yet succeeded in transforming the salute into a caress: Bolivia was too cautious to put any warmth into it, and Stephen had no wish to: and the Cytherean bark was temporarily in irons.

  It was sadly ironical that Bolivia’s able prosecution of the wooing had brought it to a deadlock, but that, for the moment, was the situation. Her initial aim had been to make Stephen feel at ease in her presence, and by avoiding all mention or even thought of marriage, to persuade him to accept her as a friend; and she was in danger of succeeding too well, for he was on the point of settling down into a permanent state of loquacious and quite unfruitful camaraderie. He was delighted to have a new companion – for he was poor in friends – and especially such a one as Bolivia: she was a woman, and therefore in several ways more agreeable to talk to than a man; but taking no advantage of her sex she did nothing to remind him of it, and she found manifest pleasure in his conversation. Stephen was delighted with this enrichment of his life, and well he might be: for Bolivia, having heard that nothing pleased a man so much as permission to talk about himself, had encouraged him in this delightful course, and Stephen had responded with a ceaseless torrent of egotism. But to Bolivia’s surprise and disappointment he had discussed his thoughts rather than his feelings, his plans and his visioning rather than his sentiment and emotion. It is true that he had complained of the drudgery of his work and the inconvenience of not having as much money as he wanted; but he had never displayed the loneliness of his heart and asked for comfort, as she had hoped. He had told her at great length what he would do if he were the Prime Minister, or Sir Henry Wood, or Sir John Reith, or the Archbishop of Canterbury, or Mr Cochran; but he had never told her what he would do if he were to think of looking for a wife. His conversation, indeed, in spite of the I’s with which it was studded, had never been intimate. Though Bolivia had given him every opportunity, they had never enjoyed what she could think of as a really cosy chat. His talk, like that of so many men, was simply a profitless discussion; it led, perhaps, to some vague theoretical conclusion, but that was no use to a girl. He merely played Narcissus over a pool of various speculation, while Bolivia was supposed to peep over his shoulder and look at the refraction of his image in these watery postulates. And she was getting very worried by so much waste of time.

  With Daisy and Katherine both announcing, in their own way, the ripening of their hopes, there was indeed no time to lose if she and Stephen were also to make a bid for the Major’s money. But how to persuade him to leap, without looking, the fence between friendship and love, was a problem that threatened to defeat her. One false move, or overt warmth, and Stephen would bolt like a rabbit; and without a move of some kind, without warmth enkindled by some device, he would sit where he was and talk, simply talk, for ever and ever. The horns of a dilemma can seldom have been so sharp to impale and so fish-hooked to retain.

  On this evening, when Arthur and Wilfrid were seeking distraction between The Dover Road and the rockery, Bolivia went to dine with Stephen in a mood not far from despair. It was not by any means the first time she had dined at Mulberry Acre, and Mrs Barrow was almost as perturbed by the frequency of her visits as Bolivia was by their fruitlessness: for Mrs Barrow knew too well that the perfect comfort of Stephen’s bachelor establishment would never survive under the tiresome discipline of a fellow-woman. Only her professional integrity prevented her from deliberately spoiling the dinners she cooked for Bolivia, and not even that could persuade her to prepare her choicer dishes on such occasions. Leg of mutton and an apple charlotte was the best that Bolivia ever got from Mrs Barrow.

  During dinner Stephen had been more tedious than usual, for he had been talking about poetry in general and the later work of Ezra Pound in particular, and try as she would Bolivia could find little interest in the former and no sense in the latter: for it seemed to her like a jig-saw puzzle before the pieces had been arranged. And when she asked Stephen what certain of the Cantos meant, he told her that that was hardly a fair question, poetry being what it is; but she could take it that each of the Cantos was the expression of a significant emotion.

  ‘What emotion?’ asked Bolivia.

  ‘The emotion expressed by the poem,’ answered Stephen.

  ‘And what does it signify?’

  ‘Pound’s response to the emotion, of course.’

  Deep melancholy settled upon Bolivia, and for a moment she thought spitefully that if this were a true sample of Stephen’s mind, then not even seventy thousand pounds would compensate her for having to live with him; but that thought passed, and was replaced by distrust of her own mental ability, for her intellect had often been derided at school, and she came to the unhappy conclusion that she wasn’t good enough for him; and then the stubborn soldierly spirit she had inherited from her father ousted that ignoble doubt, and she determined to marry him yet, by hook or by crook.

  Stephen at last observed her sorrowful inattention, and asked if anything was troubling her. Bolivia, with sudden resolution, determined to employ a ruse she had previously elaborated. She had devised a story that would, she thought, raise his amorous temperature
by means of jealousy. She was alternately proud of the device, and ashamed of it. But for good or ill she made up her mind to use it.

  ‘Yes,’ she answered, ‘I’m very worried by a letter I got this morning. Did you ever meet a man called Smith?’

  ‘Frequently,’ said Stephen.

  ‘I mean a man who came to Lammiter about two years ago, and tried to make love to me?’

  ‘No, not that one.’

  ‘Well, he’s just written to say he’s coming back, and he wants to see me again. I’m rather frightened, Stephen.’

  ‘Of what?’

  Bolivia flushed. She realized that she wasn’t flying her kite very skilfully. The tone of her voice should have told Stephen of what she was frightened, and roused in him the reaction of jealousy and the male’s protective instinct. But her voice had remained disappointingly matter-of-fact; there had been no reaction; and now she must make her fear of Mr Smith embarrassingly explicit. She made a brave attempt.

  ‘I couldn’t tell anyone else,’ she said, ‘but you’re clever enough to understand and sympathetic enough to – well, to sympathize. He’s extraordinarily good-looking, Stephen, and he’s very attractive to women. Not only to me, but to nearly every woman he meets. He’s that kind of man. I had just sufficient strength of mind to say no, when he came here two years ago, and I hope I’ll have as much sense and determination this time.’

  ‘Does he want to marry you?’

  ‘No. He’s married already.’

  ‘I see.’

  Stephen concealed his emotion. At all times he had a fastidious distaste for the Casanova motif in conversation, and he was not only displeased by Bolivia’s introduction of it, but genuinely upset to think she was subject to womanly frailty. He saw no reason to doubt her story: fearing and disliking passion, he was the more ready to believe in its existence: he was credulous of the world’s vice, as a Fascist of Communist plots. And he was shocked by the thought of Bolivia’s weakness, as selfish and sentimental people may be shocked by the sight of a poor child weeping with cold and starvation; or an old blind beggar in the rain; or an ill-used horse. He grieved also for the hurt to their friendship, that had been so calm and platonic, and now was bruised by man’s attack. He leaned back in his chair by the fire, and joined the tips of his fingers, and contemplated them, and tried to be calm.

  ‘You can refuse to see him, I suppose,’ he suggested.

  ‘But don’t you understand that I want to see him? It’s foolish, I know, but I can’t help it.’

  Stephen rose from his chair and walked to the other side of the room. He took a book from the shelves, and put it back again. He was profoundly disturbed. With his back to Bolivia he said, in a voice that was meant to be casual, ‘Tell me more about him.’

  Bolivia’s power of invention was slight, and because she disliked telling lies she already half-regretted her introduction of the fictitious Mr Smith. She embarked upon the description of his physical, mental, and social attributes with marked reluctance, and stumbled unhappily from an outline of his nose to a platitudinous encomium of his charm of manner. But Stephen’s critical faculty had been temporarily destroyed, and her hesitation and lack of conviction seemed to him the natural embarrassment of a girl in her position. He returned to his chair and listened without comment until her halting recital came to an end. And still he said nothing.

  Bolivia waited anxiously. Her conscience was troubling her, and she was shame-faced till she saw if her strategy were successful.

  ‘I sympathize with you,’ said Stephen at length.

  Bolivia’s hope revived. If he truly sympathized, if he were moved to a natural jealousy, or even to a human dog-in-the-mangerism, then all would be well. ‘Stephen!’ she murmured. But Stephen ignored her.

  ‘I sympathize with you,’ he said wearily, ‘because I have had the same sort of experience myself. It was in Florence. I’d been living there for several months. You know Florence?’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ said Bolivia angrily.

  ‘At least you know the obvious difference between the Venetian and Florentine schools of painting? One is worldly and magnificent, and the other is spiritual and splendid. On the west side of the Uffizi you can see the overfed Venus of Titian, and on the east the exquisitely reluctant Venus of Botticelli: you remember the rhyme:

  He painted Venus on an oyster,

  With little waves that should be moister?’

  ‘Never heard it before,’ said Bolivia.

  Stephen continued: ‘It seemed to me that Botticelli, by showing Venus obviously reluctant to come to earth, had given her an unusually interesting interpretation, and I began work on a poem that was going to justify and popularize his conception. On the other side of the medal was the Titian Venus, which in my opinion is simply a travesty of Love. Now it’s rather curious that by moving a little to one side of the Botticelli Venus you can see, in the next room, Leonardo’s Annunciation, and Leonardo’s Angel will give you the clue to Venus’s reluctance. The Angel has a purely intellectual interest in his message: a passionately intellectual interest: he understands the whole consequence of Christianity in the very moment of annunciation: there’s nothing sentimental in his message: it’s simply the first caption in a syllabus of the modern world. And now you see why Venus is so unwilling to come ashore.’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ said Bolivia.

  ‘Because she realizes that she is out of date and a hindrance to civilization. The modern world is an intellectual conception, and Love is hostile and destructive to the intelligence. The tragedy of Love is that she is waved ashore, and beckoned ashore, and pulled ashore, against her will; and that was the thesis of my poem. It was going to be a long poem, with a good many references to other pictures in the Uffizi, and I was working very hard on the first canto when I met a girl called Giulia – well, it doesn’t matter what her name was.’

  Bolivia showed rather more interest in the narrative. This, she remembered, was the girl of whom Jane had spoken: the girl who had bitten Stephen’s ear.

  Stephen said slowly, ‘I suppose she attracted me almost in the same way as this man Smith attracts you. I fought against the influence, and I was very unhappy about it. It interfered with my work, you see. But I wasn’t sufficiently determined – I didn’t want to hurt her feelings – and one day I agreed to go out with her.’

  ‘Yes?’ said Bolivia.

  ‘I can’t tell you what happened,’ said Stephen, ‘except that she took advantage of her position and behaved abominably. There was a very painful scene, typical, I imagine, of what generally happens when one gives way to a desire for vulgar pleasure. I was thoroughly upset, and my poem, with its vision of an intellectual world and Venus retiring to a nunnery – for that was to be the last canto – simply went to pieces. But I learnt a useful lesson, and I’ve never been tempted to repeat my folly.’

  Stephen’s version of the story came to a feeble conclusion compared with Jane’s, thought Bolivia, and she was partially consoled for her fabrication of Mr Smith by Stephen’s suppression of some relevant details in the anecdote about Giulia. He had said nothing of his indulgence in the Florentine habit of bottom-pinching. Bolivia was tempted to ask if he had enjoyed it, but she wisely refrained, and took the better course of sympathy. She made some apt remarks on the pain of disillusionment, and implied, as a consequence of Stephen’s warning example, her half-framed intention of rebuffing Mr Smith. Stephen grew more cheerful. His confession, incomplete though it was, had established a certain intimacy between them, as though he had undone his waistcoat buttons, and Bolivia’s demi-promise to nonsuit the libertine Smith made him grateful to her. He stood beside her and patted her arm. Bolivia’s heart beat quicker and her shoulders made a confiding movement towards him.

  ‘I like the cut of that dress,’ he said, ‘but I don’t think dark blue is really your colour.’

  Bolivia came to the end of her tether. ‘I give it up!’ she exclaimed, and stood up to mark her words.’ I’m sick and tired
of the whole business!’

  Stephen, who had no clue to the meaning other than his last remark, thought she referred to the difficulty of looking well-dressed. They had discussed the problem on an earlier occasion.

  ‘You really must let me take you in hand,’ he said gaily. ‘You remember we talked about clothes once before? Well, the very next day I found exactly what I wanted, in a book on theatrical costumes, and I quite forgot to tell you about it. It was a design by Inigo Jones.’

  Stephen, busy at once, went to the bookshelves, and maintaining as he searched a series of encouraging remarks, presently found what he wanted. ‘Here it is,’ he said, and opened a large volume at a facsimile of Inigo’s design for Thomyris in Ben Jonson’s Masque of Queens.

  ‘Now don’t you agree?’ he asked. ‘You’d look absolutely superb in a dress like that, and as a matter of fact I’ve got a piece of velvet upstairs that would be the very thing to make it. Wilfrid and I bought it for curtains, but we never used it, and it’s still in his wardrobe. I’ll go and get it, and let you see it.’

  Stephen was now in his happiest domestic mood, but Bolivia retained an appearance of comparative equanimity only because she could not decide which of several violent things she really wanted to do first. She was almost equally ready to weep with disappointment, or to swear tempestuously with rage; to tell Stephen to go to hell, or to plead with him to be sensible and marry her on the spot; to leave the house in high dudgeon, or stubbornly declare her intention of never leaving it. Immobilized by these contrary desires she stayed where she was till Stephen returned.

  He came back carrying a roll of yellow chiffon velvet, opulently patterned.

  ‘Isn’t it lovely?’ he asked. ‘And it would simply fall into the shape of that Thomyris costume. It’s soft enough to be folded and pulled about, and heavy enough to hang in really handsome lines. Hold it up and see for yourself. Now wouldn’t that look splendid? If I had a few pins I could fix it up in no time.’