shyly, returning inconclusively to the image of my mistress. I had not communicated with Georgie since that day of the revelation, and since the thing was not yet common knowledge, she was still presumably ignorant of the change in my situation. I did not look forward to telling her. It was not a time at which I felt well able to have things expected of me; and as I speculated and wondered about what exactly Georgie would expect, it occurred to me how little, after all, I knew her. That she would vulgarly press me to marry her was of course out of the question. It was a matter rather of how far and how she would, in turn, let me off; it was an additional, and when I attended to it a terrible, pain that if in this new situation either Georgie or I 'flagged' we would be betraying and indeed destroying a precious and tender relation which in secrecy and ambiguity had so much flourished. I needed Georgie, I loved her, I felt I could not possibly, especially now, do without her. Yet I did not quite see myself marrying her. Still, it was, I reflected, far too soon to know. I had not yet even begun to fit the pieces together; and there might be some way of fitting them together which would make out a picture of happiness for me and for Georgie. At rare moments, in a quite abstract way, I imagined this happiness, something utterly remote from my present misery and confusion, and yet not totally unconnected with me nor totally impossible.
Rosemary was to meet me at Oxford and drive me to Rembers. I felt in no mood for confronting Rosemary. She had never quite got on with Antonia and would on the one hand be delighted at what had happened, while on the other she would maintain a conventional air of distress: distress such as persons feign at the death of an acquaintance, and which is in fact a glow of excitement and pleasure, perceptible on waking in the morning as a not yet diagnosed sense of all being exceptionally well with the world. Rosemary, I should say, is for her sins a Mrs Michelis, having got married young, and against all our wishes, to a dislikeable stockbroker called Bill Michelis, who subsequently left her; and like most people whose marriages have failed she had a sharp appetite for news of other failed marriages. I had expected Rosemary to marry again, as, quite apart from being a rich girl, she is very attractive to men, but so far she has prudently refrained. Although with her small precise features, refined prim voice, and Lynch-Gibbon pedantry in speech, she gives the appearance of a prude, she is in reality far from prudish and is almost undoubtedly at her somewhat mysterious flat in Chelsea, to which she rarely invites me, involved in continual amorous adventures.
It was snowing hard in Oxford, and must have been doing so for some time, as there was a good inch of soft feathery snow on the ground as I stepped out of the train and began to look around for my sister. I soon saw her and noted that she was dressed entirely in black: on instinct, no doubt. She came up to me and leaned back her small pale face, under its little velvet cap, to be kissed. Rosemary has the attractiveness which is sometimes called petite. She has the long Lynch-Gibbon face and the powerful nose and mouth, but all scaled down, smoothed over, and covered with an exquisite ivory faintly freckled skin. The Lynch-Gibbon face is made for men, I have always felt, and to my eye Rosemary's appearance, for all its sweetness, has always something of an air of caricature.
'Hello, flower,' I said, kissing her.
'Hello, Martin,' said Rosemary, unsmiling and clearly a little shocked at what she felt as my levity. 'This is grave news,' she added, as we pushed our way to the exit. I followed her trim black figure out, and we got into Alexander's Sunbeam Rapier.
'It's bloody news,' I said. 'Never mind. How are you and Alexander?'
'We're as well as can be expected,' said Rosemary. She sounded weighed down by my troubles. 'Oh, Martin, I am sorry!'
'Me too,' I said. 'I like the cute little hat, Rosemary. Is it new?'
'Dear Martin,' said Rosemary, 'don't play-act with me.'
Now we were driving along St Giles. The snow was falling steadily out of a tawny sky. Its white blanket emphasized the black gauntness of the bare plane trees and made the yellow fronts of the tall Georgian houses glow to a rich terracotta.
'I can hardly believe it,' said Rosemary. 'You and Antonia parting, after such a long time! Do you know, I was very surprised indeed.'
I could hardly bear her relish. I looked down at her small high-heeled black-shod feet on the pedals. 'Have you been snowed up at Rembers?'
'Not really,' said Rosemary, 'though I must say it seems to have snowed more there than here. Isn't it odd how it always seems to snow more in the country? Water Lane was blocked last week, but the other roads are fairly clear. The Gilliad-Smiths have been using chains on their car. We haven't bothered. Alexander says it's bad for the tyres. Still, Badgett had to help push us out of the gate once or twice. Where will you live now, Martin?'
'I don't know,' I said. 'Certainly not at Hereford Square. I suppose I'd better find a flat.'
'Darling it's impossible to get a flat,' said Rosemary, 'at least a flat that's fit to live in, unless you pay the earth.'
'Then I shall pay the earth,' I said. 'How long have you been down here?'
'About a week,' said Rosemary. 'Don't let Antonia cheat you about the furniture and things. I suppose as she's the guilty party it should all really belong to you.'
'Not at all,' I said, 'there's no such rule! And her money went into the house as well as mine. We shall sort things out amicably.'
'I think you're wonderful!' said Rosemary. 'You don't seem in the least bitter. I should be mad with rage if I were you. You treated that man as your best friend.»
'He's still my best friend.'
'You're very philosophical about it,' said Rosemary. 'But don't overdo it. You must be miserable and bitter somewhere in your soul. A bit of good cursing may be just what you need.'
'I'm miserable everywhere in my soul,» I said. 'Bitterness is another thing. There's no point in it. Can we talk about something else?»
'Well, Alexander and I will stand by you,' said Rosemary. 'We'll look for a flat for you and we'll help you move in and then if you like I'll come and be your part-time housekeeper. I should like that. I haven't seen half enough of you in these last two or three years. I was just thinking that the other day. And you'll have to have a housekeeper, won't you, and professional ones cost the earth.'
'You're very thoughtful,' I said. 'What's Alexander working on just now?'
'He says he's stuck,' said Rosemary. 'By the way, Alexander's dreadfully cut up about you and Antonia.'
'Naturally,' I said. 'He adores Antonia.'
'I happened to be there when he opened her letter,' said Rosemary. 'I've never seen him so shaken.'
'Her letter?' I said. 'So she wrote to him about it, did she?' Somehow this irritated me terribly.
'Well, I gather so,' said Rosemary. 'Anyhow all I'm saying is, be kind and tactful to Alexander, be specially nice to him.' 'To console him for my wife having left me,' I said. 'All right, flower.'
'Martin!' said Rosemary. Some minutes later we turned into the gate of Rembers.
Six
'Since I left Plumtree Down in Tennessee
quoted Alexander, as he dangled his long broad-nailed hand in front of his new fan heater. The sleeve of his white smock fluttered and rippled in the warm wind.
It was half an hour later and we were sitting in the bay-window annexe of Alexander's studio drinking tea and looking out at the falling snow and the south face of the house which could still be seen in the failing afternoon light, its timberings loaded with soft undulating lines of whiteness against the dulled pink. A holly wreath with a red bow hanging on the hall door was sifted over and almost invisible. The nearer flakes fell white, but farther off they merged into a yellowish curtain which prevented our view and made Rembers enclosed and solitary.
In the creamy white smock, self-consciously old fashioned, my brother seemed dressed to represent a miller in an opera. His big pale face in repose had an eighteenth-century appearance, heavy, intelligent, the slightest bit degenerate, speaking of a past of generals and gentlemen adventurers, profoundly English in the way in which only
