When I had finished writing this letter I was not only sweating, I was trembling and panting and my heart was beating viciously. What emotion had so invaded me? Fear? It is sometimes curiously difficult to name the emotion from which one suffers. The naming of it is sometimes unimportant, sometimes crucial. Hatred?
I looked at my watch and found that in the composition of the letter a long time had passed. It was now too late to catch the morning train. No doubt the afternoon train would be better in any case. Trains induce such terrible anxiety. They image the possibility of total and irrevocable failure. They are also dirty, rackety, packed with strangers, an object lesson in the foul contingency of life: the talkative fellow-traveller, the possibility of children.
I decided that I would send off the letter to Francis and postpone deciding what sort of communication, if any, to send to Christian. I also decided that it was now a matter of urgency to get out of the house and down to the station, where I could have lunch and await the afternoon train at leisure. It was just as well the earlier train had been safely missed. I have sometimes had the unpleasant experience, arriving very early for a train, of finding myself catching its predecessor with a minute to spare. Thrusting the letter to Christian into my pocket I found my fingers touching the review of Arnold's novel. Here was another unsolved problem. Although I was well able to consider refraining from doing so, I knew that I also felt very anxious to publish. Why? Yes, I must get away and think all these matters out.
My suitcases were in the hall where I had left them yesterday. I put on my macintosh. I went into the bathroom. This bathroom was of the kind which no amount of caring for could make other than sordid. Vari-coloured slivers of soap, such as I cannot normally bear to throw away, were lying about in the basin and in the bath. With a sudden act of will I collected them all and flushed them down the lavatory. As I stood there, dazed with this success, the front doorbell suddenly began to ring and ring. part one 45 1 At this point it is necessary for me to give some account of my sister, Priscilla, who is about to appear upon the scene.
Priscilla is six years younger than me. She left school early. So indeed did I. I am an educated and cultivated person through my own zeal, efforts and talents. Priscilla had no zeal and talents and made no efforts. She was spoilt by my mother whom she resembled. I think women, perhaps unconsciously, convey to female children a deep sense of their own discontent. My mother, though not too unhappily married, had a continued grudge against the world. This may have originated in, or been aggravated by, a sense of having married «beneath» her, though not exactly in a social sense. My mother had been a «beauty» and had had many suitors. I suspect she felt later in life, as she grew old behind the counter, that if she had played her cards otherwise she could have made a much better bargain in life. Priscilla, though she made in commercial and even in social terms a more advantageous buy, followed somewhat the same pattern. Priscilla, though not as pretty as my mother, had been a good-looking girl, and was admired in the circle of pert half-baked undereducated youths who constituted her «social life.» But Priscilla, egged on by her mother, had ambitions, and was in no hurry to settle with one of these unprepossessing candidates.
To cut a long story short, Priscilla really got quite «above herself,» dressing and behaving «grandly,» and did eventually satisfy her ambition of penetrating into some slightly «better» social circles than those which she had frequented at first. I suspect that she and my mother actually planned a «campaign» to better Priscilla's lot. Priscilla went to tennis parties, indulged in amateur dramatics, went to charity dances. She and my mother invented for her quite a little «season.» Only Priscilla's season went on and on. She could not make up her mind to marry. Or perhaps her present beaux, in spite of the bold face which Priscilla and my mother jointly presented to the world, felt that after all poor Priscilla was not a very good match. Perhaps there was after all a smell of shop. Then, doubtless as a result of working so hard on her season, she lost her job, and made no attempt to obtain another. She stayed at home, fell vaguely ill, and had what would now, I suppose, be called a nervous breakdown.
By the time she recovered she was getting on into her twenties and had lost some of her first good looks. She talked at that time of becoming a «model» (a «mannequin»), but so far as I know made no serious attempt to do so. What she did become, virtually, and not to put too fine a point upon it, was a tart. I do not mean that she stood around in the road, but she moved in a world of business men, golf-club bar proppers and night-club hounds, who certainly regarded her in this light. I did not want to know anything about this; possibly I ought to have been more concerned. I was upset and annoyed when my father once approached the subject, and although I could see that he had been made utterly miserable, I resolutely refused to discuss it. I never said anything to my mother, who always defended Priscilla and pretended, or deceived herself into believing, that all was well. I was by this time already involved with Christian, and I had other matters on my mind.
I will not attempt a lengthy description of Roger. He too will appear in the story in due course. I did not like Roger. Roger did not like me. He always referred to himself as a «public-school boy,» which I suppose he had been. He had a little education, and a great deal of «air,» a «plummy» voice and a misleadingly distinguished appearance. As his copious crown of hair became peppery and then grey he began to resemble a soldier. (He had once done some army service, I think in the Pay Corps.) He held himself like a military man and alleged that his friends nicknamed him «the brigadier.» He cultivated the crude joking manners of a junior officers' mess. He worked in fact in a bank, about which he made as much mystery as possible. He drank and laughed too much.
Married to such a man it was not likely that my sister would be very happy, nor was she. With a pathetic and touching loyalty, and even courage, she kept up appearances. She was house-proud: and there was eventually quite a handsome house, or «maisonette,» in the «better part» of Bristol, with fine cutlery and glasses and the things which women prize. There were «dinner parties» and a big car. It was a long way from Croydon. I suspected that they lived beyond their means and that Roger was often in financial difficulties, but Priscilla never actually said so. They both very much wanted children, but were unable to produce any. Once when drunk Roger hinted that Priscilla's «operation» had done some fatal damage. I did not want to know. I could see that Priscilla was unhappy, her life was boring and empty, and Roger was not a rewarding companion. I did not however want to know about this either. I rarely visited them. I occasionally gave Priscilla lunch in London. We talked of trivialities.
She was smartly dressed in a navy-blue «jersey» coat and skirt, looking pale and tense, unsmiling. She had retained her looks into middle age, though she had put on weight and looked a good deal less «glossy,» now resembling a «career woman»: the female counterpart perhaps of Roger's specious «military look.» Her well-cut un– gaudy clothes, deliberately «classic» and quite unlike the lurid plumage of her youth, looked a bit like uniform, the effect being counteracted however by the vulgar «costume jewellery» with which she always loaded herself. She dyed her hair a discreet gold and wore it kempt and wavy. Her face was not a weak one, somewhat resembling mine only without the «cagey» sensitive look. Her eyes were narrowed by short sight, and her thin lips were brightly painted.
She said nothing in reply to my surprised greeting, marched past me into the sitting-room, selected one of the lyre-back chairs, pulled it away from the wall, sat down upon it and dissolved into desperate tears.
«Priscilla, Priscilla, what is it, what's happened? Oh, you are upsetting me so!»
After a while the weeping subsided into a series of long sighing sobs. She sat inspecting the streaks of honey-brown make-up which had come off onto her paper handkerchief. ilT-> –111 –«
Priscilla, what is it?
«I've left Roger.»
I felt blank dismay, instant fear for myself. I did not want to be involved in any mess of Priscilla's. I did not even want to have to be sorry for Priscilla. Then I thought, Of course there is exaggeration, misconception.
«Don't be silly, Priscilla. Now do calm yourself, please. Of course you haven't left Roger. You've had a tiff-«Could I have some whisky?»
«I don't keep whisky. I think there's a little medium-sweet sherry.»
«Well, can I have some?»
I went to the walnut hanging cupboard and poured her a glass of brown sherry. «Here.»
«To bed?»
She got up abruptly, pushed out of the door, banging herself against the lintel, and went into the spare bedroom. She came out again, cannoning into me, when she saw that the bed was not made up. She went into my bedroom, sat on the bed, threw her handbag violently into a corner, kicked off her shoes and dragged off her jacket. Uttering a low moan she began to undo her skirt.
«Priscilla!»
«I'm going to lie down. I've been up all night. Could you bring my glass of sherry please?»
I fetched it.
Priscilla got her skirt off, seemingly tearing it in the process. With a flash of pink petticoat she got herself
