The Book And The Brotherhood

sanctifies and glorifies everything one does or thinks or touches, how it makes the world immense, as huge as the universe and full of light – you don't really know anything about sex and the way one can live and breathe it, when it's a total occupation something which is everywhere, in everything, and makes you into a god! When that happens one doesn't worry about right or shares or the little mean petty calculations which belong in the old small anxious selfish life. Self is obliterated. You’ve never had that experience, you've never been deified by love, you're a quiet girl, you're a puritan really, in the depths of your heart you feel that sex is wrong. Why didn't you get married? Why did you attach yourself to a hopeless proposition like Gerard? Why didn't you marry one of the others? Marcus Field, for instance, he was madly in love with you-‘

`Was he? He never said so.'

`He thought Gerard owned you, he thought Gerard would marry you. You could have had children-‘

`Oh stop it!' said Rose. 'You're just – just hopelessly romantic! Did you ever seriously think of marrying Sinclair?’

`Yes. But – I don't know that I would have done – even if he'd wanted it -'

`If you'd married him he'd be still alive.'

`Because I'd have stopped him gliding?'

`Because the causal chains would have been different.’

`Anything could have made the causal chains different.’

`I know.'

Rose, realising that she would soon be in tears, looked away down the room toward the far end where the target ⁱⁿ the dim light looked like a mandala. She felt very cold and pulled her coat on. Leaning back a little she felt the rough prickly material of the old quilt under her hands. She thought, after I go Jean will smooth out the quilt. I wonder if she will tell Crimond that I was here? I must go, I must go now before he comes back. I've lost Jean, we've lost each other, I've said all the wrong things. I'll regret it all so much, so much.

'I must go, darling.'

'Yes. I'll see you out. Wouldn't you like to see the book? Come.’

Rose fumbled with her scarf and gloves and followed Jean, her booted feet striking an echo on the bare floor, Jean's slippered feet soundless.

The book lay open underneath the lamp, the right-hand page written in Crimond's small neat scarcely legible writing, the left-hand page blank except for a sentence or two and a question mark. Jean turned the leaves back, showing other pages, the text varied here and the^re by capital letters and things written in red, then set the book back as it had been, when Crimond had finished writing that morning. It was like being shown a holy manuscript or rare work of art, something to be marvelled at, not, by the uninitiated, actually studied. Jean then indicated piles of similar notebooks beside the desk containing the massive completed parts of the work so far. Rose, who had not wanted to see the thing, did not feel any instant hostility to it, as if she might wish to tear it up. What struck her, with a kind of surprise, was its inert separateness, its authoritative thereness, its magnitude. Feeling she ought to say something, she said, 'What a long task.'

‘Yes.’

‘When will it end?'

‘I don't know.'

They went upstairs to the hall, and stood and looked at each other by the unopened door. Rose's tears spilled over and they embraced, closing their eyes.

‘Why didn't you tell me you were going to see Gerard' said Jean.

‘They were sitting on the divan in the Playroom. Jean had smoothed it out where Rose had been sitting. Crimond still wearing his overcoat.

`I would have told you if you had asked me where I was going. I would have told you now anyway. That's not important. I was irritated about it beforehand, I didn't want to talk about it.'

`Was it all right?'

`Not very.'

`If he was rude I hope you told him to go to hell.'

`Oh he wasn't rude. I was foolish. I haven't talked to anyone about all that for a long time. I said too much and I was incoherent.'

`Rose said he'd decided to give you an hour!'

`I had decided to give him half an hour. But when I saw him -'

`When you saw him -?'

`Well, I've known him even longer than I've known you. It wasn't a proper argument, I'm afraid he'll have rather a poor impression -'

`He'll see, one day!'

`Oh – one day – And you, my queen and empress, my little hawkling, tell me, why did Lady Rose Curtland come to see you?'

`Curiosity,' said Jean, 'and to tell me Duncan still loves me.’

`And so, are you going back to him?'

`Crimond, don't hurt me.'

`Rose has upset you.'

`Oh all right, and Gerard has upset you! Actually she annoyed me, that's all. You don't feel she's unsettled me?’

`I feel precisely that.'

`You go on and on tormenting me. Why do you do it? You can't believe -'

`Oh I don't believe-we are talking of feelings. If one had the most precious diamond in the world in your pocket wouldn’t you be afraid of losing it, wouldn't you keep putting your hand in to be sure it was still there? '

`Yes. I feel like that too. But I don't keep persecuting you with my terrible fear.'

‘I tell you of my fear so that you can instantly reassure me. Jeanie, my life rests upon your love, you must take my fear away at every second, my consciousness depends on yours, I breathe with your breath -'

‘Oh my love – pride, rose, prince, hero of me, high priest.'

‘Tell me something that Rose Curtland said to you, something about us, she must have said something about us, something to persuade you to go back.'

‘Oh, just idiotic things.'

‘Like what?'

`She said she thought I might be bored!'

‘And are you?'

`She said I didn't seem to know much about you.'

‘What made her say that?'

‘The fact that I didn't know you'd gone to see Gerard.'

‘You told her that I hadn't told you.'

‘It came out. I'm sorry. And when she asked if you'd mind her having come, I said I didn't know. I suppose I shouldn't have said that.'

‘It doesn't matter. You don't have to conceal anything. I should be angry if I thought you'd lied to her. Whatever you say she will think we are unhappy, and hope we are doomed. But are you bored?'

‘Crimond, don't go on like that! What about our lunch? I've got the vegetable soup that you like, and I'm making a stew for this evening.'

‘You're making a stew for this evening. That sounds like real life. Sometimes I think we're playing at it.'

‘At what?'

‘Real life.'

‘Crimond,' said Jean, 'my sweet dear love, sometimes a devil gets into you that wants to undermine us. You say such destructive things, and almost as if you wanted to bring it all down. You negate our reality, and you do it