The Book And The Brotherhood

sorry I was so rude, and I didn't mean to be, I'll say…

With a sense of relief she set out pen and paper and sat down the table. She began hastily to write.

My dear David,

I am sorry I spoke so ungraciously to you today. What you had to say to me by surprise, it frightened me and I instinctively thrust it aside. I want now to thank you very much for the honour you have done me. I believe that you are sincere and I appreciate your feelings. 1 confess that you have disturbed me. I would like to see you again in order to efface the unpleasant impression which I must have made. I hope you will forgive It would, I think, be a good thing for both of us if we could talk tither more peacefully and quietly. I will, if I may, write to you again shortly and suggest another meeting. With affectionate regards,

Yours,

Rose.

Rose read this through carefully, then crossed out the sentences about being disturbed and hoping to be forgiven, and wrote the letter out again. The writing of it relieved the it. She was still looking at it when the telephone bell rang. Her immediate thought was, it's him, he feels just as I do, that We must meet again. She ran to the telephone, fumbling clumsily to pick it up.

‘Hello, Rose, it's me,' said Gerard's voice.

Gerard. She had so completely forgotten Gerard's existence that she gave a little exclamation of surprise, and then was silent holding the instrument away from her. She could hear Gerard saying, 'Hello, Rose, is that you?'

She said, 'Could you hold on a moment, I must turn twilling off in the kitchen.'

She went away into the kitchen and looked at a row of matching red saucepans standing in order of size. She went back to the telephone.

Nes?' `Rose, what's the matter?'

`Nothing's the matter.'

`You sound very odd.'

`What did you want?'

''What did I want?' What sort of a question is that? I’m just ringing you up! Are you ill?'

`No, no, I'm sorry -'

`I did want to ask you something actually, do you know when Jean and Duncan are coming back?'

Gerard? Jean and Duncan? Who were these people? Rose tried to concentrate. 'Very soon, I think, Tuesday or Wednesday day, that's what Jean said when I rang her yesterday evening,

`I'm so glad, I thought they might be afraid to show their faces in London. Look, could we have supper this evening, at your place, or I'll take you out?'

`I'm sorry, I can't.'

`Lunch then.'

`No, I've got to see someone -'

`Ah well – it's short notice, I'll try again. Darling, are you sure you're all right?'

`Yes, of course. Thanks for ringing. I'll give you a ring soon.’

Rose, who had no engagements that day, returned to the table. She thought, I am out of my mind. It is impossible, because of Gerard, because of Jean, for me to have any relation of any kind with Crimond. If I were to go round to his house now, which is what I want to do more than anything in the world, I am capable of falling into his arms, or at his feet. I ought to be locked up, I must lock myself up. This is dangerous insanity and I must get over it. Perhaps I could just send him the letter though – just the letter to take away that awful impression, to make peace somehow between us, otherwise I shall be in pain forever, thinking of what he must think of me, I could cut out the bit about seeing him again. But of course he might take the letter as encouragement, he might come again simply turn up. Oh how I wish he would! She went back to I the table and took up an envelope. Then she read the letter again and crumpled it up. Tears came into her eyes.

I pity him, she thought, that's what I must tell myself ever after. I love him, I love him, but it's no use. How can I make how can something like this happen so quickly? But it appened. – and it's impossible, it's deadly, it must simply popped and killed, I must drown these thoughts. The least itkness could make a catastrophe, a desolation. No one must know. How could I live if Gerard knew? If anything were oppen – it could only go wrong – and that would break me, it would break some integrity, some dignity, some pride, something by which'I ^live. I can't risk my life here. But, oh, what pain, a secret pain that will be with me forever. I must be faithful to my real world, to my dear tired old world. There is no new world. The new world is illusion, it's poison. God, I am going mad.

She went into her bedroom. She thought, and he wanted to fry me! She threw herself on the bed and wept bitterly.

During the short time when Rose was with them at Boyars, and Duncan had kept up a pretence of some sort of instant recovery. Rose had been amazed at their calmness. At dinner that evening they were able to be almost like their old selves. This was not a prearranged 'act', it was an instinctive facade set up to make endurable Rose's embarrassing pres, her status as a witness who would eagerly report what had seen in other quarters. It was necessar^y to 'impress' Rose before she could be got rid of. Rose was duly impressed and described their achievement to Gerard; at once however she and Gerard set to work to correct any misleading rosy impression which might have been made. They agreed that the 'calmness' was itself an effect of shock, the 'jollity' to be compared with the nervous cheerfulness of bereaved people at funerals, who then go home to weep. They sketched out many trials and difficulties, and wondered whether the reunion would work at all. Perhaps it might even collapse at of through Duncan's uncontrollable resentment, or Jean's f1ight back to Crimond. Rose and Gerard did not however try imagine in detail what their friends were now up to, and did not continue their speculations beyond generalities; it was necessary to wait and see. Such temperance was characteristic of these two.

Rose had considered leaving Boyars at once, on the event of Duncan's arrival, but thought it wise to wait until the next morning just to see a little how things were going on. She thought her presence, just at first, might be helpful, imposing a calming limiting formality. She had asked Annushka make up a bed in the room at the back of the house which Duncan had occupied on the weekend of the skating. She said nothing about this and did not attempt to discover where I had spent the night. In fact Duncan had spent that night by himself in that room. After the first discovery that 'they did not hate each other', Jean and Duncan fell into an a amazing shyness, a kind of' mute fear, a time of not uncomfortable silences, when sitting in the same room was enough. They were soon aware, and as a short prospect this was a relief (so Rose was right), that they were simply waiting for Rose to go. At lunch, even at tea, there was an air of slightly crazy cheerfulness, but at dinner they were acting a part. They sat with Rose briefly after dinner, then disappeared saying, truly enough, that they were 'absolutely exhausted'. As soon as they were out of sight Rose ran to her bedroom up the back stairs so as not to pass Jean's room, noisily closed her door, and exhausted too, went early to bed and to sleep. The scene in Jean's room was brief too. Jean and Duncan wanted a rest from each other. They were aware too of the proximity of Rose. They hardly needed words to agree that tonight they would sleep apart. Duncan, also using the back stairs so as no to pass Rose's room, which lay between, tiptoed to his forme bedroom, not surprised to find the bed made up and the room warm. Jean took one of Dr Tallcott's slee^pin^{g p}ills and went to sleep at once. But Duncan stood for a long time in the darkness at the window. At first he did not turn on his light because he was waiting for Rose to turn out hers. He could see the faint glow of her light on the lawn and on the curving wall of the turret. But when it went out he stayed there standing in the dark. He opened the window and let _in the chill but moist air which even carried very faintly the smell of wet earth. The rain had ceased and a few stars were visible. He stood at the window uttering deep breaths like little soundless sobs. He felt the exalted anguish of a man in a spiritual