The Sea, the Sea

pitch dark. This house is creepy.’

‘But you did, you looked at me through the glass of that inner room.’

‘No, I didn’t. I never did. That must have been some other ghost.’

‘You did, someone did. How did you get in?’

‘You leave your windows open downstairs. You shouldn’t, you know.’

I suddenly then, as I was staring at her, saw a vision: it was as if her face vanished, became a hole, and through the hole I saw the snake-like head and teeth and pink opening mouth of my sea monster. This lasted a second. I suppose it was not really a vision but just a thought. My nerves were still terribly on edge. I could hear the sea again, louder. But as I could hardly suppose that Rosina had arranged for me to be haunted by a sea monster I decided not to mention it.

‘But why did you persecute me in this way? And why did you decide to let me discover you now, if you did?’

‘I saw Lizzie Scherer in the village today.’

‘Yes, she was here, she’s gone. But what has that got to do with it? I can’t understand what this is all about.’

‘Can’t you, Charles? Have you forgotten? Let me remind you.’ Rosina leaned across the table, laying her hands flat and pointing her long fingernails at me like little spears. The nails were painted a dark purple. The bracelets grated on the wooden table. ‘Have you forgotten? You promised that if you ever married anybody you would marry me.’

Fear returned to me, a vista of cold dismay, the emergence in life of the unpredictable and dangerous. Rosina’s unnervingly blue eyes were sparkling, her rings were glistening. What she said was perfectly true.

I said lightly, ‘Did I? I can’t remember. I must have been drunk. Anyway I’m not proposing to get married.’

‘No? And you promised that if you ever settled permanently with anyone you would settle with me.’

This also was unfortunately true.

Rosina smiled. She has slightly irregular long, white teeth and a kind of ‘smile’ whereby she advances her lower teeth to meet her upper ones and draws back her lips. The effect is terrible. ‘You were not drunk. And you remember, Charles.’

I was trying to think what line I had better adopt with this dangerous woman. I had certainly not expected her to reappear in my life. But now that she had done so I recognized and respected her style. The broken vase, the smashed mirror were not idle portents. Why these reminders now, what had set it all off? The reference to Lizzie was the clue, though unfortunately I had no time to reflect upon it. If that was her drift, suppose I told her that Lizzie’s presence here meant nothing? This would only put off the crisis whose nature I was just beginning to grasp. Had I, in my recent thoughts, considered Lizzie in the hypothetical light of a permanent partner? Possibly. Had I thought seriously of marrying Lizzie? No. But Rosina’s terrorism was intolerable, an impertinence. I decided it was better to be aggressively firm and direct straightaway.

‘Look here, just stop this, will you. I forget what I said exactly but it was momentary emotional nonsense, as you perfectly well know. One can’t bind oneself like that and I’m not bound. Those were just words, not a promise.’

‘Promises are words. You are bound, Charles. Bound.’ She repeated the word softly with an intense emphasis.

‘Rosina, don’t talk rubbish. People say all sorts of things during love affairs which they don’t mean, you know that. Or if you prefer, all right I promised, but I shall break my promise just as soon as it suits me, like everybody else.’

‘So you are going to marry her?’

‘Who? What are you talking about? Do you mean Lizzie?’

‘So it’s true?’

‘No, of course I’m not going to marry her.’

‘So you’re not going to marry her?’

‘Rosina, will you leave me alone? Whatever put this idea into your head anyway?’

‘Oh, as to that,’ said Rosina, snapping her fingers, ‘it’s all over London. She had to crow. She’s gone round telling everybody that you’re plaguing her with proposals.’

I did not believe this of course.

Rosina went on, ‘Gilbert Opian has rushed about trying to make up some sort of party against you. Everyone is very amused.’

Gilbert was the culprit.

‘And I gather you didn’t even know Lizzie was living with Gilbert. Surprise, surprise. Everybody knew that. If you aren’t interested enough to know who she’s living with you aren’t interested enough in her to marry her.’

‘I’m not going to marry her.’

‘You’ve said that twice.’

‘I mean-oh go away, Rosina. And they aren’t lovers.’

‘You believe that?’

‘I mean I shall do what I want to do.’

‘You’ve always known who I was living with.’

‘You flatter yourself. I don’t care what you do or who you’re with so long as you keep away from me. Now clear off.’

Rosina did not move, except that she stretched out one hand across the table until the long pointed nail of her middle finger touched my shirt sleeve. Then I could feel the nail sticking into my arm. I sat rigid, not wincing. ‘You have not understood,’ she said. ‘Why do you think I have come to you now? I did not enter your house and break things just to amuse myself and laugh with you afterwards. I want to tell you this. You may or you may not marry me, but I am not going to permit you to marry anybody else. I shall hold you to your promise.’

‘You can’t. You are living in a dream world.’

‘Oh you can go through a marriage ceremony, or settle down with a lovebird of your choice, but you will not live happily ever after. If you set up with Lizzie I shall spoil your life as you spoilt mine. You will not be able to hide from me. I will be with you all the time, I will be in your mind day and night, I will be a demon in your life and in her life. Until she cries with misery because she ever met you. It is very easy to frighten people, Charles. I know, I have done it. It is easy to maim people and utterly destroy their peace of mind and cripple all their joy. I shall not tolerate your marriage, Charles. If you wed this wench, or if you keep her as your love, I shall dedicate my life to spoiling yours, and I shall find it very easy.’

She drew her hand back. A stain of blood appeared on the sleeve of my shirt. These were not the idle momentary ravings of a jealous woman. This was hatred, and hatred can destroy, it has its own magic. Rosina had the will and the power to do exactly what she threatened. And as I thought this I felt with a pang that this black will was, when it was otherwise directed, the very thing which had made me love her. She was smiling again, showing her white fishy teeth.

I took a reasonable tone, which did not deceive her, for she could feel my fear. ‘Your threats are rather premature, but if you bother me for any reason I shall certainly retaliate. Why have a war on your hands, why waste your life and your time? This is hate not love. You’re a rational woman. Forget it. Why make yourself miserable with these paroxysms of peevish jealousy?’ These words were a bad mistake.

Rosina struck the table with the flat of her hand and her eyes sparkled with violence. ‘You dare to talk of jealousy! As if I cared about that little lump you are running after! All right, you left me, me, to take up with her, and I haven’t forgotten. I could have maimed her or maddened her, only I knew you’d get tired of her, and you did, you get tired of everybody. You wrecked my marriage, you prevented me from having children, for you I made a slaughter of all my friends. And when you’d begged me on your knees to leave my husband, and when I’d left him, you abandoned me for that baby-face. Do you not remember what our love was like? Have you forgotten why you uttered those words?’

‘Mercifully one forgets one’s love affairs as one forgets one’s dreams.’

‘You never had any imagination, no wonder you couldn’t write plays. You are a cold child. You want women but you are never interested in the people you want, so you learn nothing. You’ve had love affairs but somehow you’ve stayed innocent, no not innocent, you are fundamentally vicious, but somehow immature. Your first mistress was your mother, Clement was baby-snatching. But don’t you see that it has all been