“She wore whalebone supports to her collar, and had a huge brooch made of someone’s hair at her bosom.”
“And she took us to see those people who, when we asked if the church was old, because father always wanted to know, said heartily, ‘Well, it’s been here longer than we have, and that’s over forty years.’”
“I remember. That was the day we saw a stoat cross the road like a flash.”
“And Miss Gowan—that was her name—told us how stoats killed rabbits, and took all our pleasure out of stoats.”
“And rabbits too, Brand. I couldn’t bear to see them afterwards, thinking they were either going to be killed by stoats or slit up and hung in rows in poulterers’.”
“You were always too soft-hearted. Do you remember when we found the thrush that had dashed itself against the telegraph wires, and you thought the devil must have inspired their inventor?”
“And you said it might quite as easily have dashed itself against a tree, and asked if the devil inspired that inventor, too.”
“It’s a question I still can’t answer. What a lot of things we used to talk about.”
“And what fun we had. Do you remember getting up and looking for mushrooms when the dew was so thick the grass seemed black with it?”
“And when it was so misty we couldn’t see our own feet.”
“And all the things we meant to do. Have you ever thought, Brand, how many things there are in life, and how terribly few we manage to keep? They go slipping past, and we’re left in the midst of plenty with nothing in our hands.”
“It’s our own fault for not holding on to things. Or sometimes not reaching out far enough. Too risky. Too expensive. Those are the real reasons why people don’t have what they want. I was to have a great body of fine work; and you were to be happy.”
Isobel drew so deep a sigh it seemed to cause a shudder through her whole body. “We haven’t got very far, have we? And there comes a time when it’s too late. Why, Brand, do you suppose we’ve made such a mess of things?”
“Because we didn’t care enough.”
She turned startled eyes upon him. “Oh, but I did. You can’t realise how much…”
“But even that wasn’t enough. If it had been, you’d have held on to what you wanted.”
“Nobody could hold on to Harry.”
“You hold on till death to the thing you mean to have. If you let go, it’s because something else has a superior claim in your heart. Besides, you’re confusing Harry with happiness. You’ve lost happiness precisely for that reason. If you’d made up your mind to that, you’d have allowed no obstacle to deflect you. Losing Harry, you’d have found happiness elsewhere. I’m the same. I don’t condemn you. Heaven knows, I’m not in a position to condemn anyone. I’ve always believed that work is a man’s indissoluble link with life. It outlasts him; it matters more than anything he is in himself or anything he owns. If I’d really meant to be an artist I should have let nothing stop me. Not Sophy or the children or my own need or misgivings.”
“But there’s such a thing as right, Brand. You were right to support Sophy and your children…”
“Not by my theory. To admit that would be to admit that ethics are more important than art. We do the thing—whether we realise this or not—that we’ve set our hearts upon. If morality or religion or conventional considerations guide your course, that’s tantamount to admitting that they’re of more importance than what you’ve always supposed to be the mainspring of your life. To the man with a set purpose, laws don’t exist. He makes his own; he’s the only man who’s strong enough to make them.”
Isobel’s breath came sharply; he had opened to her imagination a new country, rich with promise, denied the fact of her futility, shown her a hope. She said, “Brand, why didn’t we talk before? Why have I been down here so long?”
He said, “That’s one of the minor tragedies of life. One drifts because it’s so difficult to fight the tide, of course. There’s so much darkness ahead. At this instant you’re immersed in some bright dream, but reality isn’t so simple. You can say, ‘I won’t be beaten; I’ll achieve happiness,’ but you don’t know how to set about it. You’ve no compass. I doubt if you even know what happiness means to you.”
She said quickly, “Ah, I do know that, Brand. Once it meant Harry. That’s past a long time ago. But to be free, to live where one pleased, to have books and leisure and tranquillity, to be able—laugh, if you like, but this occurs to me so often—to go into some restaurant and have a scratch meal, with one’s book; to feel oneself in life, part of it, belonging to it, drawing vitality from it…”
Brand looked at her in amazement. “And all these years you’ve been storing that in your heart? And staying here!”
“It’s you, I think. I haven’t felt sufficient ardour even to feel so keenly until you began to speak.”
Brand said soberly, “No, it’s father. When you see how his life’s over, and there’s nothing to show for it—the waste. When I was confirmed, the angular Protestant bishop who performed the ceremony said, ‘There’s one unpardonable sin, and that’s waste.’ Life’s full of it; waste of opportunity, talent, time. And generally the reason is fear.”
“Perhaps you’re right, and that is what I meant,” she agreed.
Then Amy called authoritatively, “Isobel!” and she turned, the bright colour in her cheek, her smiling lips automatically composing themselves to meet her sister’s glance. Brand, watching her walk towards the speaker, noted a new buoyancy in her step, a spring, an eagerness,
