And yet he did not know. The dominion of women over those of the opposite sex was a terrible thing. He had seen the old General whimper like a whipped dog and mumble in his poor white moustache. … Mother was splendid. But wasn’t sex a terrible thing. … His breath came short.
He covered two foot of pebbles with the orange sand rolled into them. A tidy job it must be rolling on that slope! Still, the actual gradient was not so steep on the zigzags. One in sixteen perhaps. He covered another two foot of pebbles with orange sand rolled in. How could he? How could he cover another two? His heels were trembling!
Four counties ran out below his feet. To the horizon! He showed him the kingdoms of the earth. As great a view as above Groby, but not purple and with no sea. Trust father to settle where you could see a great view by going up hill. Vox adhaesit. … “His feet were rooted to the earth.” … No, vox adhaesit faucibus meant that his voice stuck to his jaws. Palate rather. His palate was as dry as sawdust! How could he do it! … A terrible thing! They called it Sex! … His mother had coerced him into this dry palate and trembling heels by the force of her sex fever. Dreadful good nights they had had in her boudoir, she forcing and forcing and forcing him with arguments to go. To come here. Beautiful mother! … Cruel! Cruel!
The boudoir all lit up. Warm! Scented! Mother’s shoulders! A portrait of Nell Gwynn by Sir Peter Lely. Mrs. de Bray Pape wanted to buy it. Thought she could buy the earth, but Lord Fittleworth only laughed. … How had they all got forced down there? By mother. … To spy on father. Mother had never set any store by Fittleworth—good fellow Fittleworth, good landlord!—till last winter when she had got to know that father had bought this place. Then it was Fittleworth, Fittleworth, Fittleworth! Lunches, dinner, dances at the Ambassadors. Fittleworth wasn’t saying no. Who could say no to mother with her figure in the saddle and her hair?
If he had known when they came down to Fittleworth’s last winter what he knew now! He knew now that his mother, come down for the hunting, though she had never taken much stock in hunting … Still, she could ride. Jove, she could ride. He had gone queer all over again and again at first in taking those leaps that she took laughing. Diana, that’s what she was. … Well, no, Diana was … His mother, come down for the hunting, was there to torment father and his … companion. She had told him. Laughing in that way she had. … It must be sex cruelty! … Laughing like those Leonardi-do-da. … Well, Vinci women. A queer laugh, ending with a crooked smile. … In correspondence with Father’s servants. … Dressing up as a housemaid and looking over the hedge.
How could she do it? How? How could she force him to be here? What would Monty, the Prime Minister’s son, Dobles, Porter—fat ass because his father was too beastly rich—what would his set think at Cambridge? They were all Marxist-Communists to a man. But still …
What would Mrs. Lowther think if she really knew? … If she could have been in the corridor one night when he came out from his mother’s boudoir! He would have had the courage to ask her then. Her hair was like floss silk, her lips like cut pomegranates. When she laughed she threw up her head. … He was now warm all over, his eyes wet and warm.
When he had asked if he ought to—if she wanted him to—do whatever his mother wanted whether or no he approved. … If his mother asked him to do what he thought was a mean action. … But that had been on the Peacock Terrace with the famous Fittleworth Seven Sister Roses. … How she went against the roses. … In a yellow … No, moth-coloured … Not yellow, not yellow. Green’s forsaken, but yellow’s forsworn. Great pity filled him at the thought that Mrs. Lowther might be forsaken. But she must not be forsworn … moth-coloured silk. Shimmering. Against pink roses. Her fine, fine hair, a halo. She had looked up and sideways. She had been going to laugh with her lips like cut pomegranates. … She had told him that as a rule it was a good thing to do what one’s mother wanted when she was like Mrs. Christopher Tietjens. Her soft voice. … Soft Southern voice. … Oh, when she laughed at Mrs. de Bray Pape. … How could she be a friend of Mrs. de Bray Pape’s? …
If it hadn’t been sunlight. … If he had come on Mrs. Lowther as he came out of his mother’s boudoir! He would have had courage. At night. Late. He would have said: “If you are really interested in my fate tell me if I ought to spy upon my father and his … companion!” She would not have laughed, late at night. She would have given him her hand. The loveliest hands and the lightest feet. And her eyes would have dimned. … Lovely, lovely pansies! Pansies are heartsease. …
Why did he have these thoughts: these wafts of intolerable … oh, desire. He was his mother’s son. … His mother was … He would kill anyone who said it. …
Thank God! Oh, thank God! He was down on the crazy paving level with the house. And there was another path went up to Uncle Mark’s shed. The Blessed Virgin—who was like Helen Lowther!—had watched over him. He had not to walk under
