Armed with Madness

the top of the down, she looked inland, across another valley to another range, and far inland to Starn on its hill, the hub of the down-wheel, set in its cup of smoke and stone. A very long way over the grass, a very long way down a chalk-road. A longer way through a valley track, called Seven Fields into Starn. Seven Fields, because Felix said there were seven different kinds of enclosures, all unpleasant. A yellow field, a dirty field, a too-wet field, a field where you stubbed your feet. A field with a savage cow, a field with a wicked horse. Always something wrong, whichever way you walked it, except the fourth, which was not a field but an open copse, treed and banked and prettified. Midsummer Night’s Dream, true greenwood. And hope, one way, of Starn in a mile and a half. She needed it by the time she reached the copse, in spite of her light stride and airy dress. The boys were off by now, somewhere on Gault cliffs, which was not a nice place, but a wonder and a horror, overhanging a gulf over a wood full of foxes the surf lapped, where even she had never been. The boys would be sitting there, dangling their legs, the gulls fanning them, an unsailable bay under them, transparent, peacock-coloured, where under the water the reefs wound like snakes.

It was all very well. She had told Felix to collect mushrooms and not allow Ross to experiment. He could get them in Ogham meads⁠—What was she worried about? Money, of course, and love affairs; the important, unimportant things. Hitherto God had fed his sparrows, and as good fish had come out of the sea. But everywhere there was a sense of broken continuity, a dis‑ease. The end of an age, the beginning of another. Revaluation of values. Phrases that meant something if you could mean them. The meaning of meaning? Discovery of a new value, a different way of apprehending everything. She wished the earth would not suddenly look fragile, as if it was going to start shifting about. Every single piece of appearance. She knew it was only the sun, polishing what it had dried. Including her face, her makeup had made pasty with sweat. There was something wrong with all of them, or with their world. A moment missed, a moment to come. Or not coming. Or either or both. Shove it off on the war; but that did not help.

Only Ross was all right⁠—He never wanted anything that he did not get. Life had given it up and paid over Ross’s stakes, because once his strong appetites were satisfied, he did not want anything in human life at all. It was something to eat and drink, to embrace and paint. Apart from that, he knew something that she was only growing conscious of. And wouldn’t tell. Not he⁠—laughed at her for not knowing, and for wanting to know.

Felix was quite different. Felix was scared. Fear made him brittle and angry and unjust. Without faith.

Faith was necessary for the knowledge of God. Only, there were fifty good reasons for supporting the nonexistence of God. Besides, no one wanted to believe that any more. That was the point. And it was a shame for those two men to make her go all that way through a valley, while they were grubbing about in the wind. The next stile was a beast. She crossed it heavily. A long corner to turn, and there would be Starn to look at. There was that horse again, knotted and stiff and staring at her. It was too far to come. Miles behind her, a white road stood on its head over the hill that led to the green road that led to their house. She had come down that road, a long time ago, turning her back on the sea, to get to Starn, to meet an American, who would like her, not for long, and no one else⁠—Someone had barbed-wired the gap, damn him! She flung herself on her back and wriggled under, jumping up with too great an effort. What was she really doing, out in this burning valley at midday? They force me with more virtue than is convenient to me. Not innocently⁠—How can we be innocent? I am going to let things go. A witch and a bitch they call me. They shall see. She flung into the inn at Starn, ashamed of her appearance, red and dusty, and ordered a long drink.

III

Cool, rested, made up, she went to the station. It is always pleasant to collect someone expected out of a train. She wished it had been someone she wanted, someone known or necessary to be known. Michael, who went with the house⁠—Tony, she wished to know better⁠—Vincent, she might get off with⁠—the peacocks of her world. Then she reminded herself of the pleasure it would be to show a stranger their land, as they knew it, equivocal, exquisite. From what she had observed of Americans, almost certain to be new.

Then she was flying through lanes, an attentive, intelligent old-young man beside her.

“God! What a beautiful place,” he said. When “beautiful” is said, exactly and honestly, there is contact, or there should be. Then, “This is the England we think of. Hardy’s country, isn’t it?”

“Yes, don’t rely too much on the weather and the food.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ve done some camping.”

Nice man. But when he stood in the verandah and looked about him, he said: “I couldn’t have imagined it.”

At tea, he said: “It seems to me that you have everything. No luxury, but all the beauty there is.”

Slightly overdoing the beauty business⁠—Beauty is a too concentrated food. And what did he mean about luxury? There was a sort of lean splendour about their things, anyhow. Still, his repose and his careful manners flattered her. She wondered when the men would be back, smelling of turf and