But the menace of a future invested in unpredictable activities in a cause that seemed, now that she understood it, to have been won invisibly since the beginning of the world, was lost almost at once in the currents of her London life. Things had happened that had sharply restored her normal feeling of irreconcilableness; of being altogether differently fated, and to return, if ever they should wish it, only at the bidding of the inexpressible charm. There had been things moving all about her with an utterly reassuring independent reality. Mr. Leyton’s engagement … bringing to light as she lived it through chapter by chapter, sitting at work in the busy highway of the Wimpole Street house, a world she had forgotten, and that rose now before her in serene difficult perfection; a full denial of Mr. Wilson’s belief in the death of family life. In the midst of her effort to launch herself into a definite point of view, it had made her swerve away again towards the beliefs of the old world. Meeting them afresh after years of oblivion, she had found them unassailably new. The new lives inheriting them brought in the fresh tones, the thoughts and movement of modern life, and left the old symphony recreated and unchanged.
The Tansley Street world had been full and bright all that summer with the return of whole parties of Canadians as old friends. With their untiring sociability, their easy inclusion of the abruptly appearing unintroduced foreigners and provincials, they had made the world look like one great family party.
They had influenced even Michael … steeping him in sunlit gaiety. By breaking up the strain of unrelieved association they had made him seem charming again. Their immense respect for him turned him, in their presence, once more into a proud uncriticised possession.
Rambles round the squares with him, snatched late at night, had been easy to fill with hilarious discussions of the many incidents; serious exhausting talk held in check by the near presence of unquestioning people, and the promise of the lively morrow. Yet every evening, when they had her set down and surrounded at the piano, there came the sense of division. They cared only for music that interpreted their point of view.
Captain Gradoff … large flat lonely face, pockmarked, eyes looking at nothing, with an expression of fear. Improper, naked old grizzly head, suggesting other displayed helpless heads, above his stout neat sociable Russian skipper’s jacket … praying in his room at the top of his voice, with howls and groans. Suddenly teaching us all to make a long loud syren-shriek with half a Spanish nutshell. He had an invention for the Admiralty … lonely and frightened, in a ghostly world; with an invention to save the lives of ships.
Engström and Sigerson!
Engström’s huge frame and bulky hard red face, shining with simplicity below his great serene intellectual brow and up-shooting hair. His first evening at Mrs. Bailey’s right hand, saying gravely out into the silence of the crowded dinner table, “there is in Pareece very much automobiles, and good wash. In London not. I send much manchettes, and all the bords are cassed.” Devout reproachfulness in his voice; and his brow pure, motherly serenity. Sweden in the room amongst all the others. Teased, like everyone else, with petty annoyances. But with immense strength to throw everything off. Everyone waiting in the peaceful silence that surrounded the immense gently booming voice; electing him president as he sat burying his jests with downcast eyes that left the mask of his bluntly carven face yielded up to friendship. Waves of strength and kindliness coming from him, bringing exhilaration. Making even the Canadians seem pale and small and powerless. At the mercy of life. And then the harsh kind blaze of his brown eyes again. More unhesitating phrases. He had brought strength and happiness into the house. A rough, clump-worded Swedish song, rawly affronting the English air, words of his separate country, the only words for his deepest meanings, making barriers … till he leapt, he was so light in his strength, on to a chair to bring out the top note, and the barriers fell. … He pealed his notes in farcical agony towards the ceiling. In that moment he was kneeling, bowed before the coldest, looking through to the hidden sunlight in everybody. … Conducting an imaginary orchestra from behind the piano. Sind the Trommels in Ordna? Everybody had understood, and loved each word he spoke.
“Wo ist the Veoleena Sigerson? I shall bring.” Springing from his place near the door, lightly in and out amongst the seated forms, leaping obstacles all over the room on his way back to the open door, struggling noiselessly with all his strength, strong legs sliding under him as he pulled at the handle to open the open door. He and Sigerson had stayed on after the spring visitors. Evenings, voyaging alone with the two of them into strange new music. He had forgotten that he had said, I play nor sing not payshionate musics in bystanding of Miss—little—Hendershon. And the German theatre … a shamed moving forward into suspicion, even of Irving, in the way they all played, working equally, together … all taking care of the play … play and acting, rich with life.
Sigerson was jealous. He wanted all the bright sunlight to himself and tried to hold it with his cold scornful brains. Waspy Schopenhauerism. They went to Peckham. The little weepy dabby assistant of the Peckham landlady, her speech ready-made quotations in the worst London English. Impure vowels, slobbery consonants. She reflected his sunlight like a dead moon. There was a large old garden. His first English garden in summer. He had loved it with all the power of the Swedish landscape in him turned on to its romantic strangeness, and identified the dabby girl with it. She fainted when he went away. A despair like death. He had come faithfully back
