Hilda Doolittle - Asphodel

Small arms reached out. Were her arms then small? Hermione had thought of Fayne Rabb as Pygmalion, a little sturdy, a little strong, a little defiant. Who was this reaching small magnolia white arms out toward her? “Can’t you — understand?” “Understand? Understand what, Fayne Rabb?” “Can’t you understand? Can’t you— make — allowances?” “For what? You seem as far as I in my limited way can make out, to have done very well indeed for yourself.” “O don’t be cruel. Don’t, don’t be cynical.” But tea entered. . Hermione was glad for tea entering. The right sort of tea with the right sort of rose buds on the tea cups. “This is lovely china.” “Is that all you can say?” “What do you, to quote George, in Gawds name want me to say then?” “I don’t — know.” “I should think you didn’t.” Hermione tossed her hat away somewhere, among shoes, she supposed. Her hat would land among shoes, somebody’s shoes and did it matter? Her shoes, his shoes. It was obvious neither row (the neat one nor the untidy one) was ever so remotely connected with anything so indecorous as sandals. Hat on the floor. “Why are you so reckless about your hat? It’s such a pretty one.” “Haven’t you seen a hat since you left Europe?” “Not a really pretty one, Hermione.”

Pretty hat. Pretty bed-jacket. Pretty tea-cups. What after all, could be more suitable?

“But I want you to like Maurice.” “But I do like him.” “How can you like him when you’ve never seen him?” “But I have seen him.” “O, you saw him? When? Where did you see Maurice?” “I saw him as I was coming in, in the hall-way.” “How did you know it was Maurice?” “I didn’t. He knew it was me.”

But that didn’t matter, that would go on for ever, that kind of conversation. It was no good that kind of talk, anyone could do it. But whatever other kind of talk could there possibly be now with Fayne? “I wanted him to like you for I insisted when we arranged about the marriage that you were to be with us.” “ Be with you?” “Yes, little fool. What easier. We’ve booked” (booked — Fay was getting on slowly but surely with her English) “the tickets for you.” “ Booked . Why couldn’t you say taken?” “Well why should I? All I am is English.” “Since when English?” “Well, I can’t exactly give the moment but we were married in Saint Margaret’s, West Philadelphia, about two weeks since.” “Why Saint Margaret’s, such a swell church, why anyhow at all in such regalia?” “O to please Madre. Some of the wealthy New York cousins coughed up when they knew who I was to marry. It was to their advantage at last to notice my existence.” “What did they give you?” “O things. My gown — for instance.” “Gown?” “Yes, it’s hanging in the cupboard. I’m to put it on tomorrow night for the first time here and you’re all to come to dinner.” “Dinner? Who for instance?” “Well, old George.” “George?” Famished and forgetting Hermione had lifted hyacinths to George Lowndes’ kisses. But you can’t marry him.

“How devastatingly kind of you. May I ask a favour?” “Any number, beautiful.” “I would like to bring a new friend, a certain art critic, Jerrold Darrington, poet, all those minor accomplishments that you so despise now.” “O another—?” “Another what?” “Victim.” “No. He’s not a victim. He’s been helping me with some translations, Greek, essays.” “Really pretty high brow.” “Yes, really. He cares about — my — mind—” “Presumably.” “May I bring him?” “I don’t to tell you the truth trust anyone with a name like Darrington. I suppose he’s an earl’s bastard and an accomplished black-mailer.” “Well — he’s not exactly an earl’s bastard—” Someone was in the room. Bastard . What did that word signify? Someone was looking at them. A ghost, something. “O.” Hermione had turned in intuition of strange terror not expecting to see anything, seeing Maurice Morrison standing in the doorway. Odd face, too tall, leaning forward. How long had he been listening? Hermione had turned with an odd artificial little gesture, her hand on her grey gown above, singularly erratic heart-beat. She had felt the man there. How long had he been standing?

“O Maurice.” The little creature on the bed (how then had Fay suddenly become so small and wilted?) spoke weakly, “this — is— Hermione.” “I know that.” He came now slowly forward. The face as it squinted a little toward Hermione was again familiar. There was a voice went with it. O was it Maurice Delacourt Morrison the famous lecturer? “O I think I know now. Did you give talks, lectures, on art, Renaissance and several cities, Vienna, Sienese to different girls’ schools, colleges — with pictures afterwards, essays?” Maurice Delacourt Morrison was smiling at her. It was odd to be sitting in a bedroom on a bed actually with the wife of such a celebrity. “We were always impressed. I mean at Lyn Mawr, you know the college—” “Perfectly.” “I hated it. I suppose you hated it.” “Miss Thornton, your president, was, wasn’t she, somewhat of a snob?” “Yes, wasn’t she? I hated the place. Was only there a short time.” Maurice Morrison and school girls’ adoration. Yet somehow understanding. What did he say, squinting sideways at them? “I told Maurice on pain of death not to wear his eye-glass — at least till you got used to his ensemble—” “Ensemble. But why should I get used to it?” The sort of thing you think and don’t say, but Maurice Morrison suavely lifted a left over thin slice of bread and butter and bit it neatly and exactly and somehow elegantly. “Haven’t you had tea?” Fayne, Hermione was glad to notice, had the right maternal-marital attitude. “Yes. But beastly. Nothing really worth waiting for — Lady Freezeworth — that atrocious woman—” He was eating their bread and butter, all rather friendly, the three of them on the big bed.

“Well, will you come with us to Dresden? Fayne tells me you have a flair, love these things.” What after all could be more suitable? She had heard this Morrison talk, lecture of famous cities. From the school-girl point of view, what could be more adequate, more charming, something as we say “to write home about.” Maurice Morrison and Fayne Rabb. It seemed somehow all right, most suitable. Even Eugenia couldn’t mind it. He was looking at her from a distance and it occurred to her that she was behaving badly. “O its charming, charming and so kind.” What could be kinder? On their honey-moon. “O, I’d love to. . If you’ll make a list out, some little résumé of what it might cost and if I can afford it.” The light softening of late spring stole upon them. He was older than Fayne Rabb, quite old, he seemed almost — almost old, like a young uncle. “O yes we must arrange it.” She was standing and again a tall figure bent to smile into her lifted face. “How kind of you to ask me.”

He saw her to the door, saw her out of the door, all grown up, like a nice half-strange, very young uncle. The right voice, the right gesture, not insisting too far, letting her run away into the dusk without overdue protest. “Yes, Fayne tells me you like running wild a little. I won’t insist then on the taxi.”

“But dammmm-nnnnn.” The expletive broke china, would break china if it went on thundering and re-echoing in the little side-room where George had drawn her, drawn her out of the crowd so he might expostulate (as he put it) sanely with her. The expletive hung like wasps clinging to the chandelier that hung a little too low, dwarfing the small room with its great elegance. The little room off the big room in the little right hotel where the others were waiting, clustered about palms, waiting for Fayne who was their hostess and it was funny her being so late but she had stayed upstairs to talk with Maurice’s mother and they had gone on talking and they were trying on all the pretty things and she was putting on her wedding gown and her bride veil just to show them. “Da—” this time it stuck in George’s throat and Hermione was afraid it would swell there like a frog swelling and burst George Lowndes. The “da—” became finally a low rumble of mmmms and nnns and the same feeling that another host of buzzing flies had joined the already thick group about the ornate mirror. The mirror was at the back but it reflected itself and George looking at her in another mirror across the narrow corridor. The mirror across the corridor and the back of her reflected head and George’s side face was broken from time to time by people crossing. Darrington. Darrington looked rather like a head-waiter in his evening dress. His face was too heavy, too Flemish for the collar. Was that the country girl his governor had copped or who had (was it?) copped his governor? Fayne Rabb made people seem common. Her odd curious stone like, marble lift of flawless feature. Fayne’s features were flawless in the right setting and facing George now straight she knew, felt inwardly that she was really grateful to this Maurice who had so set Fayne in the right place. Fayne with fair skin, with magnolia white skin but looking right, with curtains half drawn more beautiful than any one could possibly imagine. “Don’t you think Fay is looking better for the change? I felt her mother, poor Clara, was responsible for that strained look, for that constant nervousness and her odd erratic furies. She seems perfect in this setting.” George was sitting beside Hermione on the narrow bench against the wall. Narrow, hard little bench, half furniture, half wall decoration. George slid forward, disconsolately. “You don’t mean to tell me that she’s really married?”