William Gerhardie - The Polyglots

‘Never mind.’

‘Sylvia!’

‘Yes.’

‘Sylvia!’

‘Yes.’

‘Sylvia! Sylvia ! Sylvia! Sylvia! Sylvia!..’ I murmured in varying accents, rapturous intonations, as she nestled closer to me. We were alone, and the world had shrunk into a corner of our soul, listened, and was silent.

I kissed her on the eyes — her hazel eyes — her warm and tender eyelids. ‘There. And again. And again.’

Sylvia kissed impetuously, as though there were no noses on our faces which got in the way. I kissed more carefully, avoiding the noses. And, by this time, kisses for me had become as plentiful and unsought as chocolates at a birthday party. Through the open window there came the smell of spring — the fragrant moist and heavy odour.

‘If you go on loving me, and I go on loving you — what else do we want?’ she said.

‘We want each other, of course, in the flesh.’

‘We can still love each other, think of each other.’

‘ Think !’ I echoed sardonically.

Outside was spring, as beautiful as the last, as beautiful as the next. The sun had come out, but the rain still fell slowly, perfunctorily.

How, after a run of ill-luck, of despair, life blossoms out unexpectedly.

We went into the garden, walked under the trees, felt the raindrops on our faces — cool, clear, splashy silver drops. When life smiles on you, it compensates for all. The beeches, dark and delicate against the fading sky, like Sylvia’s lace hat, stood passive and unquestioning, and there seemed wisdom in their unquestioning acceptance of all things, in their taking life for granted; wisdom — and a sadness.

‘Put on that champagne georgette, put it on for me.’

‘But it’s a ball-dress, darling.’

‘Never mind. I love you in it. I want to remember you in it — for ever.’

She looked serious, blinking. ‘Will you, darling?’

‘Yes.’

She went in, and I remained, and, waiting for her, paced the lawn and watched the trees listless in the melancholy of revivification. I remembered suddenly last spring, our love, my mood one evening. There was the memory of a promise unfulfilled — of former springs — in this early breaking rigour as I drew a full breath of the twilight dampness that engulfed me, a promise that I knew would never be fulfilled this side of the grave. And I felt sad. Not because we two were destined to be parted, and I was leaving on the morrow. I think that were we never to be parted I would have been just as sad. Had I been thieved of love — as Gustave was that evening — I know I would have felt, and felt acutely, the melancholy of reviving life. But I had been rewarded handsomely and unexpectedly, yet it was spring — and I was sad. This sadness we attribute to terrestrial reasons but that visits us in spring, like a haunting phrase of music, this sadness without reason — what is it? Is it regret because we, fragments of a single soul, grieve in separation, lament our being ‘misunderstood’? But if we cannot understand ourselves! if at our best we are half empty, what answer can we give each other, we who have grown sceptical, and justly so, of answers, we broken melodies who can but ask and ask (because there is a question, and so there is a Something) when we are joined at last in the grand union of a universal soul: what message shall we send unto the skies but yet another question, ‘orchestral’ but unanswered as before? Till we lose heart and cry in anguish: How long, O Lord, how long?

Upstairs in the drawing-room Sylvia, in her fragile champagne georgette, looking the tenderest of fairies, came up whistling and hopping slightly on her toes.

‘Oh, how I love you!’

‘Oh! Really?’ she said. ‘Oh! Oh! I see.’ She talked to herself, cooing like a dove. We sat on the sofa. I examined her rings, and a pang shot through my heart at the sight of the ring next to her wedding-ring. And, as if divining my thought, she took it off and showed it me silently. This: Set me as a seal upon thine heart . And our eyes clouded. — Then, in a newspaper, she came across a poem which she thought fitted the occasion, and read it out to me in a whisper:

Some day our eyes shall see

The face we love so well ,

Some day our hands shall clasp

And never say ‘Farewell.’

‘I want a lock of your hair.’

‘Yes, darling, you can have whatever lock of hair you like.’ I fetched the scissors.

She took two of my cards, on the one side of which was: ‘Captain G. H. A. Diabologh, British Military Representative, Harbin’, and on the other she copied the poem, reading out as she wrote:

Some day my eyes shall see

The face … no, the boy I love so well ,

Some day my hands shall clasp—

‘Not “my hands”, surely. You don’t want to clasp your own hands. You can do that all the time.’

‘Well, “our hands”, then.’

‘Lips, not hands.’

‘Yes, lips. Some day our lips shall clasp — but not “clasp” surely?’

‘No, meet.’

‘And never say “Farewell.” ’

And having completed both cards, she handed me one and kept the other, as keepsakes for eternal remembrance.

‘And the petals of this yellow flower.’ She gave me a petal, and kept one for herself.

‘Yes.’

There was silence.

I looked at her. ‘Why don’t you say something?’

‘There’s a great lump in my throat,’ she said, ‘so talking is impossible.’

I went over to the piano, and striking up a few bars began to compose on the theme of farewell. But the result was abominable.

Sylvia opened a page with strings of demi-semi-quavers — thick as blackberries. I struck a few notes and then stopped. Crochets and quavers depress me. And when I cannot read difficult music I sound a few bars and then pretend it’s no use going on.

‘Go on!’ she enjoined.

‘I’m not in the mood.’

And I played Tristan instead. I played louder and louder and louder. The door opened suddenly and Berthe came in.

‘Your Aunt Teresa asks you not to play so loud; she does not feel well.’

‘Oh, bother!’

Berthe counted fifteen valerian drops into the glass which she held in her hand, and then departed.

To get away from them! — to get away from them ! — to be undisturbed for the night — that is what we wanted and craved for above all else.

I looked into her eyes.

‘Darling, I do, I do , I will miss you. But I shall come back,’ she said.

I played softly — improvising again as I went along.

‘What is this?’

‘Set me as a seal upon thine heart.’

She smiled. ‘It is, really.’

Sylvia, so light, so fragile, pale and delicate in her georgette, like a China rose, sat behind me on a high marble table (on which Dr. Murgatroyd once upon a time had burnt the seat of his trousers), gently swinging her legs. Suddenly, as I played, tears welled up from her large hazel eyes.

I looked at her. ‘Did you see my crying, dear?’

‘No.’

‘As I played I did.’

‘Don’t cry. If you cry I shall cry too.’

‘But you had tears,’ I said, a little jealous. ‘I saw.’

‘A little.’

I improvised and improvised till, in the end, I came a cropper. I was sorry now for all we did not do: for the walk we never took; for the kiss I did not press nor linger over. ‘For ever and ever and ever—’

‘Never mind, dear; you shall come to me to-night,’ she whispered.

‘What?’ I stifled a gasp of surprise, but could not help looking incredulous at this news too good to be true.

She said: ‘Come to me, dear, to-night, after ten, when they are all asleep. Promise me!’