‘Well,’ said Miss Saunders doubtfully, ‘I suppose it’ll look better when you’ve got on with it a bit… And you reely don’t want me any more?’
‘No, thank you,’ said Henrietta (‘And thank God I don’t!’ said her inner mind). ‘You’ve been simply splendid. I’m very grateful.’
She got rid of Doris expertly and returned to make herself some black coffee. She was tired—she was horribly tired. But happy—happy and at peace.
‘Thank goodness,’ she thought, ‘now I can be a human being again.’
And at once her thoughts went to John.
‘John,’ she thought. Warmth crept into her cheeks, a sudden quick lifting of the heart made her spirits soar.
‘Tomorrow,’ she thought, ‘I’m going to The Hollow… I shall see John…’
She sat quite still, sprawled back on the divan, drinking down the hot, strong liquid. She drank three cups of it. She felt vitality surging back.
It was nice, she thought, to be a human being again…and not that other thing. Nice to have stopped feeling restless and miserable and driven. Nice to be able to stop walking about the streets unhappily, looking for something, and feeling irritable and impatient because, really, you didn’t know what you were looking for! Now, thank goodness, there would be only hard work—and who minded hard work?
She put down the empty cup and got up and strolled back to Nausicaa. She looked at it for some time, and slowly a little frown crept between her brows.
It wasn’t—it wasn’t quite—
What was it that was wrong?…
Blind eyes.
Blind eyes that were more beautiful than any eyes that could see… Blind eyes that tore at your heart because they were blind… Had she got that or hadn’t she?
She’d got it, yes—but she’d got something else as well. Something that she hadn’t meant or thought about… The structure was all right—yes, surely. But where did it come from—that faint, insidious suggestion?…
The suggestion, somewhere, of a common spiteful mind.
She hadn’t been listening, not really listening. Yet somehow, in through her ears and out at her fingers, it had worked its way into the clay.
And she wouldn’t, she knew she wouldn’t, be able to get it out again…
Henrietta turned away sharply. Perhaps it was fancy. Yes, surely it was fancy. She would feel quite differently about it in the morning. She thought with dismay:
‘How vulnerable one is…’
She walked, frowning, up to the end of the studio. She stopped in front of her figure of The Worshipper.
That was all right—a lovely bit of pearwood, graining just right. She’d saved it up for ages, hoarding it.
She looked at it critically. Yes, it was good. No doubt about that. The best thing she had done for a long time—it was for the International Group. Yes, quite a worthy exhibit.
She’d got it all right: the humility, the strength in the neck muscles, the bowed shoulders, the slightly upraised face—a featureless face, since worship drives out personality.
Yes, submission, adoration—and that final devotion that is beyond, not this side, idolatry…
Henrietta sighed. If only, she thought, John had not been so angry.
It had startled her, that anger. It had told her something about him that he did not, she thought, know himself.
He had said flatly: ‘You can’t exhibit that!’
And she had said, as flatly, ‘I shall.’
She went slowly back to Nausicaa. There was nothing there, she thought, that she couldn’t put right. She sprayed it and wrapped it up in the damp cloths. It would have to stand over until Monday or Tuesday. There was no hurry now. The urgency had gone—all the essential planes were there. It only needed patience.
Ahead of her were three happy days with Lucy and Henry and Midge—and John!
She yawned, stretched herself like a cat stretches itself with relish and abandon, pulling out each muscle to its fullest extent. She knew suddenly how very tired she was.
She had a hot bath and went to bed. She lay on her back staring at a star or two through the skylight. Then from there her eyes went to the one light always left on, the small bulb that illuminated the glass mask that had been one of her earliest bits of work. Rather an obvious piece, she thought now. Conventional in its suggestion.
Lucky, thought Henrietta, that one outgrew oneself…
And now, sleep! The strong black coffee that she had drunk did not bring wakefulness in its train unless she wished it to do so. Long ago she had taught herself the essential rhythm that could bring oblivion at call.
You took thoughts, choosing them out of your store, and then, not dwelling on them, you let them slip through the fingers of your mind, never clutching at them, never dwelling on them, no concentration…just letting them drift gently past.
Outside in the Mews a car was being revved up—somewhere there was hoarse shouting and laughing. She took the sounds into the stream of her semi-consciousness.
The car, she thought, was a tiger roaring…yellow and black…striped like the striped leaves—leaves and shadows—a hot jungle…and then down the river—a wide tropical river…to the sea and the liner starting…and hoarse voices calling goodbye—and John beside her on the deck…she and John starting—blue sea and down into the dining-saloon—smiling at him across the table—like dinner at the Maison Dorée—poor John, so angry!…out into the night air—and the car, the feeling of sliding in the gears—effortless, smooth, racing out of London…up over Shovel Down…the trees…tree worship… The Hollow… Lucy… John… John… Ridgeway’s Disease…dear John…
Passing into unconsciousness now, into a happy beatitude.
And then some sharp discomfort, some haunting sense of guilt pulling her back. Something she ought to have done. Something that she had shirked.
Nausicaa?
Slowly, unwillingly, Henrietta got out of bed. She switched on the lights, went across to the stand and unwrapped the cloths.
She took a deep breath.
Not Nausicaa—Doris Saunders!
A pang went through Henrietta. She was pleading with herself, ‘I can get it right—I can get it right…’
‘Stupid,’ she said to herself. ‘You know quite well what you’ve got to do.’
Because if she didn’t do it now, at once—tomorrow she wouldn’t have the courage. It was like destroying your flesh and blood. It hurt—yes, it hurt.
Perhaps, thought Henrietta, cats feel like this when one of their kittens has something wrong with it and they kill it.
She took a quick, sharp breath, then she seized the clay, twisting it off the armature, carrying it, a large heavy lump, to dump it in the clay bin.
She stood there breathing deeply, looking down at her clay-smeared hands, still feeling the wrench to her physical and mental self. She cleaned the clay off her hands slowly.
She went back to bed feeling a curious emptiness, yet a sense of peace.
Nausicaa, she thought sadly, would not come again. She had been born, had been contaminated and had died.
‘Queer,’ thought Henrietta, ‘how things can seep into you without your knowing it.’
She hadn’t been listening—not really