Marjorie Bowen

“ She was gracious—sweeter than anyone need or ought to be, I thought, but I hadn't quite got the atmosphere.
'Our first guest,' she murmured, holding out both hands. 'How strange Cedric should meet you. He so seldom goes to the town, or ever leaves the house. He doesn't care to,' she added with a thrill in her voice.
She looked at him and he looked at her and murmured, 'Jennifer.'
While we had dinner—all excellent—that evening I observed her; she absolutely fascinated me and I want to describe her to you, Lorimer. ”

“ Then...I was coming in from the garden the fourth evening she was playing as usual, in a white gown that didn't suit her, and he was seated on his pure coloured chair with a Danish book of poetry.
As I entered the room I was assailed by a smell, so creeping, so foetid I could hardly forbear an exclamation—yet this was so obviously bad manners that I was silent. ”

“ I was sent down to Hertford town a few weeks ago to investigate some ghost story, you know what a rage that sort of thing is with us just now, all of us shouting things you can hardly say in a whisper and trying to disprove what no one can prove. ”

“ There was a lot of this sort of thing; she, Jennifer, looked through me, with a sort of 'divine pity'—but she was kind, very kind.
I soon learnt that Halston's 'sanctum' was 'just for writing' upstairs they shared the same room; he hadn't a corner, not even in the 'sanctum' for she would glide in there and sit in place of the banal secretary who could not have been tolerated in 'Enchantment'.
Not a corner—the woman pervaded the whole house—but why not?
You don't want corners in Paradise. ”

“ She is tall, with wide shoulders and a full Rosetti sort of neck, and a head rather nicely set, dark waved hair gathered in a knot at her nape and good forehead and dark rather flat eyes—then the nose tight, the lips hard and crooked, the complexion harsh and grained with red and the chin too small, running with a bad line into the Rosetti throat. ”

“ Even the old Die–hards that 'slam the door in the face of youth', etc., etc., said he was—well, the right stuff.
None of your crazy, mazy, jig–saw, jazzy poets, poison green and liver yellow, but the 'real thing'.
Like Keats.
Of course there ought to have been money in a stunt like that, being the real thing, I mean, and starving, but poor old Halston never could work it, could he? He just—starved.
Not very picturesquely.
Till he met Jennifer Harden. ”

“ The things that matter most, that fill our souls, our minds, even our eyes...I'm always amazed at our eternal reticences...well, there were no children and I am queer in my views on marriage without children, it is a tricky business this mating...one knows too much...you've got to be jolly careful the people you marry to each other or, well, sometimes I've felt nauseated. ”

“ I mentioned the smell, actually dared to Jennifer (I shall always think of her as that, never as 'Mrs Halston', I know) and she was so distantly sweet about it that I felt I had been very impertinent.
'Of course there is nothing,' she said kindly. 'Cedric is so particular about—perfumes—sensitive people are, are they not? Perhaps you have fancies? Cedric used to...that is where I was able to...help him.'
Again the little thrill on the last two words: 'help him!' poor brute. Yes she has helped him all right...but where to. ”