May Sinclair

“ He put his hands on Winny's waist to guide her when, in her excitement, she went wrong. He linked his arm with hers when they ran locked, shoulder to shoulder, in the Great Wheel; but it was as if he held and caught, and was locked together with a child. Winny's charm was gone; and with it gone the sense of tenderness and absurdity; gone the magic and the madness of the running. For in Ranny's heart there was another magic and another madness. And it was as if Life itself had caught him and locked him with a woman in the whirling of its Great Wheel. ”

“ And at his insistence young Ransome was abashed. How could he explain to old Eno what he did it for or what it felt like? He couldn't explain it to himself, he had no words for it, for that ecstasy of living, that fusion of all faculties in one rhythm and one vibration, one continuous transport of physical energy. Take sprinting alone. How could he convey to Jujubes in his disgusting flabbiness any sense of the fine madness of running, of the race of the blood through the veins, of the hammer strokes of the heart, of the soft pad of the feet on the highway? ”

“ He signed to his son to sit near him.
"How old are those children?" he said.
"Dossie was five in March, and Stanny was three in April."
"And they've been—how long without their mother?"
"It'll be three years next October."
"Why don't you get rid of that woman?" said Mr. Ransome. It was as if with effort and with pain and out of the secret, ultimate sources of his being that he drew the energy to say it. They would never know what he was thinking, never know (as Ranny had once said) what was going on inside him. ”

“ Ranny's idea of fun was not Earl's Court or the Coliseum; it was to mount a bicycle and ride from that lonely place, Acacia Avenue, into places that were more lonely still. Sometimes they would have tea at a confectioner's, but what Ranny loved best was to put bits of cake or chocolate in his pocket, and to eat them in utter loneliness sitting in a field. In short, Ranny loved to take her into places where there was nothing for them to do, nothing for them to look at, and nobody to look at them. If Violet hadn't been gone on Ranny she couldn't have endured it for a day. ”

“ He showed her everything except the room she had seen already, the room with the love knots and the rosebuds where Violet and the Baby were. Winny admired everything with joy and yet with reverence, from the splendid overmantel in the front sitting-room to the hot-water tap in the bathroom.
"My word," Winny said, "what I'd give to have a bath like that!"
"I say," said Ransome, suddenly moved, "you take a lot more interest in it all than Virelet does."
"She's used to it," said Winny. "Besides, I always take an interest in other people's houses." ”

“ For Ransome the world of men brought respite. Even at home, in that world of women, of one woman, when things (he meant the one woman) were too much for him, menacing his as yet invincible hilarity, he could turn his back on them, and work in the garden or play with the Baby. Or he could leave them for a while and mount his bicycle and ride out into the open country. For Ransome life still had interests and surprises.
For the Baby surprise and interest lurked in the feeblest of its sensations; every day brought, for the Baby, excitement, discovery, and adventure. ”

“ And underneath Ranny's rooms, between the bedroom at the back and the back parlor, between the parlor and the shop, between the shop and the dispensing-room, Fulleymore Ransome dragged himself to and fro, more than ever weedy, more than ever morose, more than ever sublime in his appearance of integrity; and with it all so irritable that Ranny's children had to be kept out of his way. He would snarl when he heard them overhead; he would scowl horribly when he came across the "pram," pushed by the little girl, in its necessary progress through the shop into the street and back again. ”

“ She was so made as to be all in all to him, so made as to draw him to her all in all. There would be absolutely nothing of Ranny left over for his mother, except the affection he had always felt for her, which, for a woman of Mrs. Ransome's temperament, was the least thing that she claimed. Her instinct had divined Winny infallibly, not only as a wife to Ranny, but as a mother. A mother Winny was and would be to him far more than if she had used her womanhood to bear him children. ”

“ And the ancient rhythmic rush and race of the worlds, and the wheeling of all stars, the swinging and dancing of all atoms, the streaming and eddying of the ancestral stuff of life was in the whirling of that living Wheel; it was one immortal motion, continuous and triumphant in the bodies of those men and maidens as they ran. And they, shop-girls and shop-boys and young clerks, slipped off their memories of the desk and counter, and a joy, an instinct, and a sense that had no memory woke in them, savage, virgin, and shy; the pure and perfect joy of the young body in its own strength and speed ”

“ April, like a second honeymoon, made them again bride and bridegroom to each other. Nature, whom Ranny had blasphemed and upbraided, triumphed and was justified in Violet's beauty, that bloomed again and yet was changed to something almost fine, almost clear; as if its coarse strain had been purged from it by maternity. Something fine and clear in Ranny responded to the change.
And, as in their first honeymoon, Violet's irritation ceased. She was sullen-sweet, with a kind of brooding magic in her ways. She drew him with eyes whose glamour was tenderness under lowering brows ”

“ And Winny couldn't bear it. All the way up between the painted walls she was trying to think what she could do to prevent his spending a whole sovereign. She knew that it was no use fighting Ranny. The more she hung on to him to stop him, the more Ranny would struggle and break loose. Persuasion was no good. The more she reasoned, the more determined he would be to spend that sovereign, and the more ways he would find to spend it.
It was to be one of those mortal combats between man's will and woman's wit. Winny meant to circumvent Ranny and to defeat him by guile. ”

“ For outrage and wrong it was to the holy primal instincts, drawing them, as it had drawn them long ago, seeking to bind them again, body and soul, breaking all other bonds; insult and violence to honest love, to fatherhood and motherhood, to the one (one and threefold) perfection that they could stand for, he and she.
It ended by its sheer terror in Winny's staying just for that evening, to put the little things to sleep. For nobody else, not Ranny, and not his mother, was able to do that. ”

“ By his whole manner, by the swing of his tiny arms, by his tilted, roguish smile, by his eyes, impudent and joyous (blue they were, like his mother's, but clear, tilted, and curled like Ranny's) , Stanny intimated that Daddy was sold if he imagined that to walk was not just what Stanny wanted. And in spite of it he was heartrending, pathetic; so small he was, with all his baby roundness accentuated absurdly by the knickers.
"He's just such another as you, Ranny," Winny said. (She was uncontrollable!) "Such a little man as he is, in those knickers." ”

“ Winny's eyes were brimming with joy and tenderness as she looked at him. If she loved the new gray suit, the brown boots, and the Trilby hat, she did not love them more than the shabby blue serge with the place she knew in the lining where she had mended it. All the same, it was impossible to see him in such things without that little breathless thrill of wonder and excitement. There wasn't one man at Earl's Court that night who could compare with Ranny. ”

“ As for Winny's hope that Violet would forget all about Ranny when some other man appeared, it was futile as long as she took care of Violet. Taking care of Violet meant keeping her as far as possible out of the way of other men—so that there again! It seemed as if she had arranged it so that Ranny should be the only one. For Winny had divined her friend's disastrous temperament even while she maintained hotly that there was no harm in her. And she had almost quarreled with Maudie because the proud beauty had said, "Well, you'll see." ”

“ Ranny stood in the doorway, silent, almost austere, like a man escaped by a hair's breadth from great peril.
When he caught sight of the silent and austere young man in the doorway, Baby let go his fascinating toes. He chuckled with delight. He jerked himself more than ever up and down. He struggled to be free, to be lifted up and embraced by the young man. Silence and austerity were no deterrent to Baby, so assured was he of his position, of his welcome, of the safe, warm, tingling place that would presently be his in the hollow of the young man's arm. ”

“ Ransome was surprised to see in Violet so large a heart and a mind so open. For not only did she tolerate Winny, she clung, he could see that she clung, to her like a child. She even tolerated what he wouldn't have thought a woman would have stood for a single instant, the fact, the palpable fact, that Ranny couldn't get along without her any more than she could.
And if they could, the Baby couldn't. Baby (she was Dorothy now and Dossie) cried for Winny when Winny wasn't there. She would run from her mother's voice to hide her face in Winny's skirts. ”

“ He broke the news to Winny, sitting with her in their little halfway grove, the place consecrated to Ranny's confidences.
"I can't do different," he said, summing it all up.
"Of course, you can't. Never mind, dear. Let's go on as we are."
It was what Violet had said to him, but with how different a meaning!
"But Winky—it means waiting years. It'll be more than two before I can get a divorce—and we can't marry till six months after. That's three years. I can't bear to ask you to wait so long."
"Don't worry about me. I'm quite happy."
"You don't know how much happier you would be. Me too." ”

“ He had always been more like a lover to her than a son. Mr. Ransome's transports (if he could be said to have transports) of affection were violent, with long intermissions and most brief. Ranny had ways, soft words, cajoleries, caresses that charmed her in her secret desolation. Balancing himself on the arm of her chair, he had his face hidden in the nape of her neck, where he affected ecstasy and the sniffing in of fragrance, as if his mother were a flower. ”

“ Here they wandered for what seemed an eternity of bliss.
"What more do you want?" said Winny. "Isn't this beautiful enough for anybody?" Neither of them had any idea that the beauty and the glamour of it was in their own souls as they drank each other's mystery.
"Let's just sit and listen to the band," she said. And they sat and listened to it for another eternity, till Ranny became restless. ”