Radclyffe Hall

“ It is bad for the soul to know itself a coward, it is apt to take refuge in mere wordy violence.
‘Yes, you, her mother, you persecute Stephen, you torment her; I sometimes think you hate her!’
‘Philip—good God!’
‘Yes, I think you hate her; but be careful, Anna, for hatred breeds hatred, and remember I stand for the rights of my child—if you hate her you’ve got to hate me; she’s my child. I won’t let her face your hatred alone.’
Ugly, degrading, rather terrible half-truths. Their hearts ached while their lips formed recriminations. ”

“ Mary . . . so loyal and as yet so gallant, but so pitifully untried in the war of existence. Warned only by words, the words of a lover, and what were mere words when it came to actions? And the ageing woman with the far-away eyes, eyes that could yet be so cruel, so accusing—they might turn and rest with repugnance on Mary, even as once they had rested on Stephen: ‘I would rather see you dead at my feet. . . .’ A fearful saying, and yet she had meant it, that ageing woman with the far-away eyes—she had uttered it knowing herself to be a mother. But that at least should be hidden from Mary. ”

“ The base betrayal of such a confession! Angela delivered over, betrayed—the unthinkable folly, the madness of it.
Yet sometimes as Anna and she sat together looking out at the misty Cornish coast-line, hearing the dull, heavy throb of the sea and the calling of sea-gulls the one to the other—as they sat there together it would seem to Stephen that her heart was so full of Angela Crossby, all the bitterness, all the sweetness of her, that the mother-heart beating close by her own must surely, in its turn, be stirred to beat faster, for had she not once sheltered under that heart? ”

“ It was a queer feeling; it was too big for Stephen, who was still rather little when it came to affairs of the spirit. For the spirit of Morton would be part of her then, and would always remain somewhere deep down within her, aloof and untouched by the years that must follow, by the stress and the ugliness of life. In those after-years certain scents would evoke it—the scent of damp rushes growing by water; the kind, slightly milky odour of cattle; the smell of dried roseleaves and orris-root and violets, that together with a vague suggestion of beeswax always hung about Anna’s rooms. ”

“ Stephen shook her head: ‘I can’t give her protection or happiness, and yet she won’t leave me. There’s only one way . . .’
Then Valérie Seymour, who had always shunned tragedy like the plague, flared out in something very like temper: ‘Protection! Protection! I’m sick of the word. Let her do without it; aren’t you enough for her? Good heavens, you’re worth twenty Mary Llewellyns! Stephen, think it over before you decide—it seems mad to me. For God’s sake keep the girl, and get what happiness you can out of life.’
‘No, I can’t do that,’ said Stephen dully. ”

“ They stared at each other in bitter hostility for a moment, then Stephen said more gently: ‘You don’t mean to insult me by what you propose, but I won’t consent to your going, Martin. You think that I can’t hold the woman I love against you, because you’ve got an advantage over me and over the whole of my kind. I accept that challenge—I must accept it if I’m to remain at all worthy of Mary.’
He bowed his head: ‘It must be as you wish.’ Then he suddenly began to talk rather quickly: ‘Stephen, listen, I hate what I’m going to say, but by God, it’s got to be said to you somehow! ”

“ Something primitive and age-old as Nature herself, did their love appear to Mary and Stephen. For now they were in the grip of Creation, of Creation’s terrific urge to create; the urge that will sometimes sweep forward blindly alike into fruitful and sterile channels. That well-nigh intolerable life force would grip them, making them a part of its own existence; so that they who might never create a new life, were yet one at such moments with the fountain of living. ”

“ You know how I love you, with my soul and my body; if it’s wrong, grotesque, unholy—have pity. I’ll be humble. Oh, my darling, I am humble now; I’m just a poor, heart-broken freak of a creature who loves you and needs you much more than its life, because life’s worse than death, ten times worse without you. I’m some awful mistake—God’s mistake—I don’t know if there are any more like me, I pray not for their sakes, because it’s pure hell. But oh, my dear, whatever I am, I just love you and love you. I thought it was dead, but it wasn’t. It’s alive—so terribly alive to-night in my bedroom. ”

“ A world full of constant exciting adventures; of elation, of joy, of incredible sadness, but withal a fine place to be dashing about in like a moth who is courting a candle. Up and down went the days; they resembled a swing that soared high above the tree-tops, then dropped to the depths, but seldom if ever hung midway. And with them went Stephen, clinging to the swing, waking up in the mornings with a thrill of vague excitement—the sort of excitement that belonged by rights to birthdays, and Christmas, and a visit to the pantomime at Malvern. ”

“ For the Celtic soul is the stronghold of dreams, of longings come down the dim paths of the ages; and within it there dwells a vague discontent, so that it must for ever go questing. And now as though drawn by some hidden attraction, as though stirred by some irresistible impulse, quite beyond the realms of her own understanding, Mary turned in all faith and all innocence to Stephen. Who can pretend to interpret fate, either his own fate or that of another? Why should this girl have crossed Stephen’s path, or indeed Stephen hers, if it came to that matter? ”

“ Was it likely that Stephen could finish her book—she who had Paris in springtime with Mary? Was it likely that Mary could urge her to do so—she who had Paris in springtime with Stephen? There was so much to see, so much to show Mary, so many new things to discover together. And now Stephen felt grateful to Jonathan Brockett who had gone to such pains to teach her her Paris.
Idle she was, let it not be denied, idle and happy and utterly carefree. A lover, who, like many another before her, was under the spell of the loved one’s existence. ”

“ Sometimes he and Stephen would look at each other covertly, and their youthful faces would be marred by a very abominable thing; the instinctive repulsion of two human bodies, the one for the other, which neither could help—not now that those bodies were stirred by a woman. Then into this vortex of secret emotion would come Ralph. He would stare from Stephen to Roger and then at his wife, and his eyes would be red—one never knew whether from tears or from anger. They would form a grotesque triangle for a moment, those three who must share a common desire. ”

“ Her long walks on the hills were a part of this person, as were also the hearts of the wild dog-roses, the delicate network of veins on the leaves and the queer June break in the cuckoo’s rhythm. The night with its large summer stars and its silence, was pregnant with a new and mysterious purpose, so that lying at the mercy of that age-old purpose, Stephen would feel little shivers of pleasure creeping out of the night and into her body. She would get up and stand by the open window, thinking always of Angela Crossby. ”

“ But Angela hid her face in her hands: ‘No, no, it’s nothing; I’m only so tired. It’s been a fearful strain these last months. I’m just a weak, human creature, Stephen—sometimes I think we’ve been worse than mad. I must have been mad to have allowed you to love me like this—one day you’ll despise and hate me. It’s my fault, but I was so terribly lonely that I let you come into my life, and now—oh, I can’t explain, you wouldn’t understand; how could you understand, Stephen?’
And so strangely complex is poor human nature, that Angela really believed in her feelings. ”

“ But when twice a year at her mother’s request, Stephen must go back to visit her home, then Raftery went too, and his joy was immense when he felt the good springy turf beneath him, when he sighted the red brick stables of Morton, when he rolled in the straw of his large, airy loosebox. The years would seem to slip from his shoulders, he grew sleeker, he would look like a five-year-old—yet to Stephen these visits of theirs were anguish because of her love for Morton. She would feel like a stranger within the gates, an unwanted stranger there only on sufferance. ”

“ Pierre, together with Pauline’s niece who would take Adèle’s place, was preparing dinner. And the sadness of the house flowed out like a stream to mingle itself with the sadness in Stephen. Adèle and Jean, the simplicity of it . . . they loved, they married, and after a while they would care for each other all over again, renewing their youth and their love in their children. So orderly, placid and safe it seemed, this social scheme evolved from creation; this guarding of two young and ardent lives for the sake of the lives that might follow after. A fruitful and peaceful road it must be. ”

“ And he felt that he knew, and knew only too well, what life would do to Mary Llewellyn, what it had done to her already; for had he not seen the bitterness in her, the resentment that could only lead to despair, the defiance that could only lead to disaster? She was setting her weakness against the whole world, and slowly but surely the world would close in until in the end it had utterly crushed her. In her very normality lay her danger. Mary, all woman, was less of a match for life than if she had been as was Stephen. ”

“ Mademoiselle Duphot shed a few tears: ‘I find you only to lose you, Stévenne. Ah, but how many friends will be parted, perhaps for ever, by this terrible war—and yet what else could we do? We are blameless!’
In Berlin people were also saying: ‘What else could we do? We are blameless!’
Julie’s hand lingered on Stephen’s arm: ‘You feel so strong,’ she said, sighing a little, ‘it is good to be strong and courageous these days, and to have one’s eyes—alas, I am quite useless.’
‘No one is useless who can pray, my sister,’ reproved Mademoiselle almost sternly. ”

“ Then, suddenly, Stephen knew that unless she could, indeed, drop dead at the feet of this woman in whose womb she had quickened, there was one thing that she dared not let pass unchallenged, and that was this terrible slur upon her love. And all that was in her rose up to refute it; to protect her love from such unbearable soiling. It was part of herself, and unless she could save it, she could not save herself any more. She must stand or fall by the courage of that love to proclaim its right to toleration. ”

“ With a sudden illumination of vision, she perceived that all life is only one life, that all joy and all sorrow are indeed only one, that all death is only one dying. And she knew that because she had seen a man die in great suffering, yet with courage and love that are deathless, she could never again inflict wanton destruction or pain upon any poor, hapless creature. And so it was that by dying to Stephen, Sir Philip would live on in the attribute of mercy that had come that day to his child. ”

“ And somehow this weeping was different from any that had gone before, so that Stephen trembled. There was something frightened and desolate about it; it was like the sobbing of a terrified child. The girl forgot her own desolation in her pity and the need that she felt to comfort. More strongly than ever before she felt the need to protect this woman, and to comfort.
She said, grown suddenly passionless and gentle: ‘Tell me—try to tell me what’s wrong, belovèd. Don’t be afraid of making me angry—we love each other, and that’s all that matters. ”

“ Stephen would again and again go over those last heart-rending days with Barbara and Jamie, railing against the outrageous injustice that had led to their tragic and miserable ending. She would clench her hands in a kind of fury. How long was this persecution to continue? How long would God sit still and endure this insult offered to His creation? How long tolerate the preposterous statement that inversion was not a part of nature? For since it existed what else could it be? All things that existed were a part of nature! ”

“ They could not see each other’s faces very clearly any more, because there was only firelight. And Stephen spoke such words as a lover will speak when his heart is burdened to breaking; when his doubts must bow down and be swept away before the unruly flood of his passion. There in that shadowy, firelit room, she spoke such words as lovers have spoken ever since the divine, sweet madness of God flung the thought of love into Creation.
But Angela suddenly pushed her away: ‘Don’t, don’t—I can’t bear it—it’s too much, Stephen. It hurts me—I can’t bear this thing—for you. ”

“ Puddle, help me—you were young yourself once.’
‘Yes, Stephen—a long time ago I was young. . . .’
‘But can’t you remember back for my sake?’ And now her voice sounded almost angry in her distress: ‘It’s unfair, it’s unjust. Why should I live in this great isolation of spirit and body—why should I, why? Why have I been afflicted with a body that must never be indulged, that must always be repressed until it grows stronger much than my spirit because of this unnatural repression? What have I done to be so cursed? ”

“ Stephen had never thought to feel envious of a man like Jonathan Brockett.
She sat smoking, with his letter spread out before her on the desk, his absurd yet courageous letter, and somehow it humbled her pride to the dust, for she could not so justify her existence. Every instinct handed down by the men of her race, every decent instinct of courage, now rose to mock her so that all that was male in her make-up seemed to grow more aggressive, aggressive perhaps as never before, because of this new frustration. ”

“ Then Stephen would come to the thing of all others that to her was the most agonizing question. Youth, what of youth? Where could it turn for its natural and harmless recreations? There was Dickie West and many more like her, vigorous, courageous and kind-hearted youngsters; yet shut away from so many of the pleasures that belonged by right to every young creature—and more pitiful still was the lot of a girl who, herself being normal, gave her love to an invert. The young had a right to their innocent pleasures, a right to social companionship; had a right, indeed, to resent isolation. ”

“ She dared not explain the girl to herself, dared not say: ‘For your own sake you must go to Oxford, you’ll need every weapon your brain can give you; being what you are you’ll need every weapon,’ for then certainly Stephen would start to question, and her teacher’s very position of trust would forbid her to answer those questions.
Outrageous, Puddle would feel it to be, that wilfully selfish tyranny of silence evolved by a crafty old ostrich of a world for its own well-being and comfort. The world hid its head in the sands of convention, so that seeing nothing it might avoid Truth. ”