George Morley

“ Like lettuce and mayonnaise, George had said, admiring the frail yellow collar. It brought out the clear blue of the eyes, like sluiced pebbles. She was almost amazed (looking closely) to see how clear they were, after so many angers, so much—physiology. One can be candid in solitude. Thirty-four. What was that story she had read, which said that a woman is at her most irresistible at thirty-five? Mother had sent it to her, in a magazine, and had written in the margin True of my Phyllis. She laughed. What a merciless comedy life is. ”

“ With a gentle twitch George pulls her dress straight and pats the child’s golden nape. She looks at him with innocent affection. That little bare shoulder makes him think of women and their loveliness, and all the torments of unease to which these same poor youngsters must grow up. He concentrates his mind on the blue and white platter, the brown gravy dimpled with clear circles of fat and turning ruddy as the juice of the roast trickles down, the amber tea with slices of lemon. Thank Heaven Time still lies before them all like an ocean. ”

“ VI PHYLLIS could feel the whole flat of visible world gently tilting. Equilibrium, if there had been any, was gone: they had begun to slide. George, receding across the level grass, seemed to descend a downward slope. Martin was lying at ease on the ground beside her, with one knee bent and the other leg cocked across it. Perhaps that’s why he’s so fond of lying on the ground. It’s easier to keep from sliding. He seemed to have forgotten she was there and was humming to himself. She felt he had the advantage that silent people always have over the talkative. ”

“ His voice was very gentle. (How different from George.) Something extraordinary about his way of looking at her; what clear hazel eyes. Instead of offering any explanation he seemed waiting for her to say something. She had confidently expected a quick scramble to his feet, a courteous apology for intruding. She felt a little angry at herself for not being able to speak as reprovingly as he deserved. But there was a crumb on his chin, somehow this weakened her. A man who would come into people’s gardens and ask for cake and not even wipe the crumbs off his chin. ”

“ The little table was under the pine trees, the other side of the croquet oval. The grove smelt warm and slippery. Now there are the long hours of the afternoon to be lived through, somehow. George sprawled himself on the brown needles, the smoke of his pipe drifted past her in a blue whiff. Mr. Martin put a chair for her.
“I love these pine trees,” she said. “They’re always whispering.”
“It isn’t polite to whisper.”
[61] She smiled at him. He does say the quaintest things.
“Nature never is polite. On an afternoon like this the whole world seems to yawn in your face.” ”

“ What are we waiting for, she wondered. What is everyone waiting for, always? She was painfully aware of George standing near her. It was not silence that sundered them, but their grotesque desire to speak.
“George,” Phyllis was saying, “you give Ben a drink or something while I take the ladies——”
In the shadow beyond the table there was a clicking sound. Through the wide opening of the dining-room double doors two figures crawled, on all fours, with a toy train. Janet was in her [140] pyjamas, ready for bed. Martin’s hand moved the engine across the floor. They came into the stripe of sunset. ”

“ George had liked his looks, but he had resented (as must every man burdened with many perplexities) that gay and careless air. He looks as if he didn’t have a thing on earth to worry about, George thought. And he comes floating in here, with casual ease, among the thousand interlocking tensions of George’s difficulties, to gaze with untroubled eye on his host’s restless alertness. Or was this some sort of joke that Phyllis was putting over on him?
“I’m going to put the two older children on the sleeping porch, so Ben and Ruth can have their room. Miss Clyde will have to go on this couch.” ”

“ Cyrus Redding describes Morley at the age of forty as a tall, well-proportioned man, with regular and handsome features, pallid complexion, and sedate physiognomy. He spoke French and Italian fluently, and had considerable taste in the fine arts. The hospitality of Saltram, the largest house in Devonshire, was most munificent. When George III and his queen stayed there a hundred beds were made up. He died at Saltram on 15 March 1840.
Morley was twice married: first, on 20 June 1804, to Lady Augusta Fane, second daughter of the tenth Earl of Westmorland, from whom he was divorced on 14 Feb. ”

“ It was just like Ruth to ruin the stable for him.
“Well, I don’t want to spoil any one else’s plans,” said Ben.
“We could play hide-and-seek in the hay,” Martin suggested.
Now they were all piling into the car, to ride round the house to the stable. This was of a piece with the absurdity of everything else, George thought. People were always driving up in crowds to visit his secrets. Like sight-seeing busses loaded with excursionists. The world loves to trample over your private ecstasies and leave them littered [171] with scraps of paper and banana peel. ”

“ We’re so happy to be in the country again. Of course we live very simply, but Mr. Granville can always work so well when he gets away from the office. I feel so sorry for the men who have to be in town all summer.”
George feels a violent impulse to contradict her, but masters it. Phyl, he says, ask Lizzie to bring a spoon for the gravy. She always forgets it.—Mr. Martin, I’ll tell you the kind of people we are, we never have a carving knife sharp enough to cut with. ”

“ MORLEY, GEORGE (1597–1684) , English bishop, was born in London and educated at Westminster and Oxford. In 1640 he was presented to the sinecure living of Hartfield, Sussex, and in the following year he was made canon of Christ Church and exchanged to the rectory of Mildenhall, Wiltshire. He preached before the Commons in 1642, but his sermon gave offence, and when in 1647 he took a prominent part in resisting the parliamentary visitation of Oxford University he was deprived of his canonry and living. ”

“ George was getting out the suitcases. He was afraid to watch Phyllis and Joyce greet. When a finely adjusted balance hovers in equilibrium you don’t breathe on the scales.
“We were on the same train,” cried Ruth, “and never recognized each other.”
Ben felt the twinge of anxiety common to the husband who hears his wife tell an unnecessary fib. Ruth had said this once before already, in the car, so perhaps it was important. Her allusion to Pullmans, also, was based (he suspected) on the erroneous notion that Miss Clyde had ridden in a day coach. ”

“ This was George.
An artist’s mind is always on the beautiful, Phyllis thought. She pulled her skirt down a little, and tried to decide what was the most beautiful thing visible, so she could call his attention to it. She wished she hadn’t said that about yawning, she felt one coming on. The hot lunch had made her frightfully drowsy. Across the bay thunderheads were massing and rolling up, deep golden purple. ”

“ George objected. “No one would be crazy enough to say everything. Besides, there wouldn’t be time.”
Martin was stubbornly silent.
“I agree with Mr. Martin,” Phyllis said. “It’s not a very cheerful game. If we didn’t say our thoughts we must have had some good reason for keeping them silent. Besides, I must speak to Lizzie about breakfast.”
“I’ll take the car to the stable.”
“Can I go with you?” Martin asked.
George had still cherished a forlorn hope that the world was large enough for him and Joyce to have a few moments alone. ”

“ Mr. Martin was a comforting sort of guest, he did not talk but just looked happy and was spooning up the sugar from the bottom of his glass. Drink life to the bottom of the vessel, you always find some sugar there, all the more palatable for the lemony taste.
A clear compulsory ringing trilled keenly across the lawn. They listened, unwilling to move.
Then there was the squeak of the screen being lifted in the pantry window. Lizzie put out her [65] head and called. Phyllis found it impossible to stir.
“George, you go. Then you can put on some dry socks.” ”

“ Beyond Ruth, black against the blanched evening, were George and Joyce on the veranda steps.... Oh, so that was what Martin had meant?
Ben’s face was so perplexed and bored, she took pity on him.
“What would you people like to do? Play cards? We can’t dance, there isn’t any music.”
Ruth was quite content not to dance; she suspected she would have had to take Ben as a partner. “Ben’s favourite game is Twenty Questions,” she said.
“Gracious, I haven’t played that in ages. It’ll be rather fun. Here come the others, let’s do it.”
George seemed almost like a stranger, Phyllis thought. ”

“ Life seemed to be beginning all over again: her mind was freshly sensitized to the oddity of human faces, to the colour and vitality of the country, the strong swelling curves of the hills. I am flying, flying, she chanted; I am flying from a dream. I am a little mad. My mind is fuller than it’ll hold: all sorts of thoughts are slopping over the brim, getting lost because there isn’t room for them. I must let them flow faster so I can be aware of them all. What happens to the thoughts that get spilt before you can quite seize them? I must ask George.... I wonder which George it will be? ”

“ From the sleeping porch over their heads he heard one of the children cough.
“George,” she whispered, “I’ll do whatever you tell me.”
He turned to her. “I’d like to see any one laugh at locksmiths.”
[190] XV THEY were entrenched in a little fortress of light. The tall silk-shaded lamp made the living hall an orange glow, an argument against silver chaos veined with brute nothing. The clock, the clock, the clock, measured itself against the infidel crickets. Phyllis, in a corner of the big sofa, was in the centre of that protecting glitter. ”

“ I went on with my dinner. I knew that our host had heard what I said, for I saw him turn rather hastily to his butler.
Mr. Morley is a man difficult to describe, stiff in the back, and long and loose in the neck, reminding me of those toy-birds that bob head and tail up and down alternately. When he agrees with any thing you say, down comes his head with a rectangular nod; when he does not agree with you, he is so silent and motionless that he leaves you in doubt whether he has heard a word of what you have been saying. ”

“ V GEORGE is carving the meat. He always feels better at meal times. The trouble with me, he thinks, is that I take things too seriously. I dare say I haven’t any sense of humour. Let’s see if we can’t make a sort of fresh start from this moment.
The three little girls are brown and gay. Phyllis looks tired, but busily exhibits that staccato sprightliness that comes over her when there are guests. This Mr. Martin seems a silent fellow. The children stare at him, and seem to have some joke among themselves ”

“ How many sandwiches will we need? Three children, two of us, Mr. Martin, Ben and Ruth, Miss Clyde—that makes nine. When this gruesome Picnic is over, perhaps I shall have a chance to ease up. I feel as though I should like to fall in love with someone. I wonder if Mr. Martin would do?
“Mr. and Mrs. Brook are coming this evening,” she said gaily. “You’ll like them, they’re charming.”
“As a matter of fact,” said George (she always knew, when he began with that phrase, that he was going to contradict her) , “they’re the dullest people on earth; so completely dull that you can’t help envying them. ”

“ It’s good stuff.” Mr. Martin was still standing by the door uncertainly, holding the toy engine. Heavens, does the fellow have to be moved round like a chess man? He’s so difficult to talk to, somehow. George made a cordial [144] gesture, indicating that Mr. Martin might as well join Ben at the sideboard. Martin crossed the room obediently.
The anxious host glanced into the sitting room. Yes: Phyllis, with her usual skill, had turned the desk into a dressing table: there was a fresh doily on it, a vase of flowers, and the mirror from his own bureau upstairs. ”

“ He had come like the unspoiled essence of living, groping blindly for what [267] it divines to be happy and real and true; he was thwarted and damned by the murderous pettiness of his own scarred brethren. If I had two friends called Food and Hunger, I’d never introduce them to each other. Must she, who was born to love him, be the one to tell him this?
“You must go. Don’t you see, it isn’t only us. It’s you too. You and George.... Oh, I tried not to tell you. George is just you grown up.” ”

“ They look so surprised. I have a guilty passion for pine trees.”
Driving the faithful car had strengthened George. Even the paltriest has an encouraged sense of competence with that steady tattoo underneath his feet. The artist that lay printed like a fossil in George’s close-packed heart—the artist that only Joyce had ever relished—always responded to the drum of the engine. He adored the car; when he drove alone to the Island (sending the family by train) he sang to her most of the way. ”

“ You’re always talking about artists, their fine easy ways, I guess she won’t mind if someone sees her in a wrapper.”
She’d look charming in a wrapper, George [47] thought. The queer little boyish thing! I can just imagine her. It would be blue, a kind of filmy blue crêpe. Coming up the stairs the morning sunlight would catch her, through those big windows: her small curves delicately outlined in a haze of soft colour, her hair tousled, a flash of white ankle as she reached the top step. ”

“ She looked so miserable, so desperate, his anger began to throb.
“You can write a booklet about something else. You know you can, they’re all crazy to get your stuff. George, you’re so big and clever, you can do anything. Miss Clyde can illustrate it. I don’t mind your loving her, I’ll be sensible, just take us away before the Picnic. Go and wake her now, she can go in her wrapper, you’ll like that.”
“Damnation,” he burst out, “don’t talk such tripe. I believe you’re crazy. It’s this half-wit Martin who’s got on your nerves. I’ve got a mind to wake him up, throw him out of the house. ”