This was Daphne's home, where she had been born. She loved it with
an ache of affection. But now it was hard to forget her dead
brothers. She wandered about in the sun, with two old dogs padding
after her. She talked with everybody--gardener, groom, stableman,
with the farm-hands. That filled a large part of her life--
straying round talking with the work-people. They were, of course,
respectful to her--but not at all afraid of her. They knew she was
poor, that she could not afford a car, nor anything. So they
talked to her very freely: perhaps a little too freely. Yet she
let it be. It was her one passion at Thoresway to hear the
dependants talk and talk--about everything. The curious feeling of
intimacy across a breach fascinated her. Their lives fascinated
her: what they thought, what they FELT. These, what they felt.
That fascinated her. There was a gamekeeper she could have loved--
an impudent, ruddy-faced, laughing, ingratiating fellow; she could
have loved him, if he had not been isolated beyond the breach of
his birth, her culture, her consciousness. Her CONSCIOUSNESS
seemed to make a great gulf between her and the lower classes, the
unconscious classes. She accepted it as her doom. She could never
meet in real contact anyone but a super-conscious, finished being
like herself: or like her husband. Her father had some of the
unconscious blood-warmth of the lower classes. But he was like a
man who is damned. And the Count, of course. The Count had
something that was hot and invisible, a dark flame of life that
might warm the cold white fire of her own blood. But--
They avoided each other. All three, they avoided one another.
Basil, too, went off alone. Or he immersed himself in poetry.
Sometimes he and the Count played billiards. Sometimes all three
walked in the park. Often Basil and Daphne walked to the village,
to post. But truly, they avoided one another, all three. The days
slipped by.
At evening they sat together in the small west room that had books
and a piano and comfortable shabby furniture of faded rose-coloured
tapestry: a shabby room. Sometimes Basil read aloud: sometimes the
Count played the piano. And they talked. And Daphne stitch by
stitch went on with a big embroidered bedspread, which she might
finish if she lived long enough. But they always went to bed
early. They were nearly always avoiding one another.
Dionys had a bedroom in the east bay--a long way from the rooms of
the others. He had a habit, when he was quite alone, of singing,
or rather crooning, to himself the old songs of his childhood. It
was only when he felt he was quite alone: when other people seemed
to fade out of him, and all the world seemed to dissolve into
darkness, and there was nothing but himself, his own soul, alive in
the middle of his own small night, isolate for ever. Then, half
unconscious, he would croon in a small, high-pitched, squeezed
voice, a sort of high dream-voice, the songs of his childhood
dialect. It was a curious noise: the sound of a man who is alone
in his own blood: almost the sound of a man who is going to be
executed.
Daphne heard the sound one night when she was going downstairs
again with the corridor lantern to find a book. She was a bad
sleeper, and her nights were a torture to her. She, too, like a
neurotic, was nailed inside her own fretful self-consciousness.
But she had a very keen ear. So she started as she heard the
small, bat-like sound of the Count's singing to himself. She stood
in the midst of the wide corridor, that was wide as a room,
carpeted with a faded lavender-coloured carpet, with a piece of
massive dark furniture at intervals by the wall, and an oak arm-
chair and sometimes a faded, reddish Oriental rug. The big horn
lantern which stood at nights at the end of the corridor she held
in her hand. The intense 'peeping' sound of the Count, like a
witchcraft, made her forget everything. She could not understand a
word, of course. She could not understand the noise even. After
listening for a long time, she went on downstairs. When she came
back again he was still, and the light was gone from under his
door.
After this, it became almost an obsession to her to listen for him.
She waited with fretful impatience for ten o'clock, when she could
retire. She waited more fretfully still for the maid to leave her,
and for her husband to come and say good-night. Basil had the room
across the corridor. And then in resentful impatience she waited
for the sounds of the house to become still. Then she opened her
door to listen.
And far away, as if from far, far away in the unseen, like a
ventriloquist sound or a bat's uncanny peeping, came the frail,
almost inaudible sound of the Count's singing to himself before he
went to bed. It WAS inaudible to anyone but herself. But she, by
concentration, seemed to hear supernaturally. She had a low arm-
chair by the door, and there, wrapped in a huge old black silk
shawl, she sat and listened. At first she could not hear. That
is, she could hear the sound. But it was only a sound. And then,
gradually, gradually she began to follow the thread of it. It was
like a thread which she followed out of the world: out of the
world. And as she went, slowly, by degrees, far, far away, down
the thin thread of his singing, she knew peace--she knew
forgetfulness. She could pass beyond the world, away beyond where
her soul balanced like a bird on wings, and was perfected.
So it was, in her upper spirit. But underneath was a wild, wild
yearning, actually to go, actually to be given. Actually to go,
actually to die the death, actually to cross the border and be
gone, to be gone. To be gone from this herself, from this Daphne,
to be gone from father and mother, brothers and husband, and home
and land and world: to be gone. To be gone to the call from the
beyond: the call. It was the Count calling. He was calling her.
She was sure he was calling her. Out of herself, out of her world,
he was calling her.
Two nights she sat just inside her room, by the open door, and
listened. Then when he finished she went to sleep, a queer, light,
bewitched sleep. In the day she was bewitched. She felt strange
and light, as if pressure had been removed from around her. Some
pressure had been clamped round her all her life. She had never
realized it till now; now it was removed, and her feet felt so
light, and her breathing delicate and exquisite. There had always
been a pressure against her breathing. Now she breathed delicate
and exquisite, so that it was a delight to breathe. Life came in
exquisite breaths, quickly, as if it delighted to come to her.
The third night he was silent--though she waited and waited till
the small hours of the morning. He was silent, he did not sing.
And then she knew the terror and blackness of the feeling that he
might never
sing any more. She waited like one doomed, throughout
the day. And when the night came she trembled. It was her
greatest nervous terror, lest her spell should be broken, and she
should be thrown back to what she was before.
Night came, and the kind of swoon upon her. Yes, and the call from
the night. The call! She rose helplessly and hurried down the
corridor. The light was under his door. She sat down in the big
oak arm-chair that stood near his door, and huddled herself tight
in her black shawl. The corridor was dim with the big, star-
studded, yellow lantern-light. Away down she could see the lamp-
light in her doorway; she had left her door ajar.
But she saw nothing. Only she wrapped herself close in the black
shawl, and listened to the sound from the room. It called. Oh, it
called her! Why could she not go? Why could she not cross through
the closed door.
Then the noise ceased. And then the light went out, under the door
of his room. Must she go back? Must she go back? Oh, impossible.
As impossible as that the moon should go back on her tracks, once
she has risen. Daphne sat on, wrapped in her black shawl. If it
must be so, she would sit on through eternity. Return she never
could.
And then began the most terrible song of all. It began with a
rather dreary, slow, horrible sound, like death. And then suddenly
came a real call--fluty, and a kind of whistling and a strange
whirr at the changes, most imperative, and utterly inhuman. Daphne
rose to her feet. And at the same moment up rose the whistling
throb of a summons out of the death moan.
Daphne tapped low and rapidly at the door. 'Count! Count!' she
whispered. The sound inside ceased. The door suddenly opened.
The pale, obscure figure of Dionys.
'Lady Daphne!' he said in astonishment, automatically standing
aside.
'You called,' she murmured rapidly, and she passed intent into his
room.
'No, I did not call,' he said gently, his hand on the door still.
'Shut the door,' she said abruptly.
He did as he was bid. The room was in complete darkness. There
was no moon outside. She could not see him.
'Where can I sit down?' she said abruptly.
'I will take you to the couch,' he said, putting out his hand and
touching her in the dark. She shuddered.
She found the couch and sat down. It was quite dark.
'What are you singing?' she said rapidly.
'I am so sorry. I did not think anyone could hear.'
'What was it you were singing?'
'A song of my country.'
'Had it any words?'
'Yes, it is a woman who was a swan, and who loved a hunter by the
marsh. So she became a woman and married him and had three
children. Then in the night one night the king of the swans called
to her to come back, or else he would die. So slowly she turned
into a swan again, and slowly she opened her wide, wide wings, and
left her husband and her children.'
There was silence in the dark room. The Count had been really
startled, startled out of his mood of the song into the day-mood of
human convention. He was distressed and embarrassed by Daphne's
presence in his dark room. She, however, sat on and did not make a
sound. He, too, sat down in a chair by the window. It was
everywhere dark. A wind was blowing in gusts outside. He could
see nothing inside his room: only the faint, faint strip of light
under the door. But he could feel her presence in the darkness.
It was uncanny, to feel her near in the dark, and not to see any
sign of her, nor to hear any sound.
She had been wounded in her bewitched state by the contact with the
every-day human being in him. But now she began to relapse into
her spell, as she sat there in the dark. And he, too, in the
silence, felt the world sinking away from him once more, leaving
him once more alone on a darkened earth, with nothing between him
and the infinite dark space. Except now her presence. Darkness
answering to darkness, and deep answering to deep. An answer, near
to him, and invisible.
But he did not know what to do. He sat still and silent as she was
still and silent. The darkness inside the room seemed alive like
blood. He had no power to move. The distance between them seemed
absolute.
Then suddenly, without knowing, he went across in the dark, feeling
for the end of the couch. And he sat beside her on the couch. But
he did not touch her. Neither did she move. The darkness flowed
about them thick like blood, and time seemed dissolved in it. They
sat with the small, invisible distance between them, motionless,
speechless, thoughtless.
Then suddenly he felt her finger-tips touch his arm, and a flame
went over him that left him no more a man. He was something seated
in flame, in flame unconscious, seated erect, like an Egyptian
King-god in the statues. Her finger-tips slid down him, and she
herself slid down in a strange, silent rush, and he felt her face
against his closed feet and ankles, her hands pressing his ankles.
He felt her brow and hair against his ankles, her face against his
feet, and there she clung in the dark, as if in space below him.
He still sat erect and motionless. Then he bent forward and put
his hand on her hair.
'Do you come to me?' he murmured. 'Do you come to me?'
The flame that enveloped him seemed to sway him silently.
'Do you really come to me?' he repeated. 'But we have nowhere to
go.'
He felt his bare feet wet with her tears. Two things were
struggling in him, the sense of eternal solitude, like space, and
the rush of dark flame that would throw him out of his solitude
towards her.
He was thinking too. He was thinking of the future. He had no
future in the world: of that he was conscious. He had no future in
this life. Even if he lived on, it would only be a kind of
enduring. But he felt that in the after-life the inheritance was
his. He felt the after-life belonged to him.
Future in the world he could not give her. Life in the world he
had not to offer her. Better go on alone. Surely better go on
alone.
But then the tears on his feet: and her face that would face him as
he left her! No, no. The next life was his. He was master of the
after-life. Why fear for this life? Why not take the soul she
offered him? Now and for ever, for the life that would come when
they both were dead. Take her into the underworld. Take her into
the dark Hades with him, like Francesca and Paolo. And in hell
underworld. Master of the life to come. Father of the soul that
would come after.
'Listen,' he said to her softly. 'Now you are mine. In the dark
you are mine. And when you die you are mine. But in the day you
are not mine, because I have no power in the day. In the night, in
the dark, and in death, you
are mine. And that is for ever. No
matter if I must leave you. I shall come again from time to time.
In the dark you are mine. But in the day I cannot claim you. I
have no power in the day, and no place. So remember. When the
darkness comes, I shall always be in the darkness of you. And as
long as I live, from time to time I shall come to find you, when I
am able to, when I am not a prisoner. But I shall have to go away
soon. So don't forget--you are the night wife of the ladybird,
while you live and even when you die.'
Later, when he took her back to her room, he saw the door still
ajar.
'You shouldn't leave a light in your room,' he murmured.
In the morning there was a curious remote look about him. He was
quieter than ever, and seemed very far away. Daphne slept late.
She had a strange feeling as if she had slipped off all her cares.
She did not care, she did not grieve, she did not fret any more.
All that had left her. She felt she could sleep, sleep, sleep--for
ever. Her face, too, was very still, with a delicate look of
virginity that she had never had before. She had always been
Aphrodite, the self-conscious one. And her eyes, the green-blue,
had been like slow, living jewels, resistant. Now they had
unfolded from the hard flower-bud, and had the wonder, and the
stillness of a quiet night.
Basil noticed it at once.
'You're different, Daphne,' he said. 'What are you thinking
about?'
'I wasn't thinking,' she said, looking at him with candour.
'What were you doing then?'
'What does one do when one doesn't think? Don't make me puzzle it
out, Basil.'
'Not a bit of it, if you don't want to.'
But he was puzzled by her. The sting of his ecstatic love for her
seemed to have left him. Yet he did not know what else to do but
to make love to her. She went very pale. She submitted to him,
bowing her head because she was his wife. But she looked at him
with fear, with sorrow, with real suffering. He could feel the
heaving of her breast, and knew she was weeping. But there were no
tears on her face, she was only death pale. Her eyes were shut.
'Are you in pain?' he asked her.
'No! no!' She opened her eyes, afraid lest she had disturbed him.
She did not want to disturb him.
He was puzzled. His own ecstatic, deadly love for her had received
a check. He was out of the reckoning.
He watched her when she was with the Count. Then she seemed so
meek--so maidenly--so different from what he had known of her. She
was so still, like a virgin girl. And it was this quiet, intact
quality of Virginity in her which puzzled him most, puzzled his
emotions and his ideas. He became suddenly ashamed to make love to
her. And because he was ashamed, he said to her as he stood in her
room that night:
'Daphne, are you in love with the Count?'
He was standing by the dressing-table, uneasy. She was seated in a
low chair by the tiny dying wood fire. She looked up at him with
wide, slow eyes. Without a word, with wide, soft, dilated eyes she
watched him. What was it that made him feel all confused? He
turned his face aside, away from her wide, soft eyes.
'Pardon me, dear. I didn't intend to ask such a question. Don't
take any notice of it,' he said. And he strode away and picked up
a book. She lowered her head and gazed abstractedly into the fire,
without a sound. Then he looked at her again, at her bright hair
that the maid had plaited for the night. Her plait hung down over
her soft pinkish wrap. His heart softened to her as he saw her
sitting there. She seemed like his sister. The excitement of
desire had left him, and now he seemed to see clear and feel true
for the first time in his life. She was like a dear, dear sister
to him. He felt that she was his blood-sister, nearer to him than
he had imagined any woman could be. So near--so dear--and all the