…’
‘Excellent idea. My beloved is so practical. My beloved could not bear, herself, to ask Eugénie …?’
Could one? A little private interview with the face that had once held charm? No; horrible superimposition of that other, that so resembling , face …
Seeing the shiver which ran through Antonia’s arm, Hetty reached her hand out to calm it. ‘I’m brutal even to have suggested it. Of course my darling shan’t.’ The tremulous arm accepted the touch; shuddered into stillness.
Hetty’s competence did, one admitted, have a certain power to calm. It always had had.
‘We have our memories’, said the beautiful, the Dian-pale face.
So she did remember.
Hetty’s touch firmed.
‘But I mustn’t detain you, my dear’, said Antonia, sighing with self-abnegation.
*
‘She’s so dim’, pronounced Eugénie Plash, ‘she wouldn’t get it even if we told her about Antonia and Braid. ’
*
‘One is’, Antonia repeated, this time aloud (she had just shewn Hetty the letter with the embossed Arms), ‘misunderstood.’
‘Ah, my dearest’, Hetty responded, voice more than usually profondo, face more than usually tombstone oblong, in compassion. ‘Sometimes, my loveliest, I fear …’
‘What, Hetty, now …?’
‘That that is your doom, my love—to be misunderstood.’
‘How many premonitions you have thesedays … Well’, said Antonia, resignant, brave, ‘if it is one’s doom …’
‘What nonsense I’m talking.’ Hetty obliged her voice back into its normal, its jovial baritone . ‘Silly Hetty, frightening her love.’
‘And yet’, Antonia bravely pursued, ‘one must, in effect, face some small ironies.’
‘My love?’
‘The child—the royal child, I mean—could not well have learnt less about French Literature if it had been my intention to keep if from her.’
‘O my dear—and you have laboured so nobly. My dear, I do occasionally wonder—it has just crossed my mind—— My love, do you not perhaps think that for a beginner, for such an absolutely unsophisticated intellect, Alber tine Disparue is just a little hard?’
‘Hard …?’ (Surely the hardness was to imagine a state of mind where it could be hard?)
‘Just a little complex? A little subtle?’
‘And yet’, Antonia mused, ‘it seemed to me, on re-reading it, almost too grossly blatant …’
‘It is so difficult for my love to come down from her heights.’
‘Am I then to be forced’, asked Antonia, all but failing, ‘to use a bludgeon?’
‘O my angel, not forced! ’ (pierced, the deep voice …)
‘Forced’, Antonia affirmed, all but à bout de ( her ) forces.
‘O my angel!’
‘If I must’, Antonia breathed, ‘I must. Be so good, Hetty, as——’
‘My angel?’
‘—to put out four copies—’
‘Four copies, my angel?’
‘—of’ (let not the ultimate shudder overwhelm , quite, the words) ‘Claudine a l’École.’
*
And yet, before the sun had climbed, quite, to its ultimate, torridest zenith (exaggerating by contrast the cool pénombre in the depth of Antonia’s study) Antonia was reconciled to Claudine … It had made Regina Outre-Mer laugh.
*
And yet again, deep in the chill of the never quite completely obscure Mediterranean night,
‘Is my beloved still sitting up?’
‘I cannot sleep’, Antonia simply said.
For there had been—although the chrysanthemum -petal hair had shaken under the impetus of an only half-suffocatable giggle, and although that tender, white, kiss-tempting, kiss-inviting spot above the bosom had quivered, like a delicate yet fleshy leaf ridding itself of a last raindrop—there had been, there had still been, no opportunity … For royalty, as uncomprehending of the comic as of everything else, had again sat, graven, staring straight ahead …
‘My beloved is brooding—are you not?—on her special Literature class? Tell Hetty.’
‘It fatigues, it troubles, I confess …’
‘ There. Hetty knew, Hetty knew. Ah my
‘Excellent idea. My beloved is so practical. My beloved could not bear, herself, to ask Eugénie …?’
Could one? A little private interview with the face that had once held charm? No; horrible superimposition of that other, that so resembling , face …
Seeing the shiver which ran through Antonia’s arm, Hetty reached her hand out to calm it. ‘I’m brutal even to have suggested it. Of course my darling shan’t.’ The tremulous arm accepted the touch; shuddered into stillness.
Hetty’s competence did, one admitted, have a certain power to calm. It always had had.
‘We have our memories’, said the beautiful, the Dian-pale face.
So she did remember.
Hetty’s touch firmed.
‘But I mustn’t detain you, my dear’, said Antonia, sighing with self-abnegation.
*
‘She’s so dim’, pronounced Eugénie Plash, ‘she wouldn’t get it even if we told her about Antonia and Braid. ’
*
‘One is’, Antonia repeated, this time aloud (she had just shewn Hetty the letter with the embossed Arms), ‘misunderstood.’
‘Ah, my dearest’, Hetty responded, voice more than usually profondo, face more than usually tombstone oblong, in compassion. ‘Sometimes, my loveliest, I fear …’
‘What, Hetty, now …?’
‘That that is your doom, my love—to be misunderstood.’
‘How many premonitions you have thesedays … Well’, said Antonia, resignant, brave, ‘if it is one’s doom …’
‘What nonsense I’m talking.’ Hetty obliged her voice back into its normal, its jovial baritone . ‘Silly Hetty, frightening her love.’
‘And yet’, Antonia bravely pursued, ‘one must, in effect, face some small ironies.’
‘My love?’
‘The child—the royal child, I mean—could not well have learnt less about French Literature if it had been my intention to keep if from her.’
‘O my dear—and you have laboured so nobly. My dear, I do occasionally wonder—it has just crossed my mind—— My love, do you not perhaps think that for a beginner, for such an absolutely unsophisticated intellect, Alber tine Disparue is just a little hard?’
‘Hard …?’ (Surely the hardness was to imagine a state of mind where it could be hard?)
‘Just a little complex? A little subtle?’
‘And yet’, Antonia mused, ‘it seemed to me, on re-reading it, almost too grossly blatant …’
‘It is so difficult for my love to come down from her heights.’
‘Am I then to be forced’, asked Antonia, all but failing, ‘to use a bludgeon?’
‘O my angel, not forced! ’ (pierced, the deep voice …)
‘Forced’, Antonia affirmed, all but à bout de ( her ) forces.
‘O my angel!’
‘If I must’, Antonia breathed, ‘I must. Be so good, Hetty, as——’
‘My angel?’
‘—to put out four copies—’
‘Four copies, my angel?’
‘—of’ (let not the ultimate shudder overwhelm , quite, the words) ‘Claudine a l’École.’
*
And yet, before the sun had climbed, quite, to its ultimate, torridest zenith (exaggerating by contrast the cool pénombre in the depth of Antonia’s study) Antonia was reconciled to Claudine … It had made Regina Outre-Mer laugh.
*
And yet again, deep in the chill of the never quite completely obscure Mediterranean night,
‘Is my beloved still sitting up?’
‘I cannot sleep’, Antonia simply said.
For there had been—although the chrysanthemum -petal hair had shaken under the impetus of an only half-suffocatable giggle, and although that tender, white, kiss-tempting, kiss-inviting spot above the bosom had quivered, like a delicate yet fleshy leaf ridding itself of a last raindrop—there had been, there had still been, no opportunity … For royalty, as uncomprehending of the comic as of everything else, had again sat, graven, staring straight ahead …
‘My beloved is brooding—are you not?—on her special Literature class? Tell Hetty.’
‘It fatigues, it troubles, I confess …’
‘ There. Hetty knew, Hetty knew. Ah my
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