said Paula. “Can you remember anything in Homer?”
The twins, taught Greek and Latin from an early age by their mother, were already fairly proficient classicists. However, they could not remember anything in Homer.
“We could try Liddell and Scott,” said Henrietta.
“Willy will know,” said Edward.
“May we have that seaweed in our bath tonight?” said Henrietta.
“You’d better ask Mary,” said Paula.
“There’s a letter for you downstairs,” said Edward. “May I have the stamp?”
“You pig!” cried his sister. The twins, cooperative in most matters, were competitive about stamps.
Paula laughed. She was just preparing to leave the house. “What kind of stamp is it?”
“Australian.”
A cold dark shadow fell across Paula. She went on mechanically smiling and answering her children’s chatter as she left her room and moved down the stairs. Of course it might always be from someone else. But she didn’t know anyone else in Australia.
The letters were always laid out on the big round rosewood table which stood in the centre of the hall, and which was also usually covered with newspapers and whatever books members of the household were reading and with the paraphernalia of the twins’ games. Edward ran ahead and retrieved his copy of More Hunting Wasps which he had laid down on top of the letter so that Henriettashould not observe the stamp. Paula saw from a distance Eric’s unmistakable writing upon the envelope.
“May I have it, Mummy, please?”
“May I have the next one,” cried Henrietta, “ and the next one, and the next one?”
Paula’s hand trembled. She tore the envelope open quickly, clawed the letter out and put it in her pocket, and gave the envelope to her son. She went out into the sunshine.
The big sphere, cracked and incomplete at the near end, composed of the sky and the sea, enclosed Paula like a cold vault and she shivered in the sunlight as if it were the ray of a malignant star. She bowed her head, making a movement as if she were casting a veil about it, and bolted across the lawn and into the meadow and along the path beside the hawthorn hedge which led down towards the sea. Now she saw in the same sunny darkness her sandalled feet slithering upon the purplish stones of the beach as she fled forward, as if she were falling, to get to the edge of the water. Here the beach shelved steeply and she sat down, with a rattling flurry of pebbles, upon a crest of stones with the sea just below her. It was so calm today that it seemed motionless, touching the shore with an inaudible lapping kiss and the occasional curl of a Lilliputian wavelet. The sun shone into the green water revealing the stone-scattered sand which was briefly uncovered at low tide, and farther out a mottled line of mauve seaweed. The water surface shadowed and dappled the sand with faint bubbly forms like imperfections in glass.
That she had once been in love with Eric Sears Paula knew from the evidence of letters which she had found. She did not know it from memory. At least, she could remember events and pieces of her own conduct which were only explicable on the assumption that she had been in love with Eric. But the love itself she could not really remember. It seemed to have been not only killed but removed even from the lighted caravan of her accepted and remembered life by the shock of that awful scene.
Eric Sears had been the occasion of Paula’s divorce. With the precipitate cruelty of a very jealous man, Richard, whose many infidelities she had tolerated, divorced her for a single lapse. The occasion of it all, her insane passion for Eric, had been erased from her mind, but otherwise she hadgot over nothing. That terrible time, its misery and its shame, lived within her unassimilated and unresolved. She had acted crazily, she had acted badly, and she had got away with nothing. Paula’s pride, her dignity, her lofty conception of herself, had suffered a savage wound and that wound still
The twins, taught Greek and Latin from an early age by their mother, were already fairly proficient classicists. However, they could not remember anything in Homer.
“We could try Liddell and Scott,” said Henrietta.
“Willy will know,” said Edward.
“May we have that seaweed in our bath tonight?” said Henrietta.
“You’d better ask Mary,” said Paula.
“There’s a letter for you downstairs,” said Edward. “May I have the stamp?”
“You pig!” cried his sister. The twins, cooperative in most matters, were competitive about stamps.
Paula laughed. She was just preparing to leave the house. “What kind of stamp is it?”
“Australian.”
A cold dark shadow fell across Paula. She went on mechanically smiling and answering her children’s chatter as she left her room and moved down the stairs. Of course it might always be from someone else. But she didn’t know anyone else in Australia.
The letters were always laid out on the big round rosewood table which stood in the centre of the hall, and which was also usually covered with newspapers and whatever books members of the household were reading and with the paraphernalia of the twins’ games. Edward ran ahead and retrieved his copy of More Hunting Wasps which he had laid down on top of the letter so that Henriettashould not observe the stamp. Paula saw from a distance Eric’s unmistakable writing upon the envelope.
“May I have it, Mummy, please?”
“May I have the next one,” cried Henrietta, “ and the next one, and the next one?”
Paula’s hand trembled. She tore the envelope open quickly, clawed the letter out and put it in her pocket, and gave the envelope to her son. She went out into the sunshine.
The big sphere, cracked and incomplete at the near end, composed of the sky and the sea, enclosed Paula like a cold vault and she shivered in the sunlight as if it were the ray of a malignant star. She bowed her head, making a movement as if she were casting a veil about it, and bolted across the lawn and into the meadow and along the path beside the hawthorn hedge which led down towards the sea. Now she saw in the same sunny darkness her sandalled feet slithering upon the purplish stones of the beach as she fled forward, as if she were falling, to get to the edge of the water. Here the beach shelved steeply and she sat down, with a rattling flurry of pebbles, upon a crest of stones with the sea just below her. It was so calm today that it seemed motionless, touching the shore with an inaudible lapping kiss and the occasional curl of a Lilliputian wavelet. The sun shone into the green water revealing the stone-scattered sand which was briefly uncovered at low tide, and farther out a mottled line of mauve seaweed. The water surface shadowed and dappled the sand with faint bubbly forms like imperfections in glass.
That she had once been in love with Eric Sears Paula knew from the evidence of letters which she had found. She did not know it from memory. At least, she could remember events and pieces of her own conduct which were only explicable on the assumption that she had been in love with Eric. But the love itself she could not really remember. It seemed to have been not only killed but removed even from the lighted caravan of her accepted and remembered life by the shock of that awful scene.
Eric Sears had been the occasion of Paula’s divorce. With the precipitate cruelty of a very jealous man, Richard, whose many infidelities she had tolerated, divorced her for a single lapse. The occasion of it all, her insane passion for Eric, had been erased from her mind, but otherwise she hadgot over nothing. That terrible time, its misery and its shame, lived within her unassimilated and unresolved. She had acted crazily, she had acted badly, and she had got away with nothing. Paula’s pride, her dignity, her lofty conception of herself, had suffered a savage wound and that wound still
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