inconvenience to myself. Then I released her, and began breathing as if I had just climbed up a very steep hill.
‘Go on, darling.’
‘What lovely hair you have!’
‘Wants washing,’ she answered.
I stretched out my legs, my hands in my trouser pockets, and stared at the moon—and suddenly shot out: ‘Art thou not Lucifer?’ (causing Sylvia a little shock):
… He to whom the droves
Of stars that gild the morn in charge were given?
The noblest of the lightning-wingèd loves
,
The fairest and the first-born smile of Heaven?
Look in what pomp the mistress planet moves
,
Rev’rently circled by the lesser seven;
Such, and so rich, the flames that from thine eyes
Oppress’d the common people of the skies
.
She stretched herself to my mouth the moment I finished, having, as it were, watched all this time till it was vacant. I kissed her, with considerable passion. ‘What are all your names?’ I asked.
‘Sylvia Ninon Thérèse Anastathia Vanderflint.’
‘Ninon,’ I said, and then repeated lingeringly, sipping the flavour:
‘Sylvia Ninon. Sylvia Ninon. Sylvia,’ I said, and took her hand. ‘Be not afear’d; the isle is full of noises, sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears; and sometimes voices
,
That, if I then had waked after long sleep
,
Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming
,
The clouds, methought, would open and show riches
Ready to drop on me: that when I wak’d
I cried to dream again
.
‘Who wrote this?’
‘Shakespeare.’
‘It’s—very lovely.’
I trotted out such quotations as I could remember—my Sunday best, so to speak. And, presently, grasping her passionately by the hand—‘Adorable dreamer,’ I whispered, ‘whose heart has been so romantic! who has given thyself so prodigally, given thyself to sides and to heroes not mine, only never to the Philistines! home of lost causes and forsaken beliefs and unpopular names and impossible loyalties!’
‘Who wrote it?’
I wanted to say that I wrote it; but I told the truth. ‘Matthew Arnold wrote it. It’s about Oxford.’
‘Oh!’ She was a little disappointed. ‘And I thought it was about a woman—who’—she blushed—‘who gave herself to some hero.’
‘No, darling, no.’
After that I recited the passage about Mona Lisa who, like thevampire, has been dead many times, and learned the secrets of the grave; and has been a diver in deep seas, and keeps their fallen day about her; and trafficked for strange webs with Eastern merchants; and, as Leda, was the mother of Helen of Troy, and, as Saint Anne, the mother of Mary; and to whom all this has been but as the sound of lyres and flutes, that lives only in the delicacy with which it has moulded the changing lineaments, and tinged the eyelids and the hands.
‘Oh, darling, let us talk of something else.’
‘But I thought you liked—literature?’
‘Well, darling, I
listened
—for your sake. But you are so long, you’ve never finished.’
‘But good heavens!’ I exclaimed. ‘I’ve been trotting it out for
your
sake! I thought you liked books.’
‘This is too high-brow for me, darling.’
‘High-brow! What do you like, then?’
‘Oh, I like something more—fruity.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Anything with a lot of killing in it.’
‘Of course, my case is different, I admit. When I cease earning my living by the sword I shall commence earning it by the pen.’
‘One day you will be a great author, and I shall read your story in the
Daily Mail
,’ she said.
‘The
Daily Mail
! Why on earth the
Daily Mail
?’
‘They have serials there. Don’t you read them? I always do.’
‘Oh, well—yes, there are—I know there are.’
‘I also write,’ she said.
‘You?’
‘I do! Letters to the Press.’ She went out and returning brought a newspaper. ‘I wrote this.’
Under a rubric headed ‘Questions and Answers’, I
Lyn Brittan
Imari Jade
V. Vaughn
Ben Trebilcook
Christine D'Abo
Frankie Love
James Hunt
Brigid Kemmerer
Spencer Quinn
Scarlet Hyacinth