planes of meditation, replacing those of motion, made her face seem strange. “Some day, perhaps, we shall look back to this and want it. To be living in the moment, with a light lover who couldn’t hurt us: to be free.”
“Don’t,” said Vivian. “I felt then as if something were walking on my grave.” She pulled the eiderdown, with a shiver, up to her chin.
“Don’t you want a lover?” asked Colonna with dispassionate curiosity.
“No.” Vivian’s mouth shut straight. “I’m not ready to cope with it. I haven’t learned yet to run myself alone.”
“Who has?”
Jan has, thought Vivian. But she said, “I don’t know yet what I am. I must be something before I can be part of anything else. Love only uses part of you, and it changes that part and makes it seem much more than the whole. If you haven’t seen yourself first and where you’re going—even if it were only for one clear moment—you might get lost. Utterly lost; lost forever, perhaps.” Her eyes, fixed on the window, seemed to reflect the dark outside it. “No. Show me a lover in ten years’ time.”
“You’re posing,” remarked Colonna with the interested appreciation of the fellow-craftsman.
Vivian considered this for what it was worth. “If I am,” she concluded equably, “it’s probably half true. Most poses are. They show your aims though not necessarily your achievements.”
“Utterly lost,” said Colonna meditatively; and laughed. “A damp, blasted, female way to be in love.” She stretched herself, five feet ten of handsome arrogance. “I’m always going to be like the Kitchen Cat in Kipling. ‘She is my Cookie, but I am not her cat.’”
Vivian wanted suddenly, protectively, to silence her.
-6-
T HERE WAS A NEW charge-nurse on Verdun, a small, oliveskinned, wiry girl with dark hair, blue-brown eyelids, and a brittle, mask-like animation like that of some Frenchwoman. When she was left in charge, though the work got done faster than usual, she was curiously little in evidence, so little that Vivian had hardly noticed her by the evening of the first day, till someone said to her in the sitting-room. “You’re lucky to have Valentine. We had her on Ramillies till today; now we’ve got that fat bitch Chandler instead.”
“She seems all right so far,” said Vivian vaguely.
“She is, take it from me.”
“A friend of yours.”
“Good heavens, I don’t mingle with charge-nurses.” (Vivian was always forgetting, sometimes disastrously, that the hierarchies of the wards held good with equal potency off duty.)
“Matter of fact I don’t think she has many friends. One of these reserved people, I dare say. She plays the piano in the old lecture-room sometimes, but only highbrow sort of stuff.”
Vivian soon forgot about her, because that night Colonna came to her room and announced that she was going to leave. It was the twenty-ninth of the month, so that meant giving notice in two days’ time.
“I came for an experience,” she explained, “and I’ve exhausted it. My people won’t mind; they can’t make out my staying this long.”
“You’re honest. I wish I were.” For she knew already that she did not want Colonna to go. She would miss in the greyness her ringing peacock colour; miss, too, the illusion of strength and stability given by the background of her hot indiscipline. They had been, though they had not thought much about it, almost perfect foils for one another.
Considering it all, she asked, “Is the experience really all you get? Doesn’t the work give you any—any—” she gave up the search for some other word that would sound less intolerably priggish, and plunged—“any spiritual satisfaction at all?”
“No. Most of the time one just seems to be fighting evolution, pushing back all the junk it’s trying to get out of the way. Does it you?”
“Sometimes, I think. Or I wouldn’t still be here, I suppose. What else can you do?”
“I was in repertory for a
“Don’t,” said Vivian. “I felt then as if something were walking on my grave.” She pulled the eiderdown, with a shiver, up to her chin.
“Don’t you want a lover?” asked Colonna with dispassionate curiosity.
“No.” Vivian’s mouth shut straight. “I’m not ready to cope with it. I haven’t learned yet to run myself alone.”
“Who has?”
Jan has, thought Vivian. But she said, “I don’t know yet what I am. I must be something before I can be part of anything else. Love only uses part of you, and it changes that part and makes it seem much more than the whole. If you haven’t seen yourself first and where you’re going—even if it were only for one clear moment—you might get lost. Utterly lost; lost forever, perhaps.” Her eyes, fixed on the window, seemed to reflect the dark outside it. “No. Show me a lover in ten years’ time.”
“You’re posing,” remarked Colonna with the interested appreciation of the fellow-craftsman.
Vivian considered this for what it was worth. “If I am,” she concluded equably, “it’s probably half true. Most poses are. They show your aims though not necessarily your achievements.”
“Utterly lost,” said Colonna meditatively; and laughed. “A damp, blasted, female way to be in love.” She stretched herself, five feet ten of handsome arrogance. “I’m always going to be like the Kitchen Cat in Kipling. ‘She is my Cookie, but I am not her cat.’”
Vivian wanted suddenly, protectively, to silence her.
-6-
T HERE WAS A NEW charge-nurse on Verdun, a small, oliveskinned, wiry girl with dark hair, blue-brown eyelids, and a brittle, mask-like animation like that of some Frenchwoman. When she was left in charge, though the work got done faster than usual, she was curiously little in evidence, so little that Vivian had hardly noticed her by the evening of the first day, till someone said to her in the sitting-room. “You’re lucky to have Valentine. We had her on Ramillies till today; now we’ve got that fat bitch Chandler instead.”
“She seems all right so far,” said Vivian vaguely.
“She is, take it from me.”
“A friend of yours.”
“Good heavens, I don’t mingle with charge-nurses.” (Vivian was always forgetting, sometimes disastrously, that the hierarchies of the wards held good with equal potency off duty.)
“Matter of fact I don’t think she has many friends. One of these reserved people, I dare say. She plays the piano in the old lecture-room sometimes, but only highbrow sort of stuff.”
Vivian soon forgot about her, because that night Colonna came to her room and announced that she was going to leave. It was the twenty-ninth of the month, so that meant giving notice in two days’ time.
“I came for an experience,” she explained, “and I’ve exhausted it. My people won’t mind; they can’t make out my staying this long.”
“You’re honest. I wish I were.” For she knew already that she did not want Colonna to go. She would miss in the greyness her ringing peacock colour; miss, too, the illusion of strength and stability given by the background of her hot indiscipline. They had been, though they had not thought much about it, almost perfect foils for one another.
Considering it all, she asked, “Is the experience really all you get? Doesn’t the work give you any—any—” she gave up the search for some other word that would sound less intolerably priggish, and plunged—“any spiritual satisfaction at all?”
“No. Most of the time one just seems to be fighting evolution, pushing back all the junk it’s trying to get out of the way. Does it you?”
“Sometimes, I think. Or I wouldn’t still be here, I suppose. What else can you do?”
“I was in repertory for a
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