277.

and Harald then (William remembered he had written) "looked
a good knight." Until you have unarmed your enemy and re-
armed him, you can not go on. Until you see that he looks
a good knight, you can not go on.

But that was afterwards.

Need we wait till afterwards?

Better not ask questions like that. "I must find the
right question, Godfrey," said William, "if I want the right
answer."

Godfrey had not seemed altogether sympathetic to the
Cross and Crescent idea, so that if there had been involuntary
muscular reaction on his part, it would be reasonable to suppose
that the table would have said no, to William's first question.
But perhaps Godfrey was sympathetic; "let's ask the question
again," said William Morris. Godfrey laid his hands back
on the table. "Were Cross and Crescent reconciled?" asked
William. The table spelt, t-e-m-p.

"Is that a whole word?" asked Godfrey.

"The table spelt l-u-m.

It stopped.

"Is there more?" asked Godfrey.

The table spelt, i-n.

The table spelt, t-e-m-p.

278.

"You'd better write it down," said Godfrey.

"T-e-m-p, l-u-m, i-n, t-e-m-p. It's telegraph all right,"
said William. "What do you make of it?"

"I should say it's something about light coming in time,"
said Godfrey, "lumen light anyway and temp for tempus. It
wants us to think about it. It's good to have you here. This
is a new departure."

"It's Templars," said William.

William Morris remembered Rossetti speaking of roses on
his 'scutcheon - Della Guardia, he had thought, what affecta-
tion.

"I expect it's a family motto of Carew's."

"Carew's motto was old French," said Godfrey.

"Well, I'll wager it's about the Templars, the Knights
of Malta, both (according to that annotated old text) were
inheritors of the Round Table. Or all of them were inheritors
of - of - Better ask the fellow."

William felt, in spite of himself, a curious reticence.
He tried to be bluff and hearty, "if it is a fellow."

"Are you asking mental questions?"

"How can I help asking?"

"Well, it's spelling something, but I can't follow as I
don't know your question, o-m-n - now, u-n. But it's stopped.

279.

O-m-n-u-m, it might be omnium. I think it's a mistake. Will you spell this again?" said Godfrey.

The table spelt o-m-n, paused and then spelt u-n. William wrote down the letters. "It's another telegraph, omn. un. for omnes unum. But why not ask?" said William.

"Is that right?" asked Godfrey. The table said, yes.

"It's almost too much," said William. He got out of his chair, presumably, to tap out his ashes on the fender.

William said, "I notice you said, it wants us to think about it. Hadn't we better think about it? And when you said 'it', I wondered. You said Vivien came, then Carew - don't they - ah - come any longer?"

"They're part of it. I don't understand it, myself. But after the first exultation, I'm afraid I overdid things. I lived with them. I was with them. I went over and over our life, our lives. Then, it seemed to me that if they had found each other - how shall I put it? It's what I mean by the candle burning by the open window - perhaps they singe their wings. This doesn't quite express it, but you see what I mean. After the proof, the fulfilment, surely they want to rest or go on? And I went on and on with them, asking ... your of course, it wasn't xwy/fault, how could it be? she answered. I was getting myself entangled."

280.

William knew that Godfrey had found _The Hollow Land_.

Godfrey said, "then, I understood Rolando. He had asked me not to go back to the table, not alone - and not the two of us together. He had said that the table was cool, it was comforting - our table, that is, as if he had been seared in the flame of some earlier experience. Later, I understood what he meant, He had wanted to spare me. He had over insisted that two people could not work together, therefore, by implication, how could one go on alone? It is the one alone who meets the flame. I know now that Rolando knew this, he wanted to spare me. He had said it was cool, it was comforting, England it was, the three of us together. He would have saved me. But as you said, it is impossible to rescue a moth."

"So your Rolando knew all about it. He knew that Valerie on could and would go/alone, unless he stopped her. He knew that it would destroy her or drive her mad."

"I confess that I was worried about you, alone and palely loitering."

"I was not exactly worried about myself. I was determined to get out to the East - "

"And never come back? When did you stop working alone?"

"I stopped after Faulkner's table, spelt Vernon. Vernon knew nothing of Valerie nor of Vivien.

I went back over our old meetings in the tower-room and again

281.

remembered Rolando saying, 'it was cool, it was comforting, it was England.' I asked a second time, a third time about you. You speak of your memories, your talks with Rossetti as being opiate or attar - "

"I had only one talk with Rossetti. I went in with Ted several times but that was different."

"I knew that I had tasted of Eternity or of Lethe. It might be Lethe. Not deadly night-shade -

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk -

but I would get out of England and I would work for England."

"You can work better for England by staying in England."

"You're a stout fellow, reliable, dependable and almost as mad as I am. This is the first time I've touched the table, since that night at Faulkner's when, after asking the mental question about you, I got Vernon for an answer. Of course, I don't write Rolando of these things, but I see now how he renewed faith or kept faith, by introducing Vernon and myself to his table parlant. We English chaps might so easily have shouted him down - "

"Dash it, Godfrey, you and Vernon are no English chaps."

282.

William the Englishman was surprised at his own intensity.

"You've been talking about England, about my staying in England - what do you mean by saying that Vernon and I aren't English?"

"Dashed if I know."

"You must mean something."

Godfrey pushed aside the table and deliberately sat down in the chair that William had just left.

"You've finished with the table?"

"Well, you just said, hadn't we better think about it? I asked too many questions, at the end. One word or part of a word sets up a ripple like a pebble thrown into a pool. That is, if one has a stout, reliable fellow like yourself about, to put the brakes on. It's that old Icarus story - "

"Clipping the wings of inspiration? I would like to go on."

"To-morrow or any evening, you'll come in. This is to me, what we were to Roland - only, more so, I feel. I had no Latin."

"Do you call that Latin?"

"Sign-post Latin - I mean, I see it carved on old stones,"

"Tomb-stones?"

283.

"Mile-stones."

Godfrey sat down on the window-seat. "But before you go, you must answer my question, as my table or our table answered yours. What do you mean about Vernon and myself not being English?"

"Why does an Englishman take offence at being told he's not English?"

"I wasn't offended; I'm afraid I was rather flattered."

"Will it wait - the table?"

"It will wait forever."

"Perhaps I meant - well, I thought of you and Vernon, Roland, Vivien and Carew in some - damn it, you're out of Shakespeare, the house or the Tower is Belmont."

"Belmont?"

"The Merchant, you remember - and there it is. That's what I meant by saying we must go further back than Shakespeare. He mapped out all enchantment. I lose my clue - then, I say Belmont. It's the renaissance, we all know. Shakespeare re-orientated Italy, You're not English, that's the worst of it - you should be. Do you want to go home?"

"I don't want to tire you. I don't want you to get into the state that I did. There is time for it all, in time, in tempora, isn't that what they said? And we're all together OMNES UNUM - so why rail at Shakespeare?"

284.

"They said, as I remember, TEMP. LUM. IN. TEMP; it's
the lum, _lumen_ that's the important thing; you've left that
out."

"I said, there is time for it all; I meant the candles."

"And I refuse to discuss _The School of Night_ with you."

"_The School of Night?_"

"It's all there, all this, everything - The Templars,
Shakespeare, Raleigh."

VIII

285.

Elizabeth Siddall might never have been away. She had fortunately kept on her room at Weymouth Street. They had always been pleasant to her. There was only one change. The basket-chair that Gabriel disliked so, had been sent around. She had annoyed Mr. Ruskin by not going on to Switzerland, and he had made Gabriel promise that she was not to sit for him or work at Chatham Place, for the present. It was very cold there. Gabriel had new interests. There was a young Mr. Jones; Gabriel had written her of his week-ends in London. Mr. Jones was at Oxford. Gabriel had met him at the College and talked with him afterwards, at Vernon Lushington's rooms, he said. Mr. Lushington was at Cambridge. Mr. Jones and a friend whom Gabriel said they called Top, were at Oxford, but Ted and Top, or Mr. Jones and Mr. Morris, Gabriel hoped, were soon coming to live in London. In spite of being draughty and cold, Gabriel was seldom alone at Chatham Place. But he had wanted her to come back. It was his Valentine that brought her. "Come back, dear Liz ..."

She was only too glad to come back. Mrs. Kincaid was getting restless, as their plans for February were spoiled by a sudden change of weather. The gardens lining the stone steps that led down to Nice, were a mass of spongy green and yellow-green mimosa. The rose-cloud of almond-blossom was

286.

swept away in the leaden downpour. The paths through the olive orchards were rivulets of icy water. Her hands were too cold to manage pen or brush; at least, she could work here. There was so much that she wanted to do. She felt for the moment, that she would like to re-assemble herself, before sitting again for Gabriel. It is true that he sketched her here in the room, as he had always done, but she wanted to order her thoughts and emotions before being swept away again, in the hectic maelstrom of Chatham Place. Gabriel had suddenly regained his old enthusiasm and was finishing a number of neglected pictures. He said that he had founded a School of his own, with these younger painters - or writers. Elizabeth Siddall had met the two most important members of Gabriel's new School. Mr. Jones was conservative in appearance, polite but not polished. Mr. Morris was intentionally abrupt, but with exquisite sensibility.

Mr. Morris had asked her if she had seen their magazine. When she said she had not, he said he would send the first copy to her. There was a story of his, called *The Unknown Church*, and he enclosed what he called the proofs of another story, *The Hollow Land*. He sent her a poem, as well. He said he had written it for her and Gabriel. It was called *Two Red Roses*.

287.

She knew the poem almost by heart, but she reached over to her work-basket and unfolded the sheet of paper.

"There was a lady lived in a hall,
Large in the eyes and slim and tall;
And ever she sung from noon to noon,
Two red roses across the moon.

Mr. Morris said that he particularly wanted her to read his stories, as she would find his Margaret there. Mr. Jones had just announced his engagement to the sister of his oldest friend, and Mr. Morris said that they were both so happy that she and Gabriel were going to be married. She supposed that Mr. Morris was engaged too, as he said, "my Margaret is a lily, not a rose." They were having tea in the long-room, but Gabriel was back and forth, showing Mr. Jones his paintings. He was explaining to Mr. Jones how he had cut up his large canvas, *Pippa Passes*, though he had saved *Hist!* said Kate the Queen. There was only one other fragment of the picture. Gabriel said, "this was part of the *Kate* sequence. I'll have to call it something else. How about *Rossovestitia*?" Mr. Jones looked puzzled and said, "did you hear that, Top?" Mr. Morris said, "is this part of your 'scutcheon, Gabriel?" Gabriel said, "I said *rosso* not *rosa*, but *Hesterna Rosa* is a good name for this one. These are only sketches," he said, "but I'm

288.

really finishing up some work, now." Elizabeth Siddall said, "what is that about the 'scutcheon?'" Mr. Jones and Gabriel had gone back to the studio for some pictures. Mr. Morris said, "I was referring to Gabriel's coat - he told me last winter, one evening when I came here, that Rossetti (the name) was probably derived from roses, a rose or rosette, his family bearings." Elizabeth Siddall said, "he never told me." "But that is why," said Mr. Morris, "I just said that my Margaret is a lily, not a rose. I have a poem in mind, about Rossetti, roses. I mean, about you and Gabriel."

It seemed a very long time ago, that she had first talked to Gabriel about Sudal and de Hope.

There was a knight came riding by
In early spring, when the roads were dry;
And he heard that lady sing at noon,
Two red roses across the moon.

She read the stories and thought of her own Golden Chord,
which she had not finished. Mr. Morris said that his stories
were patterned on Hand and Soul; she remembered Chiaro and the
glass before the Lady; it held a lily and a rose. She had
made a sketch of it but it needed colour. Mr. Morris had asked
to see her drawings. He said, Gabriel had told him that she
was doing some illuminated lettering for Hand and Soul. He
hoped she would understand The Hollow Land. The last part was
the most important, he said, as Margaret comes in then, but it

289.

is after they are both dead. Margaret dies too, in *The Unknown Church* but there, she is his sister. Perhaps it was all symbolic and he had been unhappy in an attachment. It didn't seem a natural way to write about a girl he was engaged to.

She didn't think that Mr. Jones did any writing. They talked about Chartres and Beauvais. She told Mr. Morris, she had never been to Beauvais, but if she went back to France, she would rather spend all her time at Chartres. "A dream?" he asked her. She did not know what he meant. "Gabriel told me," he said, "that you were a queen there." "I don't remember," she said, "O - you mean the picture?" I called it a poem." What else had they said about her? He must have felt what she was thinking, for he said, "Gabriel had just had a letter from you. He read part of it to me. But I was very busy at Oxford and I did not see him again, until Ted brought me in last week. I am coming up every week-end now, until we move from Oxford." She had seen him only once, last Sunday. Gabriel had asked her to go in to tea, again to-morrow. She read:

> Yet none the more he stopp'd at all,
> But he rode a-gallop past the hall;
> And left that lady singing at noon,
> Two red roses across the moon.

Gabriel and Mr. Jones came back and Gabriel flung down a roll of sketches. "You should be more careful," said Mr. Jones.

290.

"Now what is this?" "You may well ask," said Gabriel, "it isn't finished. It is an early drawing for a Borgia group. This one is Guardami ben, ben son, ben son Beatrice." "Dash it, those words are beautiful," said Mr. Morris. "You're a weird chap, Gabriel. Is it French or Italian?" "It's Dante," said Gabriel, "this is the meeting of Dante and Beatrice in Paradise." So The Hollow Land was the meeting-place of two lovers, and the lover sees himself in Margaret, as Chiaro saw himself in the Lady or the Image, in Hand and Soul. Did Mr. Morris mean that Margaret was his own soul?

Because, forsooth, the battle was set,
And the scarlet and blue had got to be met,
He rode on the spur till the next warm noon: -
Two red roses across the moon.

She would tell Mr. Morris that she liked the snow scene,
in the first part of The Hollow Land.

She had missed the snow, this winter. Gabriel said the river had been blotted out, the worst storm they had had, since that February when she had seen Walter Deverell on Blackfriars Bridge, after he was dead. She wondered why Gabriel wrote to her about that; he had never spoken of it. Soon after, he told her that he had regained something - faith in his own work.

Vernon
Mr.
It began by meeting Mr. Jones at Lushington's. Lushington was
another enthusiastic fellow, and then Morris turned up. The
old crowd had evaporated, somehow. Though Brown was dependable

["291.", "enough, he had quarrelled again with Hunt; he couldn't see Millais (or Millais wouldn't see him) because of the so-called scandal about Ruskin. Ruskin was right when he said Woolner was negligible, and Collins was still flirting with Rome. Who was left, really? He had frozen off Freddie Stevens, for the moment, as he liked seeing the younger fellows alone.\n\n\"Top blew in out of the snow. He is an awkward, ungainly fellow, with a good forehead and the eyes of a sea-king.\n\nHis eyes are odd, they look at you, wide-open but with a sort of hooded gaze, like a vulture. You would probably not agree about the vulture and would see an Eagle displayed. Perhaps. But he has a straight x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x

292.

carrying a framed picture. He said, "do you remember this, Liz?" It was the unfinished *Blessed Damozel* that he had begun so many years ago, in Red Lion Square.

You scarce could see for the scarlet and blue,
A golden helm or a golden shoe;
So he cried, as the fight grew thick at the noon,
Two red roses across the moon.

She had almost forgotten the picture and now Gabriel said, "I'm glad you've got the promise of number 17, Ted, when the present tenants move out." "Number 17?" she asked. "Red Lion," said Gabriel, so he was remembering too. "The fellows have got our old place, or the promise of it." But it wasn't "our" place, it belonged to Walter Deverell. Walter Deverell had finished his first picture of her. He had begun it, it is true, before he saw her, but she liked to think of things begun, being finished. There was Mr. Hunt's *Silvia*, and he had done a second *Viola*. There was Mr. Millais' *Ophelia*. She had been happy about the *Ophelia* until he did the floating draperies. She didn't yet see why she had to be submerged with them. But she had so admired his work that she wanted to be helpful. It wasn't so much lying in the water as the thoughts (*Ophelia's* thoughts) that turned afterwards to a fever. They blamed John Everett Millais for the cough she had, that winter. But it was probably her own fault. She liked

293.

being with Mr.Millais, and his mother was kind and it was a
happy family. She remembered The Carpenter's Shop or
Christ in the House of his Parents, as it was now called. She
was glad to hear from Mary Howitt that Effie and John Everett
Millais were happy. Mary wrote, "we are sorry for Mr.Ruskin
but it is said, it was no true marriage." Elizabeth was now,
she thought, more married to Gabriel than Effie had ever been to
Mr.Ruskin. She had avoided discussions about her "coming
marriage," she wished William Rossetti and her family wouldn't
talk about it. Really, she was very happy now. "I am happy
as things are," she thought.

Verily then the gold bore through
The huddled spears of the scarlet and blue;
And they cried, as they cut them down at the noon,
Two red roses across the moon.

There seemed something symbolic about Gabriel always put-
ting away the _Damozel_, and then forgetting it. She wondered
where it had been, all this time. "I was looking for a frame,"
said Gabriel. He started blowing the dust off, but Mr.Morris
jerked out a handkerchief. "Phew, Tops - looks like a flag
of truce." "Flag of truce?" "I never saw such a huge,
immaculate hanky. Don't spoil it." But while Gabriel was
looking for a paint-rag, Mr. Morris went on with the frame.
"I wondered where that frame had got to," said Gabriel.

294.

She began to cough and Mr. Morris said, "sorry" and stopped dusting. She pushed back her chair. She said, "stand it in the corner, we can dust it afterwards," but Mr. Morris had rested the frame on the table and was loosening the fasteners at the back of the picture. "Hide this," he said, and handed the canvas to her. He walked to the door of the studio and called out, "Hi, Gabriel - here's your frame."

I trow he stopp'd when he rode again
By the hall, though draggled sore with the rain;
And his lips were pinch'd to kiss at the noon
Two red roses across the moon.

It was not a very large picture. She slipped the canvas into her own portfolio. It was there on her dressing-table, propped up before the mirror.

It wasn't finished, there was something ghost-like in the blue drapery. She remembered how Gabriel had folded it about her; one hand was finished, the other was only sketched in, a ghost-hand. It was the left hand; the right was holding the flower-stem. Gabriel had carefully painted the green stalk and blade-like leaves and the three flowers. He had tinted her eyes the same blue as the iris. Her hair was smoothed back, not looped or tumbled as he so often did it. She had placed the canvas beside her, on the dressing-table and looked at both faces in the glass. They were the same size and proportion.

295.

Now she glanced at the dressing-table and her painted
face looked back at her, from the mirror-frame.

After the wear and tear of travel and the lack of privacy
in the pension, her room drew about her, enfolded her. It
was sanctuary.

She thought backward, of the other painted faces. It
was painful to think of Ophelia because of the blame they put
on Everett Millais for the cough she had that winter. Dr.
Ackland had said, when she saw him in Oxford, that the cough
was partly a nervous affectation, there was nothing wrong really.
She was glad now, that she had had that time in Oxford. People
were kind, really. She was shy and un-sure of herself; she
did not like their assumption of superiority. She was "received"
because of Mr. Ruskin who had sent her to Dr. Ackland. She had
been annoyed by references to Ophelia; had her father brought
an action against Mr. Millais? Mrs. Combe had referred to her
father as an auctioneer. She refused to discuss her family.

But she liked Mr. Pusey. She was taken to see his sisters
in the big house in Christ Church. His mother, Lady Lucy told
her that Edward was Father Confessor to half the ladies in the
county. Edward Bouverie Pusey had taken her into his study
and talked to her about his dead wife. She went with him to the
Cathedral. She had not been to Chartres then, but since talking
to Mr. Morris, she could look back differently to Oxford.

296.

She had heard that Dr. Ackland had considered her, "a kindly, gentle person - not beautiful."

She had heard that Miss Ackland wondered at her manners, "brought up within a street or two of Elephant and Castle."

Mr. Ruskin had arranged for her in George Street, so that she could be alone, and Gabriel had escorted her down and seemed proud of her.

But Oxford had sent her back with a seared soul.

It wasn't just their voices.

Mrs. Ackland said she would be welcome in their house in Broad Street, at any hour of the day. Mrs. Ackland took her about, to teas and lectures. There were various invitations and Oxford spoke respectfully of the P.R.E. Activities. It was a mouse gnawing at her entrails, something she couldn't give a name to. Miss Pusey took her away, in June, to Clevedon. Gabriel came down to fetch her back to London. She had little to say about Oxford, except that everyone was so kind. In fact, they were. That is why the curious feeling of a mouse, or a sudden sinking in the pit of her stomach, actually dismayed her. Oxford! "Did you enjoy your stay at Oxford?" "O yes - everyone was so kind." They wanted her to settle there. She did not know why she loathed it.

She hated herself for her stiffness, her want of manners. But it came back to her (in the way these things get round) that Oxford had not criticised her manners.

She felt dispossessed - but of what?

297.

It was chiefly the Cathedral. She belonged there.
But she had not lost herself in the dim mystery, until she
got to Chartres.

When Mr. Morris spoke of France and the Cathedrals, he
gave back Oxford to her.

Under the may she stoop't to the crown,
All was gold, there was nothing of brown;
And the horns blew up in the hall at noon,
Two red roses across the moon.

IX

298.

XVI

Gabriel said, "blast, they've heard us shouting. You'll
have to stand by, Ted, while I freeze them off. It must be
Monro or Freddie or even Scotus. Emma must have told Scotus
that I was back in Chatham, when he didn't find me at Highgate -
where I said I was."

Gabriel shut the door of the long-room. Evidently, he
didn't freeze them off, for there was a growing murmur of
genial voices in the next room.

Elizabeth Siddall started to clear the table, then decided
to leave things. "I'm fussy," she said, "it's hard for me to
see things so untidy, but there's no place to stack the dishes.
I leave them outside the door sometimes, for Mrs. Birrell or
Katy to wash up. It all seems so - unnatural, but Gabriel
doesn't like to see me washing up or dusting." She stood by
the table and her glance round the room was eloquent. "It's
funny - it makes me more tired to see things untidy than it
does to clear up. I'm not, in that way, artistic."

"It's friendly and delightful," said Mr. Morris, "all this."

"If I touch the books in the hall, he says I have dis-
turbed the sequence. I don't know what sequence. He says
he has his own method and can find things best when they're
lost."

299.

"He doesn't always find them."

"That doesn't make any difference. If he's looking for an old photograph of Florence for a Dante background and can't lay his hands on it, he turns up something else in the search, and says that it will do for his *Carillon* or for another of the sequence he planned, after his trip with Mr. Hunt to Belgium."

"I didn't know that Gabriel had been to Belgium."

"It was a long time ago, after he sold *The Girlhood of the Virgin*."

Mr. Morris said, did she mind his smoking? She said, "of course not. He sold *The Girlhood* for eighty guineas."

Now she could have bitten out her tongue, "but it's sordid, isn't it," she said, "to speak of money?"

Mr. Morris said, "I will make up in some other way, but I want you to give me the picture."

"What picture?" she said.

"The one I asked you to hide."

"O - but it isn't finished."

"I want it as it is, unfinished."

"It's always like that, everything's unfinished," she said. "O, don't tell me all Gabriel's done, I know that," she added quickly.

300.

"And done," she went on, still standing by the table,
"not only for art, writing, translating - look at his Dante -
painting, teaching and generally inspiring people - I should
say inflaming people - "

Mr. Morris did not answer.

"He fairly brought me alive - and other people.
Don't think I don't know what Gabriel's done for me and other
people."

"He has done a great deal for me," said William Morris.

"You haven't known Gabriel very long," said Elizabeth
Siddall. "At first, he set me in a flame. I called it a
magic circle."

"I understand that," said Mr. Morris.

"But it burnt away everything outside the circle."

"I understand that," said William Morris.

"You can't understand it," she said. She noted and
tried to check the stammer that always threatened her when she
was nervous or excited. That is why she spoke so carefully,
when she was embarrassed. But as she considered the bent head
of William Morris, her fear of stammering left her.

"It's funny, you sitting there," she said.

He did not answer her, he was fully occupied stuffing
tobacco into the bowl of his pipe.

301.

"Friendly, like you said. Only the kitchen at home
doesn't look like this."

Mr. Morris felt in his pocket for his matches. His
gesture was slow, deliberate, over-controlled.

"What I mean is, if it had been at Oxford, one of the
gentlemen would have jumped to his feet and pretended he could
help me, when I started to clear the table."

What he said, he felt was irrelevant, "you know Oxford?"

"I was sent there by Mr. Ruskin, to be looked over by
Dr. Ackland. I was looked over by a great many people. It
was last summer, before I went to France. Various people sent
for me. Mrs. Ffoulkes in St. Giles, the Warden of New. I
couldn't tell you half the people I met." She added her in-
variable formula, "everyone was very kind at Oxford."

She said, "when I got home last Sunday, I was wondering
where that frame could have got to."

She walked round the table and drew out a chair, facing
William Morris. She sat upright in the straight-backed chair.
She did not feel as tired as usual. Perhaps the trip to the
South had really helped her. "There wasn't anything wrong,
really. Dr. Ackland said I had been overtaxed. I am always
overtaxed with Gabriel. That is what I mean by a magic circle.
He makes everything come true. Only, I had no time to get

302.

accustomed to it. It would be better if we never married.

But there is Lyddy, my younger sister and Mum has set her heart
upon it. Dad never wanted my leaving home and getting engaged
to Gabriel. My father's people came from near Sheffield, they
were once affluent, of Hope Hall. Gabriel made me think it
was important."

He waited for her to go on.

"I mean," she said, "Per Bend Vert and Gules. I never
knew, I don't yet know what Gules are."

"Gules is a colour, really," said William Morris, "if
you're speaking of a coat of arms; it's the Bend or band drawn
across the shield, Vert and Gules, green and red."

"That was the Greaves quartering and an Eagle displayed.
I tried to write a story that was a sort of vision. It was
here, I had it, before I went to France, sitting here in an
old basket-chair that's in my room now, in Weymouth Street.
I called the story The Golden Chord because the girl in the
story had a hunting-falcon and the chord got tangled, when she
fell off her horse. She had the falcon embroidered on her
saddle-cloth."

"I would like to see the story," said William Morris.

"It's the same style as you and Gabriel, romantic but it
isn't finished. You make me want to finish The Golden Chord."

303.

It got mixed up with those old drawings from the wall in Pisa, that Gabriel was speaking about last time. The book is in the hall. Would you like to see it?

"We can wait till they come back," said William Morris.

"It got mixed up with my being frightened of the cholera."

"Cholera is frightening," said William Morris.

"I was here alone. Gabriel was out at Brown's, for they kept the cart and the calf there for his *Drover* picture. He called it *The Bridge* sometimes. Like everything else in our lives, it isn't finished. But I shouldn't say that, either. People finished pictures of me. But it's like that, I mean the magic circle. I was Ophelia and I was Viola and Silvia and some half-sketched Beatrice and the Damozel, that never will be finished. But I was the freak at Mrs. Tozer's, or the scarecrow."

"Mrs. Tozer?" asked William Morris, preoccupied with matches.

"Where I worked. I was a shop-girl. I had twenty-four pounds a year."

Mr. Morris dropped the match in a saucer.

They were still laughing and talking in the next room.

"You see what I mean by the magic circle. Inside it, I am Viola, Ophelia, Beatrice or the Damozel. Outside it, I am afraid people will laugh. They didn't laugh at Oxford."

304.

His heart was breaking.

"Do you think I'm funny?" she said.

"Why - ah - yes, to speak in that way."

"It wasn't just my clothes. But Gabriel likes this dress."

"It's very beautiful," he said.

He saw only the long oval of the pale face, the heavy
weight of the carefully braided hair, the fragile hands resting
on the grey silk.

"But in Paris, I was fashionable."

Would Ophelia ever be fashionable?

"Ah - you ladies - "

"You see, it having been my profession, I knew how people
should look. It wasn't just honnets; we had model gowns to
copy."

Almost William Morris wished the others would come back.

"What it was, was my hair."

Her hair was, as he had written ... dusky golden.

"What they called the civet-cat," she said.

Her face was, as he had written ... not fair in white and
red, being rather pale. He said, "I think that frame was stuck
behind a curtain. I saw the picture last winter, the first time
I saw Gabriel alone, when he told me about the 'scutcheon and
read me part of a letter from you."

"Was it the blocked-up window?"

305.

He said, "I don't know. I wanted to look out at the
snow. I lifted a curtain. Gabriel told me not to touch it."

"It's the draught there," she said. "He works in the
other corner, and anyway, he said, he didn't want the cross-
light. Perhaps Mr. Jones pulled the curtain back, like you
did. All the curtains should be pulled down and shaken. I
wanted to do it, while he was away but I couldn't get a ladder.
I knew he would be angry if Mrs. Birrell came in."

"Then, you'll keep the picture for me?"

"I wonder why you want it."

He said, "I'll be perfectly frank with you. It resembles,
in some way, the lady that I spoke of, the Margaret of my stories."

So he was going to be married.

"I hope you will be happy," she said, "with - Margaret."

"I don't know when - or if - we can be married," he
said, "but I will ask you to think of me as happy, with this
lady I call Lis."

"Lis?" she questioned.

"It's from the story, he is de Liliis. I told you, I
think, that my rose was a lily. That is what I meant, her name,
I mean, being Lis."

She did not know what had happened to her. She felt like
a stone being dropped down a deep well.

306.

It was not a new sensation, but she had not had it for some time.

It wasn't that she resented people being happy.

"Friends tell me that Mr. Millais and Mrs. Ruskin - I mean, Mrs. Millais are very happy."

"Ruskin - " he did not really want to talk about them.

"He was very kind, Mr. Ruskin, I mean; he offered me one hundred and fifty pounds a year, for all my drawings. I can't go on taking it. It's almost seven times as much as I got a year at Mrs. Tozer's."

He wished she wouldn't talk about it, but she might think he was indifferent, "ah - how long ago - when -"

"When I left? Didn't you know about it?"

"How should I know about it?"

"I am suspicious. I always think the worst of people. I thought someone might have told Mr. Jones about it."

"I don't think Ted would have mentioned it to me, if they had."

"You see, that's what I mean. My home is Kent Place," she spoke deliberately, "a street or two off Elephant and Castle."

"I am always delighted with the theory that Elephant and Castle is a derivative of Infanta of Castile."

307.

"Is it?" she said. "You mean like Charing Cross."

"Chere Reine?" he said, "yes."

"It's a small house," she said, "but we have some nice pieces, what Mum said they thought was Chippendale, two chairs, and we have a Flemish cabinet."

Why did she tell him these things?

"They were given to Mum - "

"Listen," said William Morris, "I must know everything about you. They'll come back in a minute. But before I hear the story of the Flemish cabinet, you must promise to meet me somewhere. I'm coming up on Saturday. I'm in an office, an architect's office, and I've got to finish up some detail drawings and tracings, before I leave Oxford."

She was looking at him from far away; her eyes were not as blue as the blue eyes in the picture. They were greenish-blue or grey, depending in what light she was sitting and on what she wore. Even as William Morris looked at her, the colour disappeared and he was staring into the dark wells of the over-luminous pupils.

He was shocked suddenly.

Her expression had not changed, perhaps her face was paler. Was she suffering?

"I've tired you," he said, "frankly, I'm selfish."

308.

Would he lose her now?

"I want to talk, I want to talk to you and of you.
But understand, it is because of Lis that I must see you.
We have been separated, such a long time. Have you - have
you -" he turned his head. "I mean, I wonder if you have a
bowl or something - I can't tap out my ashes."

"There's that tray, Gabriel uses," she said.

"He did not see the tray, though it was at his elbow."

"It's there, on the window-sill," she said.

William Morris laid his pipe down on the ash-tray. He
stood with his hands on the back of the chair. He stared at
the darkening window.

She must have moved away, for there was light and shadow,
where there had been gathering darkness.

"I like candles," she said.

She had come back to the chair.

He thought of Godfrey and his room in Balliol.

He thought of _The Little Tower_.

"You will come," he said, "it's just an idea, a senti-
ment, but I would like to meet you, just inside the station
waiting-room."

She said, "at what time and what station?"

William Morris said, "at four-fifteen exactly - _chere reine._"

310

PART III

BOOK II

I

---

"What I mean," said Elizabeth Siddall, "it is sweeping in across the wind out there. It isn't like other poetry, it sweeps across with rain and flowers in it."

"I mean, first reading your poem _The Wind_, I saw the banners and King Olaf and the shields. I could make up the _vert_ or _gules_ or _azure_ from the herald book you brought me. And there seemed power in the banner-patterns, like the old symbols from the star-book that Mr. Manuel brought in, explaining some influence, as he called it, to Gabriel, out of Dante."

I don't like to think about the future, only everyone talking about the Bissextile year and explaining about a comet due next summer, got me thinking that those old lions and the different attitudes of them in the herald book, have meaning like the star Lion, in what they call different aspects. Gabriel told me that _Leo_ is August. "And this is funny," she said, "not that it's against Mum and Dad, but they never were sure what day I was born." It wouldn't be a thing you'd forget, would it?

But there was Annie, then Charlie who died in Sheffield. I was between Charlie and Lydia but they put both Lyddie and me down, born 1832 - but we're not twins. I was half-ashamed when Mr. Manuel and Gabriel were working out the star-dates,

311

that I didn't know my birthday.

"I said, when Mr. Manuel asked me, that he could guess what he thought might be my birthday, as he was boasting to Gabriel that he could tell the other sign (he called the rising-sign) from what people looked like. Some people even know the hour they're born and that's the rising-sign and as important, they were saying sometimes, as the original. It got me thinking in those patterns, but thinking more from the **rampant**, **guardant** or **couchant** lions in the herald book, rather than from the **Leo** in the star-book."

William Morris was sitting with his back to the window. He saw as if reflected in dim silver, the oval of the face, though his eyes were focussed on the irregular, worn, wooden lozenges of the floor-boards. "They should get to work on this place," he thought, "even the best inlay gets warped, without an occasional coat of beeswax." He didn't want to interrupt her reverie. She was thinking out loud. Even his thoughts might interrupt her.

"What would a sign be that had wind and rain and flowers in it? You could hardly draw it."

William Morris did not answer.

"It wouldn't be lions, **rampant** or **passant** or anything like that. Perhaps what they call **wayy** or **undy**. Funny, me remembering those words. All of them seem to have poems in

312

them, like your poetry. I mean, it must make a difference
to you, if you can take guidance from the star-patterns. But
not knowing the day - not even the month - makes you -"
she laughed, "wayy or undy."

"Undine," he said, under his breath, "was a mermaid."

He didn't know if she had heard him.

"It seemed I could write a whole book of poems, just
looking at those words and the pictures that went with them.
Taking a word, any word would make a poem. I was looking up
bird-pictures because of the *Three Birds*. I don't know what
sort of birds they were, though we had *per bend vert and gules*
stamped on a china plaque, so I did find *Eagle displayed*.
I had thought *displayed* meant just shown, but it means with
spread wings. And an eagle, it said, is one of the most
noble bearings. But you know all this, it's from the book
you brought me."

William Morris was counting the squares of the boards.
He was making a mental calculation, there are four here to the
right and four to the left of the one I stand on, or add one
more and count five feet each way - how many five-foot spaces
from here to the closed door on my left, how many back of me
to the window ... "but it doesn't interest you," she said.

"It interests me profoundly," he said. "I was listening."

3I₃

"Not to what I was saying."

"I was listening to get an answer to your question."

"I didn't ask you any question."

"Not directly." He looked at her now.

"You're tired of sitting here," she said, "you want to go back, even if it is raining."

"I never minded the rain, but I don't ever want to go back."

"Did I ask you a question?"

"In a way, a number."

"Perhaps, I asked you before. I meant to ask you that first day in Chatham Place, when you told me what **gules** meant. I wanted to ask you then, what kind of birds, would **Three Birds** be on a coat."

"I thought it was **Eagle** displayed."

"That was one - "

"Quartering."

"I couldn't find any **Three Birds** in the book, there were eagles and **volant** meant a bird flying and **close** with its wings folded and there was **martlet**, a bird - "

"The fourth son," said William Morris.

"That is a story that is written somewhere," she said, "about the nine sons and why one has a rose, another a ring and that star - "

"If you mean **mullet**, it's a spur," he said.

3I4

"I don't remember their names nor the order of them, but they are charms or gifts and they all mean something. How else did the nine sons in that list (at the beginning of the book) of what they call differences, get star-symbols? It's old - old - "

"I was saying that to a chap in Oxford - or something along those lines, about a related problem. My idea was, it went back to - well, the crusaders of course, but before that - "

"That's what I mean," she said, "take escallop, the pilgrim-shell we all know. But when you see it on a coat, you feel that journey to - "

"Palestine," he said.

" - and you have a story. You can see everything. It's so hard and central. I seem to float off sometimes, or to be driven off into myself, when I hear them talking and can't follow. But I think the heraldic signs are like the Leo and Scales in Mr. Manuel's book. They simplify some vast plan or state or dream or idea. And if you could get how they first came about, you could understand everything. Like the Ram, the first sign in the star-chart, being from shepherds - so it seemed to me - watching in the night and Biblical. I wrote down the animals from Mr. Manuel's book and checked up, where I could, in your book, and I found the Ram or the Lamb rather, but only for the Knight Templars - no other rams and

315

lambs, as there are various lions and not a few eagles. Was
it part of the Knight Templars, all the heraldry?"

"Is that the question that you wanted to ask me?"

"It came while we were talking."

Elizabeth Siddall was seated on a bench, covered with
frayed rose-brocade. His was a low rush-bottomed chair that
the caretaker had brought in. It was not by any means,
Godfrey's arm-chair at Balliol, but he was reminded of Godfrey
and the table. He had been asking mental questions as Godfrey
called them, but the table was not needed for the answers.

William Morris had seen Elizabeth Siddall now, on a half-
dozen occasions. He had discovered, even the first time,
with a gate-legged Buzzard tea-table between them, that she
answered his mental questions - that is, if he led her along
and when her reverie had entered the proper channel, managed
to keep himself detached, without altogether "disappearing".

It was, he presumed, what Faulkner had been working on, thought-
transference, but it didn't need the table. Yet without his
own experience and Godfrey's illumination, he would never, he
felt, have found the clue to her apparently vague yet somehow
palpable dream-realities. He himself knew the King of Arms,
the manual of heraldry that his father had given him on his
tenth birthday, by heart. That and Gerard's Herbal had re-
mained his most precious possessions. He had been inspired,

316

literally, by the words and the heraldic emblems, when he wrote
<u>Three Red Roses</u>, <u>Crecy</u> and <u>The Wind</u>. He had written <u>The Blue
Closet</u> for Gabriel's picture, "a stunning poem", Gabriel had
called it, and <u>The Seven Towers</u> came to him that very evening
when he went home, after his first talk with Elizabeth Siddall
at Chatham Place, being assured in his heart, that she would
not fail him. That was the first occasion and direct in a
cab, to Buzzard's for tea.

"You'll be thinking of tea," he said.

"I was wondering," she said, "about - "

"Therefore, said fair Yoland of the flowers.

This is the tune of the Seven Towers -

is that what you meant by saying that my poetry sweeps across,
with rain and flowers in it? Were you thinking of the
<u>Little Tower?"

"Up and away through the drifting rain - yes," she said.

"And I was wondering," she said, "how we got in here.

The last time, you said the porter told you, it was being done
over or rearranged, preparatory for the public."

"The sun was shining last time," he said.

"And the time before that. It's the <u>Seven Towers</u>,"
she said.

He was thinking of Godfrey and Vernon and Roland. He
had called himself Oliver in the <u>Seven Towers</u>.

317

This was like Godfrey and the Lady whom Godfrey said,
answered his questions. Godfrey said, the Lady might be one's
unconscious thought or reverie, one's double or one's soul.
But here was Elizabeth Siddall, Lis, Yoland of the flowers,
herself a flower, sitting opposite him, on a brocade-covered
bench, drawn up against the wall of the small ante-room that
led on the left, through the corridor to William's Orangery,
and on the right, into one of the main halls of the palace.

It did not do to appear to be involved in this. He cast
his net and waited.

He must not be too far withdrawn, yet he must not let
his shadow fall on the surface of the still water.

He must appear to be detached, yet he must be communica-
tive.

William Morris had admired Godfrey's diplomacy, his own
was far more subtle. It dealt however, with a different set
of values, fluttering of wing or flash of fin. He had occu-
pied his nervous, thwarted fingers, weaving nets at school.
He watched and waited. He knew, though he did not know he
knew it, the give and stretch, the resilience and spacing of
the squares or woven triangles of the intricate mesh of his
brain-net. He watched behind himself, himself watching.
Yet it was no question of disassociation. With her, it might

318

be different. He could lure her far out, but could he lure
her back, once her spirit or soul had broken bounds?

Would her spirit break bounds?

He thought of Vivien.

"I used to talk things over, symbols and Rounds with a
chap at Oxford."

"Rounds?"

"Well, he put it all down to the Round Tables and Arthur
and the Knights. He did tell me that he had read somewhere,
in some old French chronicle he was at work on, that *they*
were originally twelve of them."

"Like I said - Biblical."

"Yes and no. He argued it with me, the Cross and
Crescent. They said - I mean, it occurred to me that the
Crusaders or the Templars reconciled the two religions - or
all religions."

"Like Mr. Rossetti's Dante."

"Mr. Rossetti?"

"Gabriel's father."

"I don't know anything about Dante."

"I mean, those circles."

"Ah - "

Should he say it or should he let her say it?

319

10.

He said, "I don't care for astronomy."

"But you have planets in your Hollow Land," she said.

"I don't think so."

"Ships sail through the Heaven
With red banners dress'd,
Carrying the planets seven -
isn't that the same as Mr. Manuel talked of? Different signs
or houses, as he called them, being ruled by different planets?"

"I didn't associate -"

Could he let the pause lie, eloquent between them?

"Perhaps," he said, "the seven planets are the seven
towers. But I like to keep down to earth, my heaven is hollow,
the lap of earth."

"Isn't that just the bowl of heaven, turned round?"

He said, "yes."

But he must not let her go on like this. He noted how
her eyes dilated, her face grew paler when she became exalte -
the word that Gabriel had once used of Ted.

He said, "it's a game really. Children love animals and
make fairy-tales, as simple wood-folk and fisher-people do -"

"And those shepherds."

He said, "yes. It's nothing to be frightened of."

"Why do you say that? Do you think I'm frightened?"

"No," he said. He pushed back his chair and strode over

320

11.

to the window. "These boards need waxing," he said. "I told
the gate-keeper that I was in an architect's office and wanted
the place
to look over xxxxxxxx. That's true, anyway. I said, I had
been discussing the re-arrangement of the galleries with an
art expert. That's not untrue. I said the lady must get out
of the rain, somewhere."

"You're tired, waiting. The rain's almost stopped,"
she said.

"I shouldn't bring you out here, so often."

"O, but I live it all over, in between times. I go
over all our talks and the flowers in the garden."

"I want to show you the water-lilies later. I used to
row down from Oxford with old Faulkner, and my father brought
me here once. I looked in that very mirror. I remember how
funny I looked. I wouldn't look in it now, for a king's
ransom."

She turned her head. The mirror was set flat into the
wall.

"It must always have been there," she said.

The mirror was in two parts; the green-silver surface
was uneven and flawed.

"It must be a very old mirror."

"Don't look in it," he said.

32I

12.

Now he turned his back to the window, and the room seemed darker.

She said, "I didn't mean to - but why? Do you think I'll see ghosts?"

He thought, "the <u>Seven Towers</u>. I called it <u>The Tune of the Seven Towers</u>. I was thinking of Godfrey's tower-room and the seven windows. I was thinking of Vivien and Carew. I was thinking of England. I was thinking of that sneak Godfrey, as Gabriel would call him. I was thinking - but he's not lost - he can't be - yet. No, he must not be lost. Carew, Vivien. If I give her a clue, she will give me the answer, like asking the table questions. But she doesn't know she has the - gift. No one knows it. She must be protected. I must not tempt - the - I must not ask, <u>will Godfrey come back from India?</u>"

He said abruptly, "we better go now. I won't send you any more of my poems, if they make you talk about ghosts."

322

II

"I was surprised to find gillyflower, in your book,"
she said, "is for carnation or pink."

He said, "yes, it is sometimes confused with the *quarter*
*foil* or *set foil* or even with the *double quatrefoil*."

"A real pink would be more like the rose-pattern,"
she said, "the rose usually has (like the pink) those other smaller
petals."

"In heraldry, they are leaves," he said, "or symbolic
leaves - *barbed*."

"Thorns, I should say."

"I don't think so."

He wished she hadn't spoken of carnation. He was trying
not to think of Godfrey and the tower-room. She brought
Godfrey back with her carnation, an awkward word really - it
was Roland saying that Aurelie, the girl they wanted him to
marry, was *oeillet*, carnation or pink. "How and when, do you
suppose they came to call our garden-pink, carnation?" he said.
"Was it the colour? It seems Persian somehow ..." He must
go on talking or she would become entranced again. "So you
like Dutch William's sunken garden?" he went on at random and
before she could answer, "but the ghosts are common-place.

323

tt.

Even the porter is sure to have run across them. There is
Anne Boleyn - or is it Katherine Howard? - running down
the long gallery. We must take a tour round the whole place
sometime - don't you like muffins?"

"I was thinking how pretty this room is with those china
dogs on the mantlepiece and that old clock ticking and every-
thing so polished. It's funny to see it almost empty. Last
time, we couldn't get in, do you remember?"

"And the time before that, they laid a table for us under
the apple trees."

"It was almost too much, those apple-blossoms. I wonder
where we'll be next year?"

Next year. Dear Lord, she had said it, she had said it.

"Why - why - next year?"

"I think it's Gabriel and Mr. Manuel talking about a
comet, due next summer and trying to explain it, in terms of
recurrent happenings. I mean, they were explaining a comet
that is woven on the Bayeux tapestry, as for William conquering
England, and one (the same one) earlier for Caesar, and later
for something else important."

"It's theoretical."

"They say it's proved fact, with numbers - the Fall of
Constantinople, that's what the other was. And Mr. Manuel worked

324

15.

round from the table of numbers, and said next time it will
come back, is in the next century - "

"You said, next year."

"I was talking of the smaller comet. The important one
should come back about 1910, in - well - "

"About fifty years time."

"It's '56 now," she said, "the Peace Year. Yes, it
would be 54 years from now. Why -" she laughed, "we even,
might be living. We wouldn't yet be eighty."

"You think quickly, or did you work it out with Gabriel?"

"Dad always said that I was good at numbers."

"But why did you think of - all this?"

There was no use, the question was hovering between them.
He had had the letter yesterday. Godfrey had left it with
Vernon to be posted after he left. And now she said, gilly-
flower and pink and that brought back Roland and his oillet and
the tower-room ... and she said next year.

"Do you get geography from flowers?" she said.

"Well, not exactly - yes, sometimes, places and periods."

"Why did you say pinks are Persian?"

"I don't quite know." He did know; he had been thinking
back over those last hours or sessions with Godfrey and he re-
membered telling him that his first talk with Gabriel was an

325

essence, an attar, a distillation to be treasured, to be doled
out carefully. "Can you use up memory?" Godfrey had asked
him. He had lain awake all night, going over the talks that
he and Godfrey had had, in his room at Balliol. He was con-
soled only by this plan, their arranged meeting, after the
pattern of the others, at Hampton Court. Spring was early
this year and unusually fine for England. This was the first
rainy day they had had.

He was glad for the quiet and the rest around them, the
crackling of the fire in the fender, the occasional fall of a
log, the splash of raindrops on the window-ledge, the drip-drip
from the eaves, the clock ticking. It was impossible to think
of India.

"Well, to be frank with you, I am thinking of what you
call geography, because I had rather unexpected news yesterday
from a friend. He's gone East."

"That's what we were talking about, travels and Palestine."

"Well, in a way, I suppose it's a sort of pilgrimage.
I don't know. I was thinking that the talks with my friend
were condensed, as you said of the star-pictures or the heraldry.
Or my - well, rather overwhelming feeling and memory of the
last few intimate talks we had at Oxford are a distillation, an
essence. When we say essence, we think of attar, of attar-of

326

rose - that's Persian. But what I mean is, the essence of
the talks seems to follow a concise pattern - can fragrance
have a pattern? I am talking at random. I would like some
more tea."

He went on, "you said what I am trying to say, the heraldic
symbols pin down or weight down or simplify - what was it you
said? *They simplify some vast plan or state or dream or idea.*"

"I thought I said that about the star-pictures."

"But you said, didn't you, that you felt that the heraldic
symbols were derived from the star-pictures?"

"I said, I thought the Lion *rampant*, *couchant* was, it
might be, different aspects of *Leo*."

"We have it all there," said William Morris, "but you
forget, I take sugar in my tea."

"What do you mean, we have it all?" asked Elizabeth
Siddall.

"All that we are looking for."

She did not answer.

"We have it all here. I thought I had - well, persuaded Godfrey (that is, the friend I speak of) not to go out to India."

"Why - why did he go?"

"He had had an experience. How can I explain it? His
sister -"

327

16.

"The one you call Lis?"

She had never mentioned Lis or Margaret to him. He had, after his first explanation at Chatham Place, made no further reference to the hypothetical Lis, or excused their meetings on the ground of another lady. There had seemed no need for excuse or explanation.

"Lis?"

"You have forgotten her - already?"

"I have never forgotten her - for a moment."

He noted that her hand was...taut...and she carefully set down her cup.

But she did not really love him or she would have given him the picture, he had asked for.

She was keeping it - and Lis for Gabriel.

It would embarrass her and perhaps she would no longer meet him, if he told her that Yoland of the flowers, Margaret and the Lady Alys were all Lis.

"I expect you think I'm ill-mannered," she said, "but you said you wanted to meet me to talk about Lis."

her now

"I do not know that I want to talk about it - that is almost impossible."

"You write about her?"

He said, "yes."

328

19

"You send the poems to me, so I will talk about the poems
and talk about her, talking about the poems."

He said, "yes."

"You make it out sad," she said, "that Yoland. I don't know if I can remember, <u>The white ghosts walk in a row</u>, you said, and <u>The graves stand grey in a row</u>. <u>This is the Tune of the Seven Towers,</u>" you said."

He said, "This is the tune of the Seven Towers."

"I know I shouldn't ask, but it's like - like as if you had known disappointment, as regards this lady."

"I have known no disappointment."

"I mean, like - O, I don't know, I don't know. I remember a blue owl on a shield or pennant in one poem, and a dragon in <u>The Wind</u>, and Margaret and the lilies, and there is Marguerite in the gillyflower poem, and there is a mood like I said, wind sweeping rain with flowers in it, like it must be outside - though the cherry and the apple-blossom are now over. I mean, I hold on to something, flapping on a banner, a blue owl, not knowing whether it is friends or enemies - but it is <u>toward</u> something."

"This is the Tune of the Seven Towers," said William Morris. He spoke in his husky whisper.

"So a vast state or distance or a character, unknown

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20.

till now, comes clear in a picture or an image, like one of
those lions I speak of, Leo being, they said, the heart, and
for kings."

"My friend thought that he had killed his sister."

"Killed his sister?"

"She was thrown, riding alone in what they called the
King's Wood. Henry VIII had stayed there; it was a romantic
notion of mine that Godfrey was a direct descendant. No - "
he interrupted her unspoken question, "he is a modest, subtle,
well-bred, intellectual, diplomatic fellow. He makes no
claim, other than the usual family connection. He thought
that he should not have let his sister ride off alone in the
evening, to the King's Wood, to - "

"Lis is dead, then," she said.

He did not answer.

Would she think him callous, if he did not make some
suitable reply? He felt hypocritical, sitting silent, with
bowed head. Even a shadow of a dishonest gesture was repellent
to him. "Well," he spoke brusquely, "she isn't quite lost. I
mean - let me be frank, though I should in other circumstance,
feel it a betrayal of confidence. But Godfrey betrayed my
confidence, my hope - well, no. He meant to spare me.
But it seemed assumed between us, after some rather heated

330

argument - I mean, he had led me to understand that he was
working in England - well, for England. He may not have said
in so many words, that he was staying, but I had the impression
that he was and he didn't contradict it - the impression - "

"Can you contradict an impression?"

"Yes, by being forthright, downright, honest."

He was not only hurt, he was angry that Godfrey had out-
witted him.

Should he contradict the impression about Lis - that is,
as far as it concerned Godfrey and Vivien?

"It's far off - India."

"Very far," he said.

"It's like - I see -" she said, "you feel he isn't
near to talk to about - his sister."

"And other things; there was a group, a circle. A friend
of his in Paris was working with him on the old legends."

"The Rounds," she said, "of Arthur that you spoke of, was
that Mr. Rossetti's Dante-circles?"

"I don't know. You must ask Gabriel. But Godfrey was
hoping to find more people for his own Round or circle. He
didn't expect to find twelve but we discussed it, though we
didn't actually associate the twelve with what you call the star-
signs. I am disappointed, I feel I have lost so much, now

331

Godfrey has gone. And I had just now, a special, personal pang or panic that he wasn't here in England, so that I could show him to you and so that he could rejoice in your - your overwhelming discovery of heraldic lions and Leo and the star-rounds."

"It can't be my discovery."

"Well, you bring it into consciousness - how shall I say? You make me feel as you said just now of my own banners, it is toward something."

"Wasn't Mr. - wasn't Godfrey's circle toward something?"

"Yes, it was toward this, but he hadn't begun to fill out the - the - what do you call the thing the stars go by? Zenith or Zodiac or something. It's ridiculous how obvious it all is."

"Like you said, your Hollow Land is heaven."

"It was you who said it was the bowl of heaven turned round."

"Then Arthur's people and - and Godfrey's, in the bowl, would make a pattern round the rim or in a belt or band inside the bowl-hollow."

"Per bend or," he said.

"And their Lion, Dragon, Owl - all the symbols on their banners - would each have its original or likeness or substitute in the star-signs."

332

"Arms," he said, "of Sovereignity, of Pretension, of
Concession, of Community - I knew the list by heart, before
my next birthday."

"Your next birthday?"

"My father gave me _King of Arms_ on my tenth birthday."

She sensed that he was comforted about the loss of his
friend, when she spoke in terms of the _King of Arms_.

It didn't matter what she said to William Morris. He
never criticised, argued or broke her off in the middle of a
sentence, with "you are quaint and dotty, Lizzie."

"Then, Godfrey is _King of Arms_."

His useful pipe - he abstracted himself in the usual
making
ceremony, asking much of re-filling the bowl and getting the
thing going.

Yes, Godfrey was _King of Arms_.

"It was more than - than a game with Godfrey? I don't
mean a game, exactly. It was more than Gabriel draping me
for Guenevere?"

Guenevere.

"I won't ask Gabriel about the star-circles being the
same as Dante. That is, I won't ask him in connection with
the herald book or the Rounds. There might be other circles
outside, going on and on, each larger, with more people. One

333

wouldn't know how to place them. Gabriel and Mr. Manuel are interested in the higher teaching. But it isn't the same as Godfrey and his friend and those old parchments. I see them as old parchments with Missal-like saint-pictures of knights and ladies and ... But look, the room is empty. It's getting dark. We must go back."

"I've ordered an omelette or something to be brought in later. They're drying your mantle in the kitchen. It's dark because it's coming on to rain again."

"It doesn't really matter," she said, "I might be at Kent Place or out at the Browns', at Highgate."

"You - you - "

"No, I don't tell any lies about it. I always did go off, now and again, to Emma - Emma Brown, that is - or home to see Mum."

She went on, "Mum isn't worried any longer, about Gabriel. I mean, I was thinking that story of mine being in Pisa, wasn't quite right, though I come back to frescoes peeling off walls. It might be the Golden Chord is per bend or, like you say. One could imagine castles on the mountains, that hem or ring round your Hollow Land. Each castle has the banner or sign of some star-house or its likeness or substitute. Mr. Manuel explained the twelve divisions (the twelve months) were called

334

houses in the star-chart. I go in and out of the rooms here,
I mean the Palace rooms, but I don't think it is actually this
Palace, I go exploring in, for my Golden Chord. One would
want to visit all the palaces or the houses. There were deer
in the forest for my Golden Chord, and I found many deer or
stags in the herald-pictures. I work it out, the stag is
maybe the goat in the star-map, and the hunter is the archer.
There are arrows tied round with a chord or separate, on some
of the shields or banners."

He said, "three arrows paleways, points in chief sable,
feathered proper."

"Could you use a hawk-feather for an arrow?"

"What a poem you are making."

"The gentleman in my story wore a hawk-feather in his cap,
from my hawk and that was dangerous as he was the rival faction.
We had the hawk on our coat. That's what I meant, when I said,
seeing the banners, you didn't know friends from enemies. But
I didn't quite mean that. I feel one must work through the -
aspects, Mr. Manuel called them."

"Aspects?"

"The seven. He explained, for example how maybe Venus in
relation to Jupiter might be good but at the same time, Venus
might be badly, or dangerously aspected in relation to Mars.

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26

We wouldn't know - at least, I wouldn't know, not knowing
my birthday, not even the month. It would help to know one's
birthday."

He felt almost ashamed to have a birthday, in spring,
just passed. He felt she expected him to tell her the date,
but he went on, "there is another arrow or knot of them,
three arrows proper, banded gules. And any number of stags."

"I looked through them," she said. "It might even be
the goat, Capricorn was the Unicorn."

She was wondering what his sign was. He wasn't sure
of it himself. She wouldn't ask him. O, well - "I was
born at the end of March," he said.

"That's the Ram then, or Templars' Paschal Lamb," she
said.

"I wanted to convince Godfrey that the East that he was
set on, was here in England because of the influence brought
in by the Crusaders, who had possibly been themselves - well,
descendants of the tradition that Arthur symbolizes. I did
find some reference-notes suggesting that Arthur's Round Table
had descended from other Rounds - but the continuity was
broken."

"Perhaps, it wasn't proken. Perhaps, it went on, well,
with private people, like you and Godfrey and his friend in
Paris."

336

"Roland," said William Morris.

"Godfrey and Roland and - William doesn't sound right."

"I called myself Oliver in the <u>Seven Towers</u>."

"Names make a difference - now Lis."

Now Lis - he tried to circumvent her. "I like the idea of the <u>Hollow Land</u> ringed or ridged with mountains," he said.

And before she could return to Lis, "how odd. I must have seen the Signs of the Zodiac, they always have them worked into the Book of Hours calendar, as decorative motive in the full-leaf pages of the months and seasons. But I am afraid I thought of the Signs as casual design; there would be a Ram or Lamb naturally, in a spring picture; I suppose the Scales would indicate the harvest. I don't even know their order."

"The Scales are October, I think," she said." The Girl is September; they call her the Maiden, sometimes she had wings. They had various sets of the pictures to illustrate. Gabriel said it was Greek or Roman, going back earlier in ancient times. Is it against Scripture?"

"Scripture?"

"Well, Old Testament - star-worship."

"The Pope in his infallibility, must have encouraged, at least not have discouraged the idea of the star-signs. Otherwise, they wouldn't have found their way into the Book of Hours, which is, isn't it, a sort of Prayer Book, a collection of

337

prayers and Saints' days?"

"I think so" she said, "Mr. Ruskin showed me a Missal and an old Book of Hours he had. But I didn't then, especially notice the signs or star-pictures. In fact, I only think of them now you mention it. Each month has a half-circle of blue star-sky, like a stained-glass window at the top of the square picture. There is an outline of star-figures but dim and sometimes, I seem to remember, calendar-numbers in a band round the outside or over the sun-space. I can't quite see it."

"See it?"

"Remember it, I mean."

"There would be bee-hives on a bench for February," he said, "with little mounds or domes of snow."

"The same snow made the hay-stack look like a huge bee-hive. There were four bee-hives."

Desperately, he tried to recall some detail of the snow-scene in the Bodleian Book of Hours. He had discovered that the pictures were traditional, so that the same scene would be shown, with slight variations, in other calendars. Yes, she was remembering pages that Ruskin had shown her and no doubt explained in detail. "Did Mr. Ruskin speak of the - the blue-glass oval windows?"

"It's as if you look out of a huge wide door left open."

338

29.

You see outside - the picture, the season's scene. You don't look up at the stained-blue oval of glass, set in above the door!

"I - I must make some excuse to get out of the office
one afternoon next week and try to lay my hands on a Book of
Hours. I - I should think possibly the British Museum - "

"That patch of snow, melted on the lathes or lattice of
the sheep-fold, is realistic."

"Ah - yes - and -" he would risk it, "the tower in
the snow-scene, the birds in the snow, the little thicket of
wood and the boy with the faggots on his cart or sledge - "

"It isn't a cart or sledge. It's a donkey with a pannier,
one of those baskets that fit on."

"Those details vary slightly."

"Only for the castles; they painted their private castles
in the background. But," she said, "I don't know why I say
that. I don't know what - what Book of Hours you have seen."

"To be frank, only the Bodleian - not of the best period,
though I found a comprehensive essay or thesis, descriptive
of the earlier French and Flemish artists."

"My Book of Hours is French," she said. "That's what
made me say each of the twelve star-signs should have a castle
on or near the mountains. There are castle scenes in each of
the twelve pictures in the Book of Hours."

-----

339

William Morris did not think that Jones admired Elizabeth Siddall. Nor had he any desire to discuss her with Ted. It was only the realization of Godfrey's leaving England that had made him conscious of a sudden void. He had just realised that he had really unconsciously, been looking forward to talking over these meetings with Godfrey, for it was Godfrey who had drawn out his confession in the first place, the story of Blackfriars Bridge and Lis in the snow, before he himself had met her. She had been, although the realisation of it had only come to him to-day, part of their spiritual life, their meetings and sessions with the little table, in Godfrey's room in Oxford. He had wondered why Godfrey even from the first, had insisted on limiting their questions, though he was open to endless discussions afterwards. Godfrey had argued that the table wanted them to think about things; a single word or part of a word was enough to start things, but either he like Roland, in the first instance, was afraid the parting would be more painful if they went into things too deeply, or else Godfrey knew instinctively, that the questions, the answers or the table in some way, might give away what he so sedulously was hiding, the fact that he had from the beginning, made up his mind irrevocably, to go to India. And he William, had had the temerity to challenge this flickering rapier with a single-stick. But perhaps

340

21.

William the Englishman had not even succeeded in challenging this *King of Arms*. He had said if he had a part in Godfrey's story, he was Giles the forester. Godfrey might have been plotting in secret, the whole time with his real cronies, what was left of his old St. James's fencing-partners and the younger Carews.

"What would a chap like Godfrey want to do in India?" he asked Elizabeth Siddall. For the moment, he was done with subtlety and double-answers. He had known that Godfrey kept half of Godfrey hidden, or almost all of him. But he had felt that Godfrey had given something of himself to William the Englishman that he had withheld even from his devoted Roland. But Godfrey, *King of Arms*, he felt suddenly, had probably withheld nothing from the old remnant of the Light, and the younger men who had taken the places of those who had gone. Suddenly, William the Englishman felt that he had never known Godfrey, though he had been so deeply moved by his story and the fact that Godfrey had said, "you'll know where I've gone. You're the only one who knows this."

Elizabeth Siddall said, "but I do not know - Godfrey."

"You feel things, you know things," William was fretting now, impatient. Anyhow, he didn't want a subtle answer.

"You make me feel like - like I was Aunt Day."

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Her sudden laughter startled him. He pushed back his chair. He said, "you're tired of talking. Do you want me to get your mantle and come out for a stroll before dinner? It's blowing and darker, but the rain seems to have stopped. They'll want to clear the things here." He suddenly felt that he could not face the answer to the question he had just asked.

"They'll come in when they want to clear the table," she said, "and isn't this the nicest time, sitting and talking after tea is over? Was it rude, laughing? I couldn't help but laugh, suddenly thinking of Aunt Day by the fire in the room back of the shop, and how people would come in while we were sitting over tea, with just such a question as you asked me, and then arguing, 'just this once Mrs. Day - you feel things, you know things.'"

She laughed again, and in presumably a fair imitation of Aunt Day, she said, "cut three times with your left hand - I said your left hand ... but I haven't the cards and anyway, I never told them except sometimes for Lyddy. Can you tell fortunes without cards?" she said.

"Well - yes -" said William Morris.

Her laughter had brought some light into his darkness. Her first reaction to his question had been an unexpected burst of laughter. It was happy laughter; sometimes her voice was

342

too high-pitched, her laughter, taut and nervous. She was
happy with him; she was not unhappy about Godfrey. "Well, I
haven't the cards," she went on, "you must give me some indica-
tion, if you want me to tell your fortune. I can't help laugh-
ing," she concluded, "thinking of Aunt Day."

Then, she set her plate and cup to one side and cleared
the space before her on the table. "Have you cut carefully,"
she said, "or shall I shuffle them again?"

He had never seen her eyes slant upward with amusement.
So this was Aunt Day. "Thank you Mrs. Day," said William Morris.
"I even did this for Lyddy."

"Telling the cards?"

"Telling the cards, without them," she said.

His eyes focussed on the slender hand, the fall of the
sleeve
wide/curt. "Ah - " he must play his part apparently. He
laid down his pipe and carefully assembled the cut pack. He
opened his hand and his broad palm roofed the narrow hand, held
out above the cleared space on the table. He did not touch
her fingers. "Thank you," she said, "my advice always is, do
not look at the cards I lay out. Different people learn from
experience different methods, and sometimes self-interpretation
can make interference." There was a lilt in her voice though
she spoke so precisely. Was this Aunt Day speaking?

343

34

"Specific questions sometimes have specific answers, but not always. But don't waste our time and _their_ time, asking about your uncle Timothy's will, though maybe some inference might come through about that or about your favourite nephew - it was India that he sailed for?"

Was he to answer Aunt Day, in character? William Morris cleared his throat. "Hm-mm that scoundrel -" he growled, playing his part in the charade.

"Not that I would call the young gentleman a scoundrel. There are plans and portents and a diamond. The Queen wears more jewels than she can carry. But the Empress of India looks toward the sea-city. Is it the Queen or the Empress that will win the gambit? The servant of the Queen is Crusader by profession. No man wins to the Sepulchre before the Ancient Lady. Sceptre and Crown are indicated but -" she stopped suddenly.

"Actually, it's funny," said Elizabeth Siddall, "Lyddy used to say I ought to go on the stage, after my doing Aunt Day for her. I never really tried to do other people. Aunt Day is Welsh really, she was a Miss Evans like Mum."

"But they're going to interrupt us," said William Morris as one of the Tudor Rose waitresses began drawing the chintz curtain said, "but I better light up first," the girl said, "and about that omelette that you ordered, Sir -"

"We're in no hurry," said William Morris.

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"And Madame's mantle's hung behind the door now, it's
dried out."

"Thank you," said William Morris.

"Your fire's going nicely, but I'll fetch some more
logs."

"She didn't interrupt," said Elizabeth Siddall, "I almost
felt I was doing my own fortune while you were talking to her.
That is, I was Aunt Day, doing her dear Lizzie; the worst that
could happen was Aunt Day sending me out when she had a client,
to answer the shop bell. Nothing can stop it really, once you
get started. It almost seemed, it was Aunt Day doing for all
of us. King. Double-king. He comes back."

"Godfrey comes back?"

She did not answer.

"What I mean," she said, "the door opens. Being Crusader,
gave him the pass-word to them. Wings and a hawk displayed -
or some bird out of your book." She was speaking naturally.
"Funny, just now, I see that mysterious fight about the Sepulchre.
It always seemed a far-away, unrelated cause to fight for. It's
a door in a mountain. Wasn't Our Lord laid in a new cave,
hewed out? If it was His Body they removed, it was a contra-
diction, for Our Lord had the Resurrection. Then why the
Sepulchre? Was it a symbol? They were fighting for a door
or an entrance through a mountain. It couldn't have been

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36

actual. It was the way through the mountain to - "

The candles drew the old-gold from her hair. Although
she was speaking conversationally, she was still "holding the
cards."

"Why double-king?" she said. "I would take it to Aunt
Day but she wouldn't do my cards after I went to Mrs. Tozer's.
Lyddy said Aunt Day was jealous. Mrs. Tozer was a friend out
of Mum's Euston Road days. My - just speaking of Euston
Road, makes me think of Constantinople. I do mix things up.
It's Constantinople that's in ruins. Biblical. Why, I could
transpose even such things as - as round St. Paul's, for ruins
of Byzantium. I never thought St. Paul's, Byzantium, but maybe
it is with that dome - spires and churches all down, but by
spires, I really mean those minarets or campanile. But there's
no gold and glitter, like Byzantium. It was talking of that
comet. Double-king? I can't remember what Aunt Day meant by
that - or maybe it wasn't Aunt Day. But it went on?"

She was asking him a question.

"It went on?" he echoed.

"I'm asking you. It went on long after it was conquered.
But it's not exactly conquered. But there's no colour, it's
washed out - the gold. Double-king? In two elements?
Does he get through the mountain?"

Must he answer?

346

"Ah - you mean - "

"I tell you, I've mixed things. He got into the dark city. It may be Jerusalem."

"In England's green and pleasant land," said William Morris.

"That's it - it will be -" she laid down a card.

"Three - double-three - a feather - two wings - could it be eagles fighting?"

"Symbols from banners? There's Russia, Prussia, Austria, eagles and double-eagles ... some - distant - war?"

"Very distant," she said, "all in my imagination. Didn't I tell you, I was wayy or undy?"

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-38.

III

She could live completely now, in two circles. She didn't need the cholera scare or concern about Gabriel's infidelities to drive her through the darkness. It was, as she had said the last time she saw William Morris, all imagination. The day-dream could be directed, she was writing.

Gabriel was busy, there was always a crowd now at Chatham Place and Mr. Manuel seemed practically to live there. Elizabeth Siddall was grateful, however, as she sometimes called him, echoing Gabriel in her thoughts. Gas on Charles Augustus Mr. Manuel

talked to her about his star-charts when she dropped in sometimes. He had told her more about the various Houses. She had more or less memorized them now, with their planets. The House of Death Scorpio, was the only one with more than one symbol, or the same symbol with different meanings. There were three of them, the Scorpion, the Serpent and the Eagle. Her eagle fancies drew her to the House of Death, but the Eagle was, Mr. Manuel said, the higher vibration of the Scorpion or Serpent, or their resurrection; it was in a sense, worm and butterfly. Now Elizabeth Siddall could look back with a certain detachment. She remembered how Harry had plagued them, darting out, choosing her especially, for his pranks. It was scorpion-like, she thought, his pouncing from behind the kitchen door,

348
NO.

and threatening her with the "very knife he did it with."
At last, she had the answer. The scorpion-sting, "the very
knife" had been associated with a bride, the murdered woman.
She had thought she would die if she married Gabriel. But she
still hoped that the magic, as she had called it, of his fame
and influence might counteract the lurking terror. It hadn't,
altogether. She had written poems for Gabriel, after his first
repudiation at Hastings, "I am not engaged to Lizzie," and
afterwards, when they actually were engaged at Scalands. The
poems were wistful, resigned and hardly lover-like.

I can not give to thee the love
I gave so long ago -
The love that turned and struck me down
Amid the blinding snow.

But the blinding snow was from the old winter-drama of Kent Place.
It was not really Gabriel who had struck her down, it was the
adolescent nightmare of Mr. Greenacre that she had shared with
Lyddy.

But Gabriel or Gabriel's circle bordered on the nightmare.
It is true, he had drawn her away from it but he had not vanquished
it. Elizabeth Siddall remembered how she had said, last Saturday
at the Tudor Rose, "names make a difference - now, Lis." She
thought, "it started with my saying that William didn't sound
right, with Godfrey and Roland." She could not think of William
Morris as William. But it was only now, with her note-book on
her lap and her pencil in her hand, that she remembered that

349

Mr. Greenacre's name was William.

"Well," she said to herself, "so is Mr. Allingham, William.
And as far as that goes, there is Gabriel's brother."

Nevertheless, she had found a fresh clue.

"You might just as well go back and say the Conqueror's
name is William," she thought.

The clue was the Conqueror, a Conqueror, a Crusader who
had manifested.

She needed this image for her story, the Golden Chord.
So far, the story hadn't really come true. She would be able
to destroy the rambling, disjointed first sketch, once she
started on this new one.

It wasn't really Pisa, to begin with. It wasn't William
Morris that she waited for in the clearing, with the falcon
perched on her shoulder. She had tried to sketch Mr. Morris
into it, as she needed - well, a model for her picture. But
neither he nor Mr. Allingham, the only two whom she could at all
consider, would do for the finished picture.

Sand drifted through the moss, there was a forest and a
sea-road, but it wasn't Pisa. True, there might be kings in
coffin and a grave-yard, for this was the House of Death.

She remembered how happy she had been at the Tudor Rose,
to find at last, the king who fitted in the picture - and a
king actually. Hadn't Mr. Morris said that Henry VIII had

JDC
41.

stayed at King's Wood? Mr. Morris had said, "it was a romantic
notion of mine that Godfrey was a direct descendant." Lis was
Godfrey's sister and Mr. Morris had said that she was like Lis.

It wasn't a thing in the old days, she would have laughed
at. But it came over her; she was free of the old nightmare.
In the place of the knife and the murderous scorpion, there was
the Hunter with his arrows and her hawk-feather in his cap, or
the Crusader with *Eagle displayed* upon his banner.

When she was doing the fortune-telling cards for fun, for
Mr. Morris, the pictures were mixed up. She couldn't tell him
that she knew, from the pictures, that Godfrey wouldn't come
back from India.

It is true that the pictures were too confused with things
she had read about or seen or even remembered, to be true vision
or Aunt Day's second-sight. She knew the images from Aunt Day's
talks over the tea-table in the room back of the shop, in the
Roman Road in Pentonville. But with William Morris, she had
told the cards as with Lyddy, when she "did" Aunt Day to amuse
her or to keep her from fretting sometimes, when the shared terror
seemed about to descend upon them. She had known that Mr. Morris
was worried and she had given her imagination full rein partly to
amuse him, so she had lost track of what was Aunt Day and what
she made up. She could remember now how she had said at the

35/42.

Tudor Rose, "three - double-three - a feather - two wings."
By that time, as she said to Mr. Morris, it seemed that Aunt
Day was telling the cards for all of them. That is, she felt
though she did not explain it to him, that the cards were in
answer to Mr. Morris having talked about the Round Table and
the group that Godfrey and his friend Roland wanted to assemble.
She thought, "there is Roland, Godfrey and - Mr. Morris said
he called himself Oliver in the *Seven Towers*, but he pronounced
it *Olivier* the French way." There was Olivier, there was Lis,
both French names; "L-i-s," Mr. Morris had spelt out, that first
time when she asked him, "it is the French for lily." Mr.Morris
said she reminded him of Lis and in that picture, he had asked
for, she did hold that iris-stalk in her hand. But that was
only five out of the twelve to be collected, besides that - well,
they would be two and two, wouldn't they, Knights and Ladies?
There was Mr. Morris or Olivier and Lis, Roland she would imagine
would have a Lady in France. And then there was - this was
her own imagination or a reflex of Aunt Day's second-sight - her-
self and Godfrey, But that would make only three out of the
twelve couples. Was that the double-three she spoke of at the
Tudor Rose?

In any case, that would do for the story, for her reassem-
bling. She had assembled herself before, but only in a sort of
fever. But this time, for the first time, she recalled herself,

352
43.

clear-sightedly, seeing the Scorpion, the child nightmare, as
the dark giant emerging from behind one of the sheds in the tan-
yards or stalking her at dusk as she hurried home from a late
winter afternoon walk to see the ships at Wapping. He would
smother her. The scream was stifled as in a nightmare.
She had waked up, out of a bad dream.

Mr. Allingham had rescued her from Mrs. Tozer's.
Gabriel had, for a time, numbed the terror with his charm and
irreverence. Mr. Ruskin had showed her the way to what he
called his gentians, but she had felt that the snowy mountain
views and the Alpine pastures would only exaggerate by contrast,
the black, lurking terror. Mr. Morris had taken her right out
of it, but from the first, he had made it clear that his dedica-
tion was to Lis, this Lily, the sister as she had learned last
Saturday, of his friend, Godfrey. Devotion to the dead and
dedication, was final.

Not that she had wanted, in any case, to claim him alto-
gether. He had been the most understanding, the most friendly,
the most kindly, the most sympathetic of them all. And she
had, she admitted frankly, used him for a model; there was no
harm or disloyalty in sharing him with a living woman. But
when she realized that Lis or Lily was dead, she knew that she
could no longer claim him, even for a model.

But by some law of spiritual compensation, as soon as she

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realized and accepted his dedication to this dead girl, the
other, the stricken brother appeared. This had happened at
almost the exact moment that she had let go all spiritual
rivalry with the sister. It was a story she could never have
invented. Granted of course, her part in it was imagination,
yet it was imagination she could never have imagined.

She could do no harm to Godfrey that is, the Godfrey in
the story, by knowing (in the story) that he would not come back
from India. It would be next year that would unite them - that
is, in the story. Mr. Morris had realized that she connected
next summer's comet with Godfrey and with India, though she had
tried to pretend that she did not notice the start he gave when
she spoke of next year. Lyddy had told her of Mr. Wheeler's
confidence - and Mr. Wheeler knew that he could trust Lyddy
(she was in that relation, almost another Lyddy.) Mr. Wheeler
had said that there was certain danger and frightful problems
about India and he wished the East India Company had never been
established or that they would get out quickly, before it was
too late. There would be divided loyalties, he had said, and
dissension enough about India.

It made a straight track to somewhere, her knowing that
Godfrey wouldn't come back from India - in the story.

He must have a name of his own, of her own, that is.

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45.

Names made all the difference; they projected people or concentrated or consecrated them, as the symbols on the banners represented some virtue or abstraction. She wanted Godfrey in the story, to belong to England. She wanted an English name that yet had a French sound in it, like the Olivier that Mr. Morris said was the Oliver of his *Seven Towers*. She must find something that was both French and English. Many even of the English names would have been pronounced French when the Conqueror came in, and she held on to the Conqueror because of her *per bend* *vert* and Gabriel having made her feel set apart, almost dedicated with it. He had not told her his own coat, except that they were della Guardia and from Italy.

It was Mr. Morris who told her that *Red Roses*, the first poem he sent her was for Rossetti being roses, and when she asked Gabriel about it, he made some joke about his grand-father being a blacksmith. It was just another idea of old Gus, he said. Mr. Manuel used, for the most part, another name in London, his English grand-father's (so Gabriel told her) but Gabriel said, "I don't want to be reminded of his frousty English family, Charles Augustus has got to be Manuel if he comes here, with orange-trees and castles in Spain - in Portugal I should say."

Yes, names made all the difference. She wanted a name for Godfrey that would go with London or recall or conjure up London. She began lightly writing down names as they came to her.

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She would erase them later. She would not spoil the first page of the note-book that she had selected with such care and pleasure for her new *Book of Hours*.

"Bedford, Russell," she wrote, "both Bloomsbury; Curzon, West End, is better but it's not quite right; Gloucester, Gloucester Square, that's over by Regents Park, it's some present Duke, I think and anyway, not suitable." She thought out and around Hampstead and Highgate, but she could find nothing. "It's for England's green and pleasant land," she said to herself, "and to recall Olivier for Mr. Morris. When you say it in French, it's living and a tree and green like England's pleasant land - and it was for honour and peace, wasn't it, in the old so Mr. Ruskin had said." days, *like Mr. Ruskin's Crown of Wild Olives?*"

John Ruskin. She did not want a name like John or George or Henry - but there was that king. Henry VIII had made her feel that Godfrey was *King of Arms* of their Round. But the name wasn't Henry. It must be English, as English as *Tudor Rose* where she had first heard of Godfrey and where in the flickering fire-light and the glow of candles, her nightmare had suddenly been exorcised. It happened in a second; all those hours and nights of anguish were as if they never had been. But it wasn't enough to banish a nightmare, something must take its place. It wasn't just the horror of his murdering her. It was the way he died, cursed by the horrible people

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47

watching him at Newgate. As if the curse of the multitude
hadn't been dissolved with that mangled body in the prison
lime pit ... she could think about it.

But it was waste of time, that's all that thinking was.
She had a pilgrim-shell now, her own journey to take.

Hampton - that was a name surely? Hampton would bring
back the apple-trees and the crocuses that had been as if the
earth had cracked with very abundance of beauty - those
crowded, uneven blue, white and gold fissures of crocus-colour
in the fresh grass. Hampton might do but it was a little
unfamiliar and stiff. They had explored Bushey Park and
twice walked along the river to Richmond. <u>Richmond</u>? He
was Richmond.

And with Richmond, Oliver or Olivier (whichever you
choose to call him,) came into a new perspective. They had
talked about the pilgrim-shell and Palestine. Oliver,
<u>The Crown of Wild Olives</u>, England's green and pleasant land, --
was that Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives.? They had talked
about the Crusades and the Holy Sepulchre and she had said the
cave, fresh hewn, might be a door into a mountain - the
<u>Mount of Olives</u>?

But she believed that the mountains around
Jerusalem were low-lying and the mountain she visualized was
like one of the great Alpine peaks that Mr. Ruskin had talked
about when he showed the sketches to her. It was the Holy

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48.

Mountain. She had found it. It was part of her story, or
it was her story. She had called her story the Golden Chord,
but was the name of the story, Holy Mountain? In any case,
there would be as well a collection of poems and prayers.
She could just call it, Book of Hours.

She was not anticipating, in the story, the death of
Richmond. How explain it? It was too difficult to explain
but it would be simpler for the story, to say he had been kill-
ed in India. He might live, but it would confuse the story.
It was not right, but how could she get around it, to contem-
plate the death of a living person and that person so near to
Mr. Morris who had himself opened the door, just with that human
kindness and the way of thinking whether her mantle needed to be
dried and her having her tea and supper to follow it. That was
the magic that had exorcised the Scorpion, the presence always
lurking in Kent Place. At Aunt Day's, it was different and
you felt Aunt Day was exorcising things too, with her cards.
Did it need the death of good men, dedicated and crusaders to
exorcise the evil? It took her too far. She could not talk
of these problems but with Mr. Morris and she did not want him
to know her thoughts were concerned with India. Put it that
Godfrey didn't die but stayed in India and she never saw him;
it would make the same pattern but not so - heraldic or

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49.

dedicated as the other. Richmond might be separate from Godfrey, even if Godfrey were still living. Richmond would be what Mr. Manuel and Gabriel spoke of as a "double." But Richmond would be the same person as Godfrey, only more so. In any case, Richmond belonged to her in the Round, whatever else his life was.

But in the story, she could not have Richmond go to India, for you must think of someone reading a story if you want to get reality in it, and the only person she wanted to read her *Book of Hours* was Mr. Morris. Richmond would go East as on a now pilgrim journey, but she didn't want to set her story in the old time, as Gabriel had done in *Hand and Soul* and Mr. Morris in the *Hollow Land*. Yet there was Constantinople; Byzantium came into the story. It would be old and new, both together, a sort of fairy tale, she supposed, but with prayers.

She wanted to get the story under way before Saturday, as she wanted to talk to Mr. Morris and find out all she could about Godfrey, and what he told her might influence or even contradict the story as she planned it. Richmond was to go away as a soldier, but in the back of his mind, was the search for the Mountain. She couldn't call it India. Persia that Mr. Morris spoke of, might do. She didn't quite know. Mr. Morris said he got geography from flowers and there were small bay-roses along the parapet, after she came out of the first hall-corridor.

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50.

The land seemed endlessly far below her. She did not dare lean out and look over. An eagle was swaying, but far down, She could only explore a little at a time, inside the mountain.

You would never know the rough ledge covered with the thorn-bush, hid the entrance. The goat-path branched off and even the goat-path was difficult enough scrambling. No one would think of turning off that narrow rough way, to the thorny ledge above it.

Once inside, after the first threshold, it was roomy enough. To her right, the wall curved like the inside of a dome and there were inset, oval windows. The windows could never be seen from outside, as it was jagged and rugged and too high up. The other side dropped sheer like a wall, though those rose-bay bushes had found foothold.

The inset windows had a square-ledge really, with the oval inset at the top like the pages of the Book of Hours that they had talked of, but the oval was not set with glass, it was simply the round of blue sky. The ledge of the windows to her right was about on a level with her head. There seemed no special reason for trying to look out that side, she could judge the shape and rocks and thicket-growth from the outside of the mountain, before you got to the entrance. The entrance slanted and looked too narrow but she had slipped in easily. From the

360
51.

inside, it threw a beam of light, lighter as your eyes re-
adjusted. She went over these things to prove to herself
that she had been there; it was not a dream.

She couldn't say quite how she had got up that goat-path.
She crept along the pillared corridor at first, fearful lest
someone should find her. It was a secret place. There must
be the wide door-entrance like a door to a great Cathedral far,
far down, below where the eagle had been circling. It had
that feeling like Chartres might have if she had found her way
to the upper turrets. It might be it was Chartres. Here,
there was no glass. She could remember the blue and green
patches of colour on the stone floor and - gules. Yes, it
was as it might be, the upper level of some mysterious Cathedral.
There would be rooms, (she knew) leading off corridors, and
stores of song and missal-nooks. There should be an old bro-
caded chair, put away, discarded somewhere, that she could drag
out. She could find these things in time and maybe, people.
She would find Olivier in time, he would come here and of course,
it was because of Richmond that she had come here at all.

Mr. Morris would talk about cathedrals and there was his
Unknown Church. Was this the Unknown Church of Mr. Morris?
But she knew it, and it was because of him telling her about Lis
and Roland and their Round that she knew it. There would be

time to explore the corridors; the stairs would be narrow,
winding at first, then later, wide and formal, as it might be
for the descent of prelates in processions. What did Our Lord
say about the sheepfold? There was the proper barn-door and
there was a way for thieves and robbers. Was she a thief and
robber, stealing into sanctuary?

There was Our Lord, the slain Lamb and he talked about
goats being cast out. But she thought Our Lord would phrase
something suitable for our times. It was, Mr. Morris had said,
the convention of the Church now to spend money on bad restora-
tions; it seemed to make him so unhappy that she did not ask
him more about it. It was London, he wanted to restore, make
pathways all along the river in the city, like the way from
Hampton Court to Richmond. He would, he said, de-centralize
London; it was a new word and a new idea to her. So it must
be people with wild-will and stubborn intent now who would find
their way to the Unknown Church. It wasn't that she didn't
believe in prayers any longer, but just thinking in terms of
the star-maps was heaven to her. They were the Ram or Templar's
Lamb segment of the sky-map. Others might fill up other spaces
their Round
or chapels (it might be) but it seemed likely belong to Richmond,
King of Arms and the first or the Ram segment. There was time
for all that. They called the Houses, stalls, Mr. Manuel had

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54.

Ruskin showed her. He had given her a little volume so that she could identify saints from pictures. She had only glanced at it, but since that last talk at the *Tudor Rose*, it occurred to her that the saint-symbols might correspond to the coat and banner-pictures. In fact, when she looked over them again, they recalled the star-patterns as well, arrows, crown, sceptre, towers, hawks and eagles.

There was the familiar Fleur de Lys for St. Louis of France and a Swan for Hugh of Lincoln.

She had intended to finish the illuminated lettering for the sketches of *Hand and Soul* she had begun last winter in Nice. But now she wanted to study the symbols, to know more about them, and anyway, there was this story. She had so much to think about, the *King of Arms* manual, the star-maps and signs, and the heraldic bearings and properties of the Saints in the book that Mr. Ruskin had given her.

She carefully erased the lightly written London street and square names. She had found what she had been searching for, Godfrey's name was Richmond. But there was so much else that she must find out, before she explored the mountain, and she could not begin her story until she had explored it.

She had sat for three days with the note-book open on her lap and not a word of her *Book of Hours* was written.

364
55.

She turned the page for she had already written down
and erased an earlier list of the star symbols. On the second
clear page, she started a new list, remembered attributes from
the book of Saints. There was the Eagle of the Apostle.
There was a Falcon and a Feather. There was Lis, of course,
but they spelt it Lys in the Saint book. There were palm and
olive-branches. There were arrows. "Unicorn, Tower, Sword,
Stag," she wrote down. She wanted a symbol to answer a word
or to correspond to a mood. But wasn't that what the painters
were striving for in their pictures and the poets in their poetry?

Unicorn, Tower, Sword, Stag. She looked at the words.
They were heraldic, saint, banner and star-words, all together.

She felt suddenly elated, excited as Mr. Morris had been
when they were talking of the star and herald symbols and he
said, "we have everything." She had been telling him that
she wanted to write a whole book of poems from herald signs,
but she had not then, connected the armorial bearings with the
stars nor with the Saints. Mr. Morris was right, "we have
everything." It was not herself only, it was Mr. Morris -
Olivier.

It was Lis and that other French Lis or Lys; it was
Roland and Oliver, Lys and Lily and there was herself and
Richmond.

Perhaps she should have a name, too?

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56.

She was living the story, but she was not alone in the story. There was Mr. Morris and Godfrey, and others would come in later. She thought of Lydia Siddall, but she did not see Mr. Joseph Wheeler in the story. She was glad now that Gabriel had seen Lydia those few times, at the studio. But after Gabriel had finished Lydia's arms for a Queen of Cyprus, he was doing, she arranged carefully not to be at Chatham Place, afternoons when Lyddy was free. Gabriel admired Lyddy's "classic features" and he named her "the Roman".

But Lyddy was engaged now, and happy with Mr. Wheeler.

Perhaps Lyddy might come later, and with Gabriel. But she could not yet admit Gabriel to their circle. There was Roland and Oliver, Lys and Lily, Richmond, King of Arms and -

"They called me so many things," she thought. "Certainly, I am not Mr. Ruskin's Ida in this Round, nor the Cid, nor Gabriel's Dove, nor any of the picture-characters, I had with Gabriel and Mr. Millais and the others."

But it all started with a picture; it had started with Shakespeare and with Viola. Viola was a flower-name but she wanted something that included or suggested her first meeting Mr. Morris. She had three lilies in her hand, it was that picture, the preliminary Damozel picture, just the head; Gabriel had planned doing a large picture later, and with angel pictures. But she had three lilies in her hand, though

57.

Gabriel had not painted the stars in her hair. There were seven, those planets and out of Mr. Morris too, as she had reminded him in his own *Ships sail through the Heaven from the Hollow Land*.

She was not the *Damozel* in her story, nor any of the picture characters. But there must be three lilies. There was Lis or Lily and there was Lys and the three lilies in her hand were heraldic iris, the fleur-de-lis or Fleur de Lys, as they wrote it in the Saint book. Fleur would be a nice name, but it *did not suit her in the story*. She could not be Lily or Lys.

She printed very carefully, under her list of Saints' attributes, FLEUR DE LIS. What she wrote now, she would leave. It even seemed in itself, a sort of poem, the words written that way.

She could not be FLEUR. She thought of the water-lilies that Mr. Morris said he would show her later.

*Lily name is DELIS,* she said.

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57.

## IV.

"How did we get here?" she said.

He had already told her.

"Last time was the water-lilies," she said, "the time
before that, you took me on the river. How many times were
there between the island - you called it eyot - and the
last time it rained?"

He must answer her.

She had been telling him at last, the story of her story,
The Golden Chord.

"There were - "

She said, "I remember - there was the summer-house and
honeysuckle; there was elderberry over the hedge and you said
it was the first time you remembered elderberry-flower and
honeysuckle fragrance blended. That was before the island.
Before that, was the new tea-garden but we didn't like it as
much as the Tudor Rose."

"I liked it. I didn't like old Faulkner turning up,
that's all."

"Mr. Faulkner was very pleasant, really. Before that, was
the yellow tea-roses and your showing me ribbon-roses, as you
said your grandmother called them."

"Mrs. William Morris," said William Morris.

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58.

"Mrs. William Morris?" He pretended not to notice her sudden start of surprise. "My grandmother," he said.

"But this is funny, counting things by roses."

"It isn't at all funny," he said.

He said, "I told you, the last time it rained, that I had made friends with the porter. A half-crown goes a long way."

"But - "

"Well, it's true, I had gone out of my way to drag in the office and my art-critic associates. I did not call them artists. I told him I wanted to see the pictures before the galleries were open to the public. But you may still wonder how we got here - out of a dream."

"Well, in a dream - or nightmare. I told you about Lyddy's and my nightmare. That bed might be part of it."

"I don't think - "

"Not like Othello."

Everything recalled something. She was thinking of Gabriel and the Moor of Venice.

"I'm looking forward to your coming to Red Lion Square," said William Morris.

Elizabeth Siddall said, "but I'm not coming to Red Lion Square."

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-59.

She had spoken of Othello. Gabriel had told him that Walter Deverell had wanted to be an actor. "Because of - was Deverell, Walter Deverell part of your story?" he said.

She said, "yes."

How get her back to the story? Perhaps a clean break would be best. "You are right, it might be a stage-scene," he said. "Well - before or after the act. Romeo and Juliet, maybe."

"I don't fancy lovers in that bed," said Elizabeth Siddall.

"It will look better when they hang the curtains. But I like it this way, with the carpenter's bench across the window in the other room. It's like a studio or stage-set, back-stage or between the acts. Must we always come back to Shakespeare? I was saying to Godfrey that Shakespeare - "

What had he said to Godfrey?

"You wouldn't hear," said Elizabeth Siddall, "not yet. Mr. Wheeler made inquiries for Lyddy."

William Morris walked over to the window. The box-trees in the garden showed the W and M, outlined clearly, as you looked down on them from the upper gallery of the palace. Without turning, he said, "did I tell you about the box-trees?"

"Those initials," she said, "yes. But what is important to me is that Fleur, as I told you her name was, is Flor really. Now, why did that make a difference?"

He said, speaking over his shoulder, "I am Florian in *The Hollow Land*."

"It isn't hollow," she said, "that is, it is a mountain with the galleries cut out and those rough support-pillars. But perhaps it is hollow, but *in* the mountain. I called it the Holy Mountain."

"Mount - "

"Don't name it," she said.

He came back and sat down on the brocaded stool that he had found in the ante-room. She was perched higher in a chair he had dragged out from the small retiring-room, to the right of the great bed. She said, "you make me think I read it somewhere. You know all about it." He said, "no." If only she would go on.

"I try not to think too much about your *Hollow Land*, lest I should seem to be influenced," she said, "but in the end, they came to a City and a great Cathedral, you remember."

He remembered.

"It's like I thought. The Cathedral is far below the gallery that I found from the other side. He thought they

37/61

couldn't get out. He thought he had blocked them with his boulders, in the cave-vault at the back. The Cathedral was twice an eagle-flight down."

William Morris looked at Elizabeth Siddall, "an eagle-flight?"

"They measured things that way. Didn't you say so in the Hollow Land?"

He said, "no."

"It was concerned with goldwings."

"I did write the story, Golden Wings," he said.

"That's what I mean. But maybe, it was someone else who wrote it - Roma being Amor, I mean."

Now, what did she mean? He could have knelt and prayed her for the answer, but he knew he wouldn't get it that way. With an effort, he unclasped the hands that were resting with white knuckles, on his knees. He sat up and bent back his head. "This restoration might be a damn sight worse," he said. "I wonder who could have done it. Some period-chap, not fussy."

"Period-chap? You mean out of the Elizabethans? Or earlier? It was Henry VIII, all this, wasn't it? But Richmond must have been here too. You said he was Henry VII, didn't you? But it confused me, calling him Richmond - "

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63.

"I fancy Deverell would make a good Richmond."

"Deverell?"

"Didn't you say your - your partner in the story was called Richmond?"

"Yes," she said. "I don't feel I ought to sit in this museum-piece, this chair - but it's like I told you. I wanted a chair (funny) in that gallery and I imagined just some such faded-brocade chair to sit in. It didn't go with the rock-gALLERY. But did they, maybe, before he burnt them out, furnish the gallery? They must have had food up there. But it wasn't far to the coast. Perhaps, they went right out. From the other side, the City side, it was said there was no track through the mountain. It was rock-wall. How could they cut through that way, with the galleries?"

"It might have been Phoenicians."

"Phoenicians? From long past, you mean?"

"Possibly. There are old wells and mine-shafts in Cornwall, said to have been the work of the early Phoenicians. They had some secret like the Egyptians, apparently, for tunnelling. My father had - had mining interests in Cornwall, and they used to talk about it. I never heard of galleries high up, but obviously you could tunnel in or through the high slopes, as well as underground. But - Roma -"

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64.

"He swore he'd exterminate the last living remnant."

No, he hadn't spoken to Elizabeth Siddall about the
Albigenses. It was only to Lis in the snow, that first night
after he left Gabriel. "You must talk to Algernon about
this. I must bring him along to see you."

"I can talk to no one but to you and - Godfrey, if
he was here. Or if Lyddy wasn't being married, I could talk
to Lyddy. But Lyddy's happy."

"Must they all be unhappy?"

"No. But how explain it? They are - what they called
illuminated."

"The illuminati," he said. He had read of the illuminati
and the credentes (the believers) in the book that Algernon
had lent him.

"You must see Algernon. He was the first to bring the
poetry of Provence actually, to my notice. It is the Grail
story, but history. I knew it was real, but real in another
sense - that is, legendary, symbolic. But apparently, it
is both history and legend. The Inquisition destroyed their
books and literature."

"O - no -" she said.

"Well, there was an echo, a reflection in certain of
the lai poems and virelai, even in the villanelle, the shepherd
songs. Algernon is collecting them from various sources.

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65.

It began in Provence and worked its way up to North France. But it was only a reflection of Provence. De Montfort destroyed the Circle when he destroyed the City."

"Did - did Algernon tell you?"

"It's in the book he lent me."

"And who is - Algernon?"

"He's hardly grown up yet. He was in Oxford with his tutor. His name is Swinburne, Swinburne of Capheaton. I shouldn't say, he isn't grown up. He has a more mature mind, even than Rossetti - than Gabriel. It is impossible to compare him, even with Rossetti. You can only think of Shelley. But he's - how shall I say? He told us - well, it's a sordid story. His head grew but his body didn't. He's a - "

"I don't think Gabriel's met Algernon. He's Balliol - next year - but - "

She remembered how he had spoken of talks in Godfrey's room, and when she told his fortune the last time it rained, how he started when she said "next year", as if it were the answer to an unspoken question.

"Algernon - he has hair like yours. His is one of five Northumbrian families who were in England before the Conquest. He should be as tall as Aucassan. He should be Aucassan to your Nicolette."

375
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88.

"But he's younger."

She was marking time. The golden page was leaning too far out. He had crawled like a lizard to the edge of the rock. There was the crushed fragrance of the bay-leaf. He disappeared over the ledge. But he had not fallen. "You caught him," she said to William Morris.

She said, "he was as slender as an eel, a stripling but all muscle. He lashed out at you, like a whip-snake. Blood dripped where his fangs caught your wrist. You dropped him and he rolled over to the ledge again, but you shouted, 'no one cares about your carcass but it will catch in the bushes and the vultures will show them where we are.'"

It was very quiet in the royal bed-chamber. There was no clock ticking.

"Yes, we might be related," she said, "they called him the fox, like they called me the civet-cat. Judas had red hair and they threw stones at Swinburne of Capheaton in Northumbria."

She said, "his name is Florence."

William Morris said, "there is Florence, the son of Amis or Amile, I don't remember which, in an old French story, called Amis and Amile that he brought me."

Elizabeth Siddall said, "odd, my noticing the dust on

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67.

his jacket when he turned over. It was such clean dust as if
from chiselling. It was your saying Goldwings, that made him
crouch over and fall back, instead of tearing or biting through
your hose as you stood straddling him. Or - it fell from
his hand. It was a blade as thin as only - Toledo it was -
could temper. We were on the edge, weren't we? Not Spain,
but the dividing mountains. I knew the knife and I stooped
down. He let me take it. It was written on the haft, the
name of him who gave it. It was understood, if he were torn
asunder, the one left could follow. It was understood, the
door was open, if the chain snapped. But it was of so fine
welding, it might have been a silk chord. He brought it to me
when he brought the dagger - the Gold Chord, he called it.

"He was to protect the Circle and I was to maintain it.
The Gold Chord was the Circle.

"Funny me remembering how gently you dusted his jacket,
after he stood up.

"Yes, he was as tall, maybe a fraction taller than I
was. Goldwings, you called us."

He was somewhere else. If only there were a clock ticking.
He was writing Golden Wings. William Morris said, "then one
thrust me through the breast with a spear and then I heard my
darling shriek."

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SA

She said, "it wasn't this time. He had gathered us
together in the robe-room behind the altar. We knew of the
stone stairway. Don Gregor said, 'you can not risk that stone',
but Father Magnus said it was no risk. The Knights Credentes
were at hand, obedient. Father Magnus would have taken some
of the Credentes, but they refused to separate.

"Father Magnus had drilled us but only in the alleys of
the crypt. He told us there would be dangers and terrors on
the dark stairs and winding corridors. Don Gregor would be
the last to go. He was powerful enough to support the stone
from within, while from above, the Knights lowered it. It
was a key-stone with degrees marked upon it and a fraction of
a degree out would give away the passage. The Spaniards would
be looking for key-stones and secret markings around the altar
and the inner pavement. The Knights would wait by the altar,
within the great Cathedral."

Said William Morris, "unchanged, unchangeable were its
walls, whatever else changed about it."

"It was hard breathing in the passages and the fear of
fainting took me. We had no light. I pressed my hands to my
heart and felt the clasp of the gold chord. It was two wings,
fashioned after hawk-wings. It was he wore my hawk-feather in
his cap, out of that story of Pisa that I told you - but it

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wasn't Pisa. The sea-road where we cantered was below the
fortress and that was blocked off by - what did you say his
name was?"

"Whose name?" he asked her.

"Him - who burnt the City, blocking it off from the
sea. He had burnt our boats. There was no way through the rock-
wall that backed the great Cathedral. But Father Magnus had
known through Don Gregor, what might happen. Don Gregor was
fighting the Inquisition. It would wait at night at the in-
accessible (so thought) rock-bay - Don Gregor's ship.

"It was sheer down, but if the goats could reach it,
Don Gregor said, we could. Didn't you say there were songs,
sung by the goat-boys?"

"Villanelles, the shepherd-songs," said William Morris.
"It was Simon de Montfort at the time of our Henry III in
England, who destroyed the Kathars."

"Kathars?"

"So called from a Greek word meaning to cleanse, to
purify. They even called them Puritans, at one time."

"Not like our Puritans, here in England."

"No," said William Morris.

She said, "I must go on and not die, suffocated in the
dark. It was, he told me when he gave it to me, the Gold Chord