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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."

"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

342

first day in Chatham Place, when you told me what <u>gules</u>
meant. I wanted to ask you then, what kind of birds would
<u>Three Birds</u> be on a coat."

"I thought it was <u>Eagle displayed.</u>"

"That was one - "

"Quartering."

"I couldn't find any <u>Three Birds</u> in the book, there
were eagles and <u>volant</u> meant a bird flying and <u>close</u> with
its wings folded and there was <u>martlet</u>, 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 <u>mullet</u>, it's a spur," he said.

"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

344

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 Buszard 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 manuel of heraldry
that his father had given him on his tenth birthday, by
heart. That and Gerard's *Herbal* had remained his most
precious possessions. He had been inspired, literally, by

345

the words and the heraldic emblems, when he wrote *Three Red Roses, Crecy and The Wind*. He had written *The Blue Closet* for Gabriel's picture, "a stunning poem", Gabriel had called it, and *The Seven Towers* 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 Buszard'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 *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 *Seven Towers*,"

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she said.

He was thinking of Godfrey and Vernon and Roland. He had called himself Oliver in the *Seven Towers*.

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 the main hall 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 communi-
cative.

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 occupied his nervous, thwarted fingers weaving nets at

347

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 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 Table 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 there 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

349

"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 exalté -
the word that Gabriel had 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 to the window. "These boards need waxing," he said.
"I told the gate-keeper that I was in an architect's office
and wanted to look over the place. 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."

350

"Oh, 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.

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 *Seven Towers*. I called it *The Tune of the Seven Towers*. 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

351

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, *will Godfrey come back from India?*"

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

353

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. 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 mantelpiece and that old clock ticking
and everything 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

354

recurrent happenings. I mean, they were explaining a comet
that is woven on the Bayeux tapestry, as for William conquer-
ing 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 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 fifty-four 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,

356

call geography, because I had rather unexpected news
yesterday from a friend. He's gone East."

"That's what we were talking about, travel 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-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? <u>They simplify some vast plan or state or
dream or idea.</u>"

"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?"

357

"I said, I thought the Lion <u>rampant</u>, 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 - "

"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?"

360

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 repel-
lent to him.

"Well," he spoke brusquely, "she isn't quite lost. I
mean - let me be frank, though I should in other circum-
stance, 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 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 -

361

the impression - "

"Can you contradict an impression?"

"Yes."

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 Godfrey has gone. And I had just now, a special, personal

362

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

363

substitute in the star-signs."

"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
ceremony, making 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

365

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 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 *Gold Cord*. One would want to visit all
the palaces or the houses. There were deer in the forest
for my *Gold Cord*, 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 cord 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

366

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. 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. Oh, well -

"I was born at the end of March," he said.

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

367

"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 broken. Perhaps, it went on, well, with private people, like you and Godfrey and his friend in Paris."

"Roland," said William Morris.

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

"I called myself Oliver in the *Seven Towers*."

"Names make a difference - now Lis."

Now Lis - he tried to circumvent her. "I like the idea of the *Hollow Land* 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

370

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."

...

...

372

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
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

373

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."

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

378

symbol? They were fighting for a door or an entrance
through a mountain. It couldn't have been 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.

379

"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?

"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*?"

400

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.

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.

411

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 cord. He brought it to me when
he brought the dagger - the *Gold Cord*, he called it.

"He was to protect the Circle and I was to maintain it.
The *Gold Cord* 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 tick-
ing. 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."

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 cannot 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

418

"It's a beautiful story," he said casually. It was all imagination. It was her story, even if he was in it. She didn't know Godfrey. Godfrey was standing before the altar. "This - this Gregor," he said, "reminds me a bit of Godfrey."

"You must think of him then, as Godfrey," she said.

"We'd better look at those pictures," he said, but she was seated again in the old-brocade chair. She said, "there's time for the pictures."

"And time for the story - "

"Yes. You think it's tired me but I get more tired when I get stuck somewhere."

"You mean when you can't find a name for one of your characters? I know that feeling."

"Yes, and just now I said halberd to myself. I think you have it in your poems - or in any case, you mention many times, yourself being killed - just now you mentioned it."

"Then one thrust me through the breast with a spear."

"Yes, almost as if it was - how shall I say? Almost as if the act of being killed with a spear was part of you, like Lyddy and me with Mr. Greenacre and that knife."

"But - but -" It was a long way in time, in space to the Knights Credentes and Godfrey before the altar, and Kent Place off Elephant and Castle in the year of - the year of -

422

"I'm not sure about Manfred," he said.

She answered, "nor I - the name came to me, maybe
remembering Byron. To save time, sometimes, I take a name,
any name that just comes. It was you who held open the door,
after Gregor told you he wasn't coming. You would have stayed
with them but it meant, the secret might die out, Gregor said,
and the sacrifice of the Credentes be in vain. It was to save
the Credentes that you consented to follow Magnus. He had
chosen you as disciple."

"But I thought we were all disciples."

"Not in the same sense, not in the sense of Magister or
Magnus."

"Master - of what?"

"I wouldn't know, I wouldn't know," she raised her hands
in a helpless gesture. "They were so mixed down there."

It was what he had told Godfrey. "Saracens," he said,
"beside the Greek foundation and the later Romans - and any
number of lesser colonies from - well, the Phoenicians to
begin with."

"I don't know. I don't know the words - but it was
romantic - "

"Romance - the Rose."

"Donna Anna said, 'you have only to spell it backwards'."

429

"Mr. Ruskin wanted to help me because of Gabriel. It's
Gabriel who charmed him."

"There's Allingham and the people you told me of at
Mrs. Howitt's, Garth Wilkinson, and the others at Oxford, the
Acklands - "

"There are plenty of people, now you bring them to my
notice. There is also, Barbara Leigh-Smith and Bessie Parkes,
besides, I know the Brownings."

The colour had come back to her face.

"That's what I mean, the Brownings." He remembered
Godfrey, "you're a substantial fellow like old Browning, just
whisk her off to Italy or the South."

"Anyway," she flared back at him, "I was trying to work
out that poem. It was confusing."

"It's very clearly stated."

"I don't call that clear."

"Nevertheless, you, O Sir Gauwain, lie - "

"I don't mean that part. I mean those pennants - "

"One of these cloths is heaven, and one hell,
Now choose one cloth forever."

There were spots of flaming colour in her cheeks now.

"She had no choice," said Elizabeth Siddall.

"There is choice between - Flor and magic."

"Do you mean between Halberd and - "

431

told you it was a fairy-tale. You said, that wild-rose was
barbed, meaning with small leaves. I said, it was thorns,
didn't I?"

He said, "yes."

"Why are we waiting, if you want to leave here?"

"You told me you had something to tell me in confidence,
in return for my - Lis."

"I have been trying to tell you. It's that story. It
was being in love - "

So she was in love.

He walked slowly down the long room. He picked up her
mantle and came slowly back. She was standing now, dismissing
an audience or waiting for the executioner.

443

"You had your back to them. You wouldn't see them."

"And they wouldn't see you, crouched in the corner."

She was afraid - she was afraid of people.

"But nothing matters," he said, "because - "

"Being in love makes people careless."

"No," he said, "when love crystallizes out or contracts - how shall I say it? - to its single flame, one is no longer careless. But there are other dangers. As you said, Valérie was burnt out but lighted inside. Godfrey was a flame in crystal. One could not get him away, without smashing the crystal."

"Get him away?"

"He had messages from a table. It was Roland introduced him to what he called the _télégraphe de Dieu_ or talking table."

"Your - your Galahad Order had the talking table?"

"Only for experiment in old Faulkner's rooms at Pembroke. Ted and Dix - one of the fellows, Dixon - began ragging, so we stopped it. But Godfrey and I continued alone. Godfrey and his brother Vernon had apparently taken the matter seriously when Roland introduced them to the table."

"Then, there was Vernon, as well as you and Godfrey?"

"No. Vernon is at Cambridge. He was helping with the

446

covered his tracks, there must be a reason for it. In any
case, he William had his story. It was her story.

He doubted if she were, as she said, "in love." That
is, he doubted if her love or inspiration or illumination
burnt her out like Valérie, like Godfrey. Well, there
was still Roland, balanced and logical (he saw him), impetuous,
romantic, devoted, devout, loyal. He was, if you will, a
survivor of a vanished France. France, however you look
at it, had been destroyed by revolution and by conquest.
But there were a few left.

Roland - wasn't the other chap, Oliver?

William had called himself Oliver, sometimes Olivier.
But he felt now, it might have been an unconscious associa-
tion. He must have known from the beginning, that Godfrey
would leave him.

Was it Charlemagne? There was a narrow defile or
valley - Ronceveau, Roncevalle? - the name eluded him.
Did it matter? There was a trumpet sounding. But his
story had Sicily for its setting and Count Robert for its
champion.

Why Robert? She had said Manfred.

It was an island-story, and however he might try, he
could not get away from Shakespeare. There was a Duke of

448

They called this the Peace Year, and however he might
try to steel himself against these vagrant rumours, he could
not help remembering half-whispered confidences in their
drawing-room after dinner. He had a "safe place" with a
book, on the sofa in the corner. His father and Mr. Worthington
or Mr. Ellis from the city, would inevitably move over from
the fireplace, with their coffee-cups and cigars, and talk of
"India and the Company."

It was part of adventure, Drake, Hawkins, Raleigh.
William Morris had derided what he called the out-moded
Byronic gesture of Carew and his fellows. It was no good.
He didn't know what intrigue was on foot, what danger to the
East India Company. But there had always been whispered
danger.

He had muttered to himself, while Godfrey in the candle-
light, lifted the decanter to re-fill their glasses, "Carew,
some damned Elizabethan or Lovelace fellow." So was Godfrey!
You couldn't break their Brotherhood, "cup-bearer to King
Charles, damned Royalist."

But there was another Brotherhood and Godfrey was of
it, with his lyric translations of de Fontenelle's findings
at the Bibliothèque. You might say that every cavalier,
every King's gentleman was a rhymster, as he was a swordsman
by profession. There was one gentleman - hardly of their

449

company - whose game was only one remove from single-stick.
He was an archer, like every stable-boy on the common.

He was a vagrant, a gypsy, a strolling-player.

William Morris never talked of William Shakespeare
except to challenge him, as he had challenged Godfrey.

You would die of worship if you let yourself go.

You would never write another line.

He had said to Godfrey, if he was anybody, he was Giles
the forester, in his play.

He had said that Shakespeare had mapped out all enchant-
ment.

But there was a gap, those years between. Chaucer
belonged to the middle-ages; there was a tradition that
Chaucer had met Petrarch at Padua. Dante - Petrarch -
Chaucer. Before Dante, the troubadours.

Yes, they went to Sicily.

It was, he told himself, a walled city. She had not
spoken of the bay-blossom but the crushed fragrance of the
bay-leaf. It was winter. Algernon had spoken of Nordic
runes for his Provence play. It had seemed a contradiction.
But the Vikings were sea-rovers. Ruskin had spoken of a stone
lion in Venice, scratched with the names of Sea-kings.

He had thought of Vikings and the singers of Provence
as widely separated in time and in space.

450

But were they? What did he know of either? And nearer home, the Normans were Norsemen. Duke Robert was a Norman.

You could get (in Algernon's play) a migrant Norse Chief meeting his counterpart in Robert of Sicily. But this was not Algernon's play, though Algernon had first inspired him with his talk of Vikings influencing or being influenced by the singers of Provence.

There were both Southern French and Northern French in Sicily - Franks.

There were the earlier settlements of Greeks and Romans. Sicily was conquered by Duke Robert. Who conquered England?

The story was later than Duke William. He had told her (Flor) that Simon de Montfort was a contemporary of the Plantagenet Henry III. Henry II was the father of Richard Lion-heart. They were still sea-rovers.

But Eleanor, Richard's mother, if he was not mistaken, was of the province (Provence). They met even here in England, the Viking and the troubadour. One did not have to go to Sicily to find the School of Love challenged by the Conqueror.

But it was the School that challenged the Conqueror, Robert in Sicily.

He himself was Hallebarde. Even in Provence, you may have a Viking forebear. He was Hal; he was of the

451

Knights Credentes, Halberd or Hallebarde.

He was of the School, as they had already come to call
the Church in England. He was Hal the Bard, with the illu-
minati.

Had they ever forgotten? He did not think so. He
had said to Godfrey (almost his last words to him), "it's all
there, all this, everything - the Templars, Shakespeare,
Raleigh."

It was in answer to Godfrey's question, "The School of
Night?"

They went by contradiction, renversé. It must have
been the School of Light.

Its law was preserved in the set metres of lai and
chanson. No doubt, to the initiate, there were still further
inner readings in the vers or verset.

Runic - divinatory.

But we need not spoil the texture of the verset to
understand the message, any more than it is necessary to
pull a rose to pieces to get at its secret.

Flor - adore - before - door - floret - verset.

Ships sail through the Heaven
With red banners dress'd,
Carrying the planets seven
To see the white breast

*Mariae Virginis.*

454

was Aucassan and Nicolette? He had been surprised when he
got back to his rooms, after their last meeting, to find
he had been mistaken about Amis and Amile. There were two
stories of the period. Florence was in The Tale of King
Florus and the Fair Jehane. He had referred to himself as
Florian, when she first spoke of Flor.

Florence was the son of King Floris and Floria was his
daughter.

There was Jehane too. Perhaps it was because of Jehane
that he had confused the stories. He wanted a different
ending for his Golden Wings.

I cannot stay here all alone,
Or meet their happy faces here,
And wretchedly I have no fear;
A little while, and I am gone.

But she had fear. She was still wretchedly obsessed.

Why has she a broken sword?
Mary! She is slain outright -
that was the end of Tall Jehane & Castel-beau.

He had called her Jehane in Golden Wings.

But Jehane was someone else now. He did not know who.

Jehane was the friend or companion of Hallebarde in the
story. In the original tale, she was the wife of the King.
In this story, she might be the sister of Florus.

She was not Margaret, not de Liliis, not Alys.

I

"I see you have succumbed at last," said Gabriel.

"A fellow must rest sometimes."

"I don't mean that."

"You mean my blue shirt?"

"Partly. I was thinking of your brushes."

"Brushes?"

"You've found a use at last, for your white ties."

"That was Ted's idea."

"I doubt it. Ted is not eccentric nor does he encourage eccentricity in others. He works like a vernisseur. He'd never hang his brushes in the window on a white tie. It's not done. He's not a rebel. There's no rebellion in him. He's a disciple, a follower, an imitator - "

"I thought you liked Ted's work."

"So I do. But he would never order a cupboard or a sideboard or a settle or whatever you call this thing, until he'd taken the measurements of the door it was to come in by. This will never be forgotten."

458

"No," said William Morris.

"It will always be held against you, this - "

"It was my first essay at designing furniture."

"It's not furniture, it's a luggage van. It's like
you. It's as long as it's broad. It's clumsy. It's unusual.
I ask myself, is it a barn? Is it an Ark? What made you
think of it, anyway?"

"We had to have furniture. You admired the table."

"That's sheer refectory. Perhaps you're right.
Perhaps it's all monastic. But I prefer the stuffiness of
the Bishop's palace, heavy velvets, brocades - Bill calls
me a *brocanteur* - candelabra - "

"Why do you waste your good paint then, on those doors?"

"They're not my paints, they're Ted's."

"I've heard you called an indolent fellow. Do you
never stop work?"

"My salutation," said Gabriel Rossetti.

Gabriel had chosen to paint the *Salutation of Beatrice*,
on one of the doors of the already famous settle that had
had to be dismantled before it could enter the door of No. 17,
Red Lion Square. It had three shutters over the seat.
Gabriel Rossetti remembered Walter Deverell. He might even
now be standing behind his shoulder. "I'm sorry Gabriel, but

459

I can't kick you out." Deverell might be speaking to him. He might be speaking to Deverell. The pale wraith was standing on the estrade, the wedgewood-blue, discarded from Aunt Charlotte's drawing-room, did not quite match her eyes. She stood behind him. But that was another picture. It was the Blessed Damozel that she said he hadn't thanked her for. He had never thanked Lizzie.

"Speaking of salutation," said Gabriel, still kneeling on the broad seat of the settle, "don't you like Lizzie?"

William Morris did not answer.

Gabriel Rossetti turned, "I asked you a question," he
said.

William Morris said, "I heard you." The blue shirt
and the rough beard did not alter his manner; on the other
hand, they seemed to emphasize an Oxford insolence that
Gabriel had not noticed while Morris was at Oxford. William
Morris was more assured, he seemed much older though it
was less than a year ago that he and Edward Burne-Jones had
moved into Red Lion Square. Said Rossetti, "the first sketch
I did of Lizzie was in this studio. It was Deverell's
place though I elbowed my way in."

"So Ted told me, but he didn't put it that way."

"Ted tells you everything?"

460

"No doubt, Ted told you why Lizzie swep' out and went to live in Hampstead. Did you see Lizzie in Spring Cottage? You might have popped in after a judicious, professional visit to Keat's House - only two minutes walk around the corner. You are interested, I believe, in restoration - or should I say preservation?" Gabriel stepped back as if to view the blocked-in blue and crimson on the wooden panel.

William Morris remained stretched in what Gabriel had called (at their first talk in Chatham Place) undergraduate abandon.

Morris had an air of independence which he had lacked while he was in Street's office. He had given up the office and spent his nights and days at life-classes and poring over old manuscripts and records. Gabriel did not spoil his gesture, his stage-business, by too prolonged a survey of the panel. "Fra Pace," he said, "was done in X - a sort of chess-board idea, I was working on. I built the *Return of Tibullus to Delia* on single arches. It was a later development, experimental really. *Hamlet* and *Ophelia* and *Cassandra* (the first ones) were pure chess-board. Would water-colour technique take better on this board? Do you remember *Galahad at the Shrine*, *The Blue Closet*, *The Tune of the Seven Towers*, *The Marriage of Saint George* - all

461

water-colours. Will a wooden panel go with my first Dante's
_Dream_? To whom belongs the panel? It's your Ark. If I
paint my sublime masterpiece on its front-door, is the
Ark mine?" Rossetti turned round. "But I asked you some
time back, another question."

"I remember _The Tune of the Seven Towers_," said William
Morris.

"Your poem was my inspiration - perhaps it is only
fair, that my inspiration should be your poem."

"You have many inspirations," said William Morris.

"Man does not live by bread alone," said Gabriel, "and
contrariwise - well, inspiration, as I had occasion once
to tell you, does not wear me out. It wears out other
people. Do you remember my speaking of inspiration, the
first time I saw you?"

"I remember everything you said, if you mean the first
time I saw you alone."

"Which being the case, why should you assiduously avoid
the opportunity of seeing me alone, since?"

"Since when?"

"Since the beginning."

"There were too many people about."

"You mean Gus?"

465

about an old plan you'd once had. It wasn't exactly my idea, but she blamed me. We would all get together, on the lines of some scheme you'd mapped out at Oxford."

"Theema," Morris condescended to growl. "Abbey of Theema."

"A sort of monastic order - yes - but with wives. Ted's Lady Greensleeves was already in love with a place she'd found in Kensington - I think it was - somewhere. Cedar Lodge or Cedar Villa - we'd call it Cedar Abbey. I had been over the ground so many times with Lizzie. The last time was in Paris. I concluded that it bored her - the idea of getting married. I was for chucking it all here and taking her to - "

William Morris turned round. Rossetti wanted to tell him something. He couldn't say it. Morris knew the feeling.

"Where did you want to take her?"

"Florence," said Gabriel Rossetti.

"Why didn't you go to Florence?"

"Why? Why? Why? Why did I come back to England? Why did I let Lizzie come back?"

"I am glad you came back," said William Morris. The words caught in his throat but he had to say them. He produced a box of matches. He laid it on the table. Gabriel did not see it. "When I close my eyes, I see things in my head, here,"

474

"Why blundered?

"It's an *impasse*. No one gets any further."

"Any further than - what?"

"Why the idea, the title, the beginning - the what do you call it - the prologue."

"She called her story, you remember, *Gold Cord*."

"She would, somehow," drawled Gabriel Rossetti.

He went over to the window. The light was fading on the lilies, and the marigolds were turned in on themselves like marsh-buds lost in their thick leaves. Gabriel did not want to talk about the Albigensians, the troubadours, the Kathars. It was all in Dante. How talk about it to a fellow who didn't know Italian? He would have to explain from the beginning. It was madness. And it was - it was - it was his father's Dante.

"You think me impertinent," said William Morris, "to come crashing in on - on - "

Gabriel did not answer. Then (but toward the window and half whispered), "l'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle."

"What - " said William Morris.

It was very still in the room.

Gabriel thought, "Oh God, what would I not give to have the answer." There might be hope yet, though they had gone over the papers, and studied the cramped notes and entrances

475

in their father's earliest edition and the later printings
of the *Commedia*. This was his country. Lizzie might have
picked up a few crumbs, hearing him and Bill shouting at
one another. Gabriel forgot that when he and his brother
argued about Dante, they shouted in Italian.

"It was the names," said William Morris. He could let
it go now. He had offended Gabriel. He could let this go
now, but he couldn't ... not now. He had committed himself
to the story, to Lis and the *Gold Cord* that bound them, that
bound them all together. Gabriel was whispering Italian.

"What are you saying, Gabriel?"

"*L'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle*," said
Gabriel.

II

"I don't have to borrow money," said Rossetti, "commissions are rolling in, but I've lost my model. Can you work that out?"

"No," said William Morris. But he was lost now.

"I think I've heard of - er - Lushington. I must have met him."

"I don't think so."

"I'm sure I've met him somewhere. He was around with Ted. He was working on the paper, the *Oxford and Cambridge*."

"You might have met his brother. He was back and forth from Cambridge. Godfrey was at Balliol." And now, William didn't want to talk of Godfrey. He did not want to talk of Vivien and the King's Wood. It seemed far away, thin, tenuous, colourless, embroidered as he had first visualised the scene in faded blue, grey and dull brown. The crimson and sea-purple of Gabriel Rossetti's least expression, his intimate, trivial or even base experience, burnt out the fawn and sepia like a fire sweeping through a forest. He

478

"Bocca baciata," said Rossetti.

"It was that that sent me raving in the Palace - the
royal room at Hampton Court. It was the last time I saw her
alone."

Even now, though the sun had sunk behind the plane-trees, to his left (he oriented himself as he stood there), across and behind Kensington and the river at Kew, he felt the flame - or heard it almost -

"The marigold that goes to bed with the sun," said
Gabriel Rossetti.

"Couldn't you have called it *The Marigold*?" said
William Morris. The voice came from far off, yet it was his
voice speaking. It was his voice speaking, "Couldn't you
have called it *The Marigold*?" It wasn't Shakespeare, it
wasn't Dante speaking.

The voice matched the long wooden trestle-table, the
blocked-in outline of the enormous cupboard-settle. It was
the same voice that had said to Elizabeth Siddall, now
almost a year ago, "These forget-me-nots are funny, aren't
they? I am almost certain that we had this very tea-set in
our nursery."

"You said there was another chap, as well."

"Rolando."

480

"I have that job for you at Oxford before you get onto
your leaves," said Gabriel Rossetti.

"I don't paint well enough to help in your Union venture,"
said Morris. "Ted is wild about it."

"You paint as well as some of the chaps. Faulkner is
putting his mathematical mind to work, on some line-patterns.
You can begin painting your flower-patterns on the ceiling
or fill up the bays."

"Sun-flowers," said William Morris. He thought of
hollyhocks, cream, rose, pale-rose, black-purple. "I could
do a mallow-pattern."

"Better stick to sun-flowers. What did you say her
name was?"

"Her name? I don't remember - "

"The girl, the sister he thought he had killed. You
were saying it was the names."

"I was thinking of the names in the <u>Gold Cord</u>. At least - "

"What were the names in the <u>Gold Cord</u>?

"She called herself Fleur, then Flor. Florence came in.
I had called myself Florian in the <u>Hollow Land</u>."

"Who was Florence?"

"A page, a - a troubadour. It - it was a name out of
King <u>Florus</u>, an old French story that Algernon had lent me."

487

new translation of Virgil and of Homer."

Rossetti went on, "Dante makes much of Mantua in the
greeting."

"I don't follow."

"Virgil, the Mantuan. Romeo was banished to Mantua.
Don't you suppose it was Virgil started the Roma-Amor? I
have never tried to trace it."

Gabriel Rossetti said, "Mora is feminine, really, but
we needn't be too pedantic."

William Morris thought, "The School of Night. But this
is going too far, too quickly."

He flung out at random. "I spoke to Godfrey of the
Minnesingers. He was working at translations, Marie de
France and - someone else. De Fontenelle was studying the
originals - "

"De Fontenelle?"

"Roland, Rolando. He was working at the Bibliothèque
in Paris."

Had he interrupted Gabriel? Had he interfered with his
train of association?

Gabriel was gazing at the red wine in the goblet.

He had not tasted the wine.

It was true, the candle-flame might be marking a ruby
on the table.

499

"I was looking at the - the ruby on the table."

"Qual fin balascio in che la sol percuota," said Gabriel Rossetti.

"And that's a funny thing," said Gabriel, while Morris found and fitted fresh candles in the saucers, "Dante speaks of the ruby, _rubin_ or _balascio_, as he calls it in this instance, in connection with an alleged leader of the so-called crusade against the Albigensians. He says Folquet is like a fine ruby, or a fine-cut or fine-turned _rubis balais_, on which the sun strikes or through which the sun shines. He puts him in the Paradise, in the third heaven, the heaven of Venus."

"Then Dante - "

"No. The whole _Commedia_ is a sort of Bible or Book of Hours of the so-called heretical church."

"But this - "

"Folquet de Marseille was a troubadour. Dante followed his pattern in some of the early canzoni and the _Vita_. It was Folquet, the later Bishop, who is said to have inflamed Rome against the Albigensians. But Dante put the somewhat disreputable Cunizza, mistress of Sordello, in the same heaven, and Rahab the harlot. Their utterances are all ambiguous."

But Gabriel Rossetti was marking time. It was easier to explain or try to explain the sybilline obscurity of

506

circle. It dwindled down and some of them dropped out. It
always happens. But I told you all this?"

"When would you have told me?"

"Well, just now. I seem to be repeating myself. I
have told myself the story so often, in the past year. It
was luminous when Godfrey told it, like pictures seen in
crystal. I felt Godfrey was shut up in crystal. But you
make it seem real."

"It's real enough," said Gabriel. "They could have been
had up for conspiracy."

"Conspiracy?"

"Yes - believe it or not. The girl was so desperate that
she wrote Dr. Ely of their meetings, their circle on the river.
Ely had saved her letters. He had smelt a rat in that 'Dear
Princess'. Would you say the girl was a fool?"

"Why - Gabriel - "

"The circle had dwindled down to three of them.
Trust me - Gus had found out who they were."

"What harm was there in that?"

"Harm? An empty cottage - "

"Perhaps not quite a cottage, a cottage in the Petit
Trianon tradition was Godfrey's phrase, as I remember."

"Tant pis. So very much the worse. A girl of the
noblesse (I don't mean the new nobility) meets her lover - "

508

Godfrey, his last talk with Lis.

"You - you - "

"Well, you might as well hear the end of it. Where
are those sandwiches you spoke of? I shadowed Roland."

"It was Roland?"

"It couldn't have been anyone but Fontenelle. I'll
tell you about it, later. I asked, when we started talking,
why I came back to England. Why? Why? Why? I came back
to keep an eye on Gus - and on Ted and Tops," said Gabriel
Rossetti.

511

set. But we started talking in the day-light."

"It was you who saw the ruby on the table."

"It wasn't there really, it was like Godfrey telling me of Roland, reflected from the crystal wine-glass. We'll make some red glass. I knew you were lying when you said you shadowed Roland. You could never be a shadow. What - what's light in ruby?"

"Watcher mean? Light in ruby?"

"What you said, when I changed the candles for the first time."

"Qual fin balascio in che la sol percuota wasn't Richmond. Did you call him Richmond? She called him Gregor. Ain't they the same person? I don't care for history myself. I called Gus, Calliostro. I had to talk about him, there in Paris, or bust, so I called him Calliostro. Couldn't see myself at Trianon. So I set the scene in Venice. I had to follow her around, in my imagination. An island-story? Sicily? It works out. Count Robert was a Frank. You'll find him and Manfred too, in Dante. D'you see what I mean? A foot-note to a foot-note or bust. I mean le trèpied de Phoebus. It's very simple. Who were you anyway in the circle?"

"I - I was Pal - Pal - "

"Pal - that you are! You can't say Palomydes. You ain't him, anyway. Wasn't he the chap that was after Iseult?

519

her twelve castles, her star-signs, most poignantly remembering,
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.

"Ah, yes - her beautiful face. I believe Ruskin admires
her vastly." The candles were sputtering again, double candles
reflected in double mirrors, did Gabriel say she said in Paris?
Had he seen her across the footlights? Lyddy used to say I
ought to go on the stage, after my doing Aunt Day for her.

"You'll - you'll remember me to Miss Siddall when you
write her."

"Miss Siddall? I thought we were talking of Miss Herbert.
And why suddenly so - so stiffish, as Liz once reminded me I
called Wykeham Deverell. Liz had an uncanny way sometimes,
of remembering. She could repeat whole conversations. Lord
knows, what she and Dev talked of. He told her her voice
wasn't strong enough for the stage. Whoever thought it would
be? She's too tall, anyway. Did Liz talk to you of acting?"

"Only in connection with a story about her sister -
entertaining her sister when neither of them could sleep."

"It isn't such a bad crib. I went over there. Lydia's
another stunner but she's getting married to some newspaper
fellow. Lydia would do for Oxford; I used her for a Queen
of Cyprus, but I didn't see the Roman after her engagement -

521

in time - and a Mermaid, dragging a man down to the depth.
Do you think he thinks Lizzie is a Mermaid?

"I never talk to Ted of - of Lis."

"Nor I, neither. But Ted will be on the line before we
know it. I told Dev it was a rotten picture, his first,
*Entracte or At the Ball* or something of that sort, he called
it, and the one after that was Lizzie. Lizzie and me and
Dev himself, as Orsino - my God, what a coincidence. I mean
Orsino is the Duke, you remember in *Twelfth Night*. Dev did
his own portrait for it. Lizzie was Viola."

"I - I remember."

"Did you see the picture? Hanged if I know where it's
got to. I finished *The Marriage* after - after - "

"The Marriage?"

"*Of Rosalind and Orlando*. Fancy Dev, Orsino and Gus in
this Orsini business. Could anyone have invented that? Did
she ever tell you how she met Dev?"

"Someone, perhaps Ted, said it was his mother going to
a bonnet-shop."

"I don't mean that. Everyone knows that story. I mean,
did she tell you who put Dev onto his mother buying a bonnet,
in the first place?

"She was standing on the *estraude*. It was in this very
room. He had come in that door. Dev immediately suggested,

526

twice a week, at the School of Art and gone about, visiting
the various sites, the chasm, the shale hill, getting almost
to Hope one day, on an excursion with a group of students.
Lyddy wrote home that Lizzie had never looked better.

It was getting away from Gabriel and all of them that
made her look better. For a time, she played her small part
in a small town - or rather her large part. She was important.
They listened to her. She had been to Paris.

She was not unusual looking, not for Sheffield, and she
adopted herself to the fashions, with just those artful,
almost unnoticeable touches that made all the difference.
She was one person, Elizabeth Siddall, connection of the
Ibbitts; Sara taught drawing and was impressed with her,
her brother worked at music when out of the factory. She was
a student with other students, none of whom were particularly
gifted.

Not that she needed the laudanum, the pain wasn't that
bad. It was being reminded - funny! While Lyddy was here,
she was too occupied taking Lyddy about, to be reminded.
Not that there was much to do compared to London, even
compared to Sheffield. She was glad that she would no longer
be forced to take an interest in what they called in Sheffield,
the development. She could keep out of what was fast growing
to a resort, and fashionable, mostly for rich invalids.

536

touched him in the Palace. It was Death touched her, Dad
suggesting her being dishonourable and with Gabriel. It
was being alone, standing there by the table with the music-
folder on it, and for all her blind infatuation of him, when
she was *that* high, and him playing the violin and reading
aloud to them, and speaking as anyone could see, like a
gentleman, she knew that she must walk out of that room with
her head high, because it wasn't only Gabriel but Mr. Ruskin,
Professor Ruskin of Oxford, thought well enough of her to
offer her like it might be almost seven times what Mrs.
Tozer offered her, what Dad was about to offer her to go
back to the shop.

And "wry-necked", like Charles Dickens called the Christ
Child in John Everett Millais' *The Carpenter Shop*, she had
looked back, only with not enough "loathsome minuteness".
It wouldn't make any difference anyway, whether she wrote Mr.
Morris or not, she wasn't writing anyone but Lyddy and Gabriel
just to quiet *his* conscience, and keep him from rushing up,
on an impulse, to Matlock. But she could think things out
here, and what did it matter if she got into a fever? It
was worth it.

539

stalking her round the tan-yards. She still had Lyddy to
talk to nights, before Lyddy quieted, sitting propped upright
in bed. But when Dad spoke of honour and "my favourite
daughter", she knew that she must walk away from that table
and get to the door somehow, away from him who had always
till now, stood between her and the terror. She walked away
in her sleep - her nightmare, she had called it to Mr. Morris
in the royal bed-room.

Dad was no longer there between her and the terror, so
she worked herself into a story - it was the very night she
came back, sitting alone in the basket-chair in Chatham Place,
thinking of the cholera.

She had made up stories for herself and sometimes for
Lyddy. But for the first time, the story was outside her,
she had only to watch it happening. O, it wasn't so clear,
it didn't go on like a proper page in a book, more like a
dream it was, but she was awake when he came out of the forest
with her hawk-feather in his cap. There was that coat too,
with *Eagle displayed* as well as *Three Birds* and the word
*Honour*.

She thought of Walter Deverell and that picture he
hadn't even begun, but talked much of, *The Flight of an
Egyptian Ibis*. Why should she think of that now? Was it

541

the old barge, drawn up at low tide. It wasn't always pleasant and she would hurry past the wharves, boys sometimes shouted at her, but there was no use wasting time, anyhow making herself conspicuous, she was on a secret errand. She was walking across the river to Mrs. Tozer's but that wasn't the secret errand.

Dr. Wilkinson seemed to know somehow, that she was some-
where else, when she was about her business. She must give
up her work. She had already almost as good as given it up.
She did not tell him that the fever burnt her out more -
well, she never blamed John Everett Millais for the floating
draperies.

"In proportion," Garth Wilkinson had said, "as your mind
over-clarifies with acute, cerebral perception, your body
weakens." He explained exactly what he meant by cerebral
perception. It was a special sort of thinking, he said,
but it wasn't the consumption. She knew they thought she had
consumption, when they took her to him.

Yes, it might have been Garth Wilkinson in the forest,
but it just wasn't. He wasn't in his way so unlike Mr. Ruskin,
both of them tall men with those eyes, set like glass-agates.

But Mr. Ruskin wasn't satisfied and sent her to Dr.
Ackland. That was some time after, but Dr. Ackland said

III

It came back. She couldn't remember how many times she
had had that same dream. It was always of course, different
and she forgot the details, or the dream altogether, till
it came back. This time, she would try to remember it;
perhaps if you remembered it and didn't let it go for very
terror, you might rid yourself of it. It might never come
back. She didn't want to write it down - could she? A
dream vanished when you tried to recollect it, or you let
it go, if it was the nightmare.

It would be better to go out, with the sun shining.
They brought her breakfast on a tray, she only had the tea and
toast and a boiled egg that Mrs. Cartlidge insisted on. She
had set the tray on the dresser in the hall and now she sat,
half-dressed, with her house-robe wrapped around her. It
would be better to go out. She was really stronger and she
liked the old town and looking in the windows of the new row
of shops, too, on the promenade. The old town wasn't changed

553

told him of - but she couldn't write it, it startled her so much, and she didn't want that name in her book. It was *Greenacre* - the nightmare.

There was the voice singing. Dad's father or grand-father - was it? - sang in the Cathedral at Sheffield, but this song wasn't Church music. It was as if something held them, held her, while she was with them, a tension, an excitement, like before going to a play. Gabriel had written her of Miss Herbert's benefit at Oxford. Miss Herbert was a lady, you could feel it in every word that she spoke.

"*Ladies who have intelligence in love*," she wrote down in her note-book. It was a line that Gabriel had translated from one of the Dante poems in the *Vita Nuova*. It was life, *New Life*, those ladies and she was, for the moment, one of them, in complete harmony and excited, but she lost them. There could be ladies like that, but it wouldn't be Annie Miller or Miss Cornforth, as Fanny Hughes called herself now.

Old-fashioned people called a churchyard, God's acre, sometimes.

The Devil was an old-fashioned concept, Dr. Wilkinson had said. But children are frightened by what some way, they always hear of - the Devil with horns. There was that voice singing, God - "Godfrey", she wrote down. He was silver and a fencer. That contrasting dream, she had had, some weeks

558

She had only partly confessed to Dr. Wilkinson and hid from
Dr. Ackland how her heart took her.

They wouldn't notice, for she took care to go to them
for consultation, only when she was well. It would go on
for days sometimes, after the terror, and for the most part,
it was dream-terror. She was certain you could die of a
dream, but she felt exultant. Garth Wilkinson had given her
the idea.

The Greensleeves were the ladies that belonged to the
Credentes.

577

the year before he married - that was the year before she married. The Defence wasn't the success it should have been, they said, because of Tennyson and the Idylls, appearing about then. She couldn't think of the Defence, without remembering that last talk in the Palace.

It was all there in the cards before her - or was she making it up?

It was remembering and at the same time remembering in the future. Had she thought that, or had someone thought it for her?

I am so happy. I have found everything. It is what he said, "we have everything," when we spoke of the star-patterns, the signs from the herald manual and the Saint book.

Looking at that card, the Wheel, you might be looking at a picture of St. Katherine, set above an altar. Then looking at it, you got into a state of remembering, like she was now, remembering in the future.

She was glad Gabriel had gone out.

One of these cloths is heaven, and one hell, Now choose one cloth for ever

he had quoted to her from the Defence, that last time at the Palace. She said, she had no choice then, but she had it now,

587

"Blanchelys," said Gabriel.

"That's one of your poems - "

"So I told him, it was no accident."

"Her being thrown?"

"I am talking of Blanchelys. It was a long time ago,
but ma chère, I can still help you."

Was he laughing?

"Gabriel - "

"It will even be in accord with the strictest laws of
the Commedia. And easy with the Red House, my studio and
your room here, planned to his taste - "

"Gabriel - "

"It is an angel's name. Did you ever stop to wonder?"

There was the Angel in those cards. But it wasn't
Gabriel.

The Angel was fourteen, seven plus seven. Dad said she
was good at numbers.

The laws of the Commedia? Did he mean the commedia
dell'arte that he sometimes spoke of?

"Do you mean Columbine, Harlequin and those clowns?"

"I am speaking of the Commedia of Dante."

"The Divine Comedy?"

"Dante called it the Commedia. They added La Divina,

588

two hundred years later."

"I can't see that that has anything to do with - with - "

"You don't know Dante."

"You can't take away the ideal. I was Beatrice, I was the Damozel. If you'd known me less, you might have kept the ideal. You can't - "

"Jane Morris is coming to the studio. You can keep out of her way and she can keep out of your way - "

"It won't work. Even if I wanted it, it won't work. He loves Janey."

She threw out the suits, hearts were cups; she had read on the back of the box, it was modelled from playing-cards or playing-cards were modelled from these; maybe it was just a legend, their hinting on the back, the cards were so old. She kept the court-cards separate, then decided to include them with the others. They were the usual, with a page added.

The cards that were numbered, they called the *Arcana*. They were Roman numerals, I to XXII.

Like a clock, she thought, as she sorted them, laying them out, from I to XII, then making an inner circle of the XIII to XXII. That meant two cards had no doubles, the XI and the XII.

589

There was a reason for that. It was part of pictures, peeled off from a wall at Pisa. The *campo santo* it was, and that procession or series or circle was *The Triumph of Death*.

But *Death* didn't triumph. You passed him, the XIII, and went on to XIV, the *Angel*.

It was a clock ticking; Mrs. Howitt called them rapping Spirits.

It was the *Gold Cord*. It was the circle she was to cherish in the story.

She and Algernon were twins there. Goldwings, he called us.

We were Flor and Florence in the story. He was Florian de Liliis in the *Hollow Land*. He was Hallbarde in the story.

She had finished the story.

You do not have to write the story when you have the answer.

It was all there on the table.

Algernon could put it in his play, the Albigensians, the *Albigenses*, he called it.

"Lizzy - Lily," Gabriel had mocked at her.

So he had loved her. She could live that story.

She didn't have to paint any more. She had striven too hard to justify herself, her position, Mr. Ruskin's faith in her.

590

There was Mr. Ruskin. They hadn't seen so much of him lately. He had been, in the beginning, set against the new faith. Mary said, now he had comfort in communication.

There was Mr. Ruskin. Algernon would help her. It might even be that Gabriel and she might go to Florence. Florence was Algernon, that page in the green jacket. Perhaps Algernon could come with them.

She looked round the room. She didn't want to leave it.

She had talked to William Morris alone, for the first time, in the long room when Gabriel was looking out his sketches. She had slipped in the unfinished picture that he wanted, among the pieces that Gabriel had put together for their wedding-present.

She remembered how she had propped it up, in Weymouth Street, before her mirror and read the poems he sent her.

She still had *Red Roses*, folded where it had first been, in her work-basket.

"Rossetti - roses," he had said, "my rose is a lily."

She had seen him alone, those times at Hampton Court, and only once, after. They had talked together at the Red House, but not properly alone.

It was here in this room, that she had last talked to him.

"I think I should tell you," he said, "I told Gabriel

591

about the circle - "

She wondered why he thought that he must tell her.

" - and de Fontenelle, in Paris."

"That was a long time ago."

"It was part of the table that I'm leaving with you."

She must not look any longer, at the cards. If you went on wondering about them, it only brought confusion. It was as if an hour struck, when you found the right card. It was the *Angel*, XIV.

That second circle or inner circle, passed *Death*, XIII and went on, out of clock-time.

She collected the cards, counting them in their order, I to XXII.

There were those Roman numerals, she remembered, the date of her birth, on the folder of the drawings, and Florence was Firenze; she remembered the basket-chair and her worry about cholera and about Gabriel and Fanny.

There, she started on her story. It was her out-rider in the feather-cap. It wasn't William Morris.

William Morris had given Godfrey to her, and the table.

It was the Knights Credentes. It wasn't just one person. It was Godfrey. She had called him George, Gregor and Gereon, but she had wanted a name, in case she showed the story.

593

Odd, his reminding her of those two in Paris. She
didn't quite place Roland ... to the dark tower came.

There was that *Tower* in the cards, XVI, it was.

Last night, before falling asleep, she had run round
them. She knew them off, by heart. But there was some
special consolation, laying them on the table. She placed
the books and her work-basket, back on the blue cloth.

*Now choose one cloth forever.*

It was that way with Gabriel; as they said of him,
he was the ruby-glass in the window. You couldn't decide
against him.

It wasn't only his painting and his poetry, he was
following on his father, a Dante authority and a scholar.

"You don't know Dante," he had said. He was jeering
at her, but it didn't matter. There in Florence, Algernon
would help her with Italian.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti had never been to Italy.

He had talked of Florence, that first time in Paris.
Perhaps, she should have gone with him, then.

But then, she would have missed the story.

It was his story, *Hand and Soul*, he called it.

Or it was *The Hollow Land* of William Morris.

She never did make out why Margaret - but Margaret
was Lis. She was Margaret.