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By Root 2355 0

older. Gilbert’s given up ‘hunting’, he says all he ever wanted was love and he’s got mine. It’s all somehow suddenly simple and innocent. (It seems to me now we were all brainwashed about ‘sex’!) Please understand, dear dear Charles, and do not be angry. You know (and I won’t go on about this because it used to annoy you) how much Gilbert loves you too. Really he worships you. But he’s so frightened now. He says you’ll come with a troika and carry me off to the gipsies. (I suppose that’s a quotation, you always said I read nothing but Shakespeare and then only my own part!) He is frightened of you still, and so am I. The habit of obeying you is strong in both of us! Don’t use your power to hurt us. You could put the most terrible pressure on us, only don’t do it. Be generous, dear heart. You could drive us both mad. We’ve come a long road to solving our problems, and if some people think it’s a funny solution that’s just because they lack imagination and intelligence. And you lack neither.

Charles, I don’t want to see you now, yet. I’d simply succumb. I’ve got to recover from your letter. Please write and say you are not angry. When I am calmer let’s meet, and you must come here and see Gilbert too. There must be a way. Your letter has made an aching emptiness and a need and I shall not be the same. But I am happy here and Gilbert needs me and we have this house (it’s half a house actually) which we have made together, and if I left him it would be a terrible smash-up for both of us, we’d be in pieces. (Anyway I don’t know what you want—and whatever it was you may not want it now. Oh God.) Gilbert says you must in the end receive us as if we were your children. Oh Charles, I am amazed at the strength of those forces which I commanded to sleep. It is all there still, all my old love for you. Somehow, let us not waste love, it is rare enough. You have thought of me, you have written to me, so sweetly, so generously. Can we not love each other and see each other at last in freedom, without awful possessiveness and violence and fear, now that we are growing old? I do so want us to love each other, but not in a way that would destroy me. I’ve felt so sad for years about you. My love for you has always had a sad face. Oh the weakness of the power of love! You feel you can compel the beloved, but it’s an illusion! I am crying as I write this. Please write at once, and say that we can meet later, in a little while, and that you won’t stop loving me. Somehow don’t lose that love, the love, whatever it may be, that made you write that letter. And we will look at each other.

Always yours—

Lizzie.

I have been sitting for some time in the little red room, where I have at last lit a successful fire. The chimney seems to have got over its smoking fit. Perhaps it was just that the wood was too wet?

I have read Lizzie’s letter through twice. Of course it is a silly inconsistent woman’s letter, half saying the opposite of what it is trying to say. Lizzie cannot quite refrain from offering herself. And of course she does, in answer to my deliberately cool missive, protest too much. A cleverer woman might have replied coolly and let me read between the lines. A cleverer woman, or a less sincere one. Lizzie’s letter has its own little attempts at ambiguity, but they are transparent. Poor Lizzie. I cannot take the stuff about Gilbert Opian too seriously, though I do feel cross with her for not having told me and I feel she has broken her promise. Besides, what are their relations? Lizzie’s proximity is surely enough, even now, to convert any man to heterosexuality. (Her breasts are enough.) Do they drink cocoa together in their dressing gowns? The whole thing is rather horrid. Of course Gilbert is nothing, he is a man of twigs, I could crush him with one hand and take Lizzie with the other. I certainly cannot envisage any platonic love trio. From the date of Lizzie’s letter it appears to have been in the dog kennel for well over a week. On reflection this seems to be no bad thing. If I had received it at once I might have been