One may even come to have the callous pleasure of watching homeless children-of which there were many in the great city-sharpening the edge of their already thin bodies in order to cut and consume, quickly enough, the crumb of survival. I could, too, and did, have the delight of watching the costermonger frequently pass off his inferior fruits and vegetables to the unwary-my pleasure was one of contempt both for the seller and the buyer. As a Cornishwoman I had quite a clear idea of what fresh provender looked like. Among the crowds on the London streets- both shruggingly indifferent and highly concerned subjects of Her Majesty's empire-were the Gypsies who hawked birds, snakes and hedgehogs, the last-named, amazingly, for the obliteration of the pestiferous beetle. And, if I may thoroughly confess, I took a child's delight in gawking at the fireworks at the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens.
Apart from the infinite quaintness of the city, I was squired to innumerable parties where I danced half the night away in the lancers and the polka… It was during this time that my father and mother, the esteemed Marquis and Marchioness of Portferrans, made overtures to me to return to their fond embrace at Hagen and Quistern houses. The overtures were conveyed to me through my brother who, observing the faded elegance of my rooms at Quarkney's Course-the hotel I resided at because of its polyglot quality and its proximity to the theatre-said he now regretted having effected the confluence of his sister with George May-temper. “You know, Clarissa,” he said gesturing at the faintly run down condition of the interior, “this is simply not the sort of thing for you.” “James, what is the sort of thing for me?” He gazed at me for some time, his emerald eyes aglow, his milky skin as tempting to the female as mine was to the male -and I could have sworn his brain was rife with memory of the early days in Cornwall and Kensington. “Funny,” he said at last, “I don't think I'm sure of what is the sort of thing for you. I can't quite grasp whatever it is. I think, Clarissa, you've eluded me.
You've certainly eluded our progenitors.” “Have they sent out search parties for their daughter?” I gently asked. “Not quite.
But they're prepared to deal handsomely with you,” James said. “One develops quite a fondness for guilt- otherwise how could it be borne?”
“Point, James. Yes. But I am in no mood to be hawked to the scions of nobility. What I regret is that I've even showed them the courtesy of changing my name. What the hell, Quist-Hagen would look most inviting on the marquee.” My brother grinned slashingly and I loved him for it-indeed, for anything Jamesian, although even for him I could not return to the parental menage. “What will you do, Clarissa?” “Keep balancing on the boards-for a while.”
“Acting,” he said. “Yes,” I said. And I thought at that point I had better cut him to the living quick, as one might say, so as to avoid the possibility later on of the most horrible sort of shock, the sort of shock that could destroy, because of the love he bore me, his very foundations. If James no longer would seek to see me, potential ignominy on my account would not be Iris-or my parents', either; but I was thinking, really, exclusively of my brother. I wanted, on account of my insufferable carnal itch, to experiment on the most sordid level so that, conceivably, I might reach satiety, and I was simply waiting for the best time to dissociate myself from the theatre. As it happened, I had a visit in my dressing room from one of the most exquisitely coiffed and dressed women I have ever seen, an individual who helped me orient myself to the most radical step I had ever taken in my life-but I am getting ahead of my story. I had to hurt James now in order not to hurt him, later, irreparably.
“James,” I said. “Eh?” He was, in his elegant manner, gazing bemusedly out the window at the soot sifting through the London atmosphere. “I know,” I said softly, “what I'm going to tell you will hurt you terribly but I really do think it will be for the best.”
He swung round sharply, blanching. “What are you driving at, Clarissa?” “I don't want to see you again, James,” I said. I thought I was maintaining my control but my twisting fingers gave me away. I had no idea I was entwining and disentwining them. And their tension certainly was not lost on my brother. “That's palpably untrue,” he said in amazement. “Look at your hands.” My face flushing, I could not meet his gaze. “It has got to be true,” I whispered. “Which is something else again. What sort of melodrama are you involving yourself in, Clarissa? Are you going into hiding?
Are your creditors overwhelming you? You ought to see mine -poor tradesmen, they are so outclassed when they've neither the lower or the upper to go to, but have only the middle to mull in…” “Not hiding.” “What, then?” He was imperious, as only my brother could be. He was arrayed in authority but it was neither overbearing nor oppressive. “It's not an accomplished fact so there's no point in discussing it.” “We had better-discuss it, Clarissa, before it becomes an accomplished fact.” “I will not discuss it, James.” I stood up, my brow working frantically into lines. “Clarissa…” he said mollifyingly. “Don't you understand?” I cried out. “I've got to see how far I can go-and I can only do that alone, and certainly not with you looking over my shoulder and occasionally making intense attempts to drag me up from the gutter. Don't you understand that your loving me can stop me? and that if I see you from time to time I will feel the impact of your loving and I won't then be able to take an action?” “I don't know what gutter you're so intent on wafting away in, but there's no good reason for any of us to be in any gutter-” “Oh, my God, James.” He smiled tightly.
“I do sound like a curate, don't I? And the odd thing is, Clarissa, is that I have decided to go into the church…” I stared at him. My belly keeled over and for a moment I thought I was going to vomit. The church? My brother a divine? The irony, I thought, was too juvenile-I laughed immoderately. James, after a moment in which he looked at me with pure hatred, began to laugh too. “You will go to the guillotine-and to God,” I said, “with your face up because your collar will have been turned backward. But why the church, James? I thought you were so keen on medicine.” “I was, Clarissa. I remain so, but I think I'm a little keener on God-the care and maintenance of the soul is quite as important as that of the body, which both you and I-” he grinned-“took excellent care of, and it is through the sensual, after all, that one comes to the soul. But I don't want to sermonize at you, Clarissa-you may indeed have to see how far you can go. I should have told you that right off. I'm sorry. I'm terribly preoccupied with making the shift to divinity school-I'm leaving the technologic world to find out where God ends and man begins. I think we have to discover just where that point is so that we can take care of the gap between. If we don't take care of the gap, Mary Wollstonecroft's monster out of Frankenstein, suitably intellectualized, will say that's where he begins.” His face lightened momentarily. “We don't want that, do we?” “No,” I said in a low voice. “Nor are you taking the next coach to the gutter,” he said. “No. Seeing how far I can go may be confined to the theatre -which I've no intention of leaving for several years, in any case.”
“And you don't want to see me.” “Yes. I will have lost a brother,” I could not resist adding, “while you will have gained a sister-Jesus Christ.” He smiled wryly. “The homosexuality of the Son of God is open to some doubt,” James said, “but we are working to reduce the incest content, although the Holy Ghost is hardly fleshy enough to be included.” He shook his head. “What really concerns me now is the idea of not seeing you.” “At least till I find out what my limitations are.” “Which takes most people a lifetime,”