Douglas smiled. 'How one suffers when one's young! Then, as if thinking that this was tactless, he added. 'You wait till Miranda's old enough to be in love. Then the sparks will fly!
'That was probably why he decided not to go to London with Humphrey. He couldn't bear to leave Miranda. I couldn't understand it at all at the time.
'I imagined you'd thought otherwise of it because of Humphrey's er—
'No, no, Humphrey has plenty of sense. And Penny can see no evil. But I'm sorry for him now.
They were silent. Ann twisting her hands and sighing again in spite of herself, and Douglas leaning forward with an air of gathering solicitude, his hands dangling at his knees in the attitude of one about to rise to make a pronouncement..
He did not rise, but said in a softened voice, not looking at her, 'No news from Randall, I suppose?
'Nothing, said Ann. 'He hasn't written. I've written, of course, to Chelsea, but I don't even know if he's there. She stared at the dolls, whose ranks were drawn up facing her, little hostile presences. The fantasy occurred to her that Miranda had put the dolls there to keep an eye on her mother.
'We must have good hope, good hope, said Douglas. 'Of course, said Ann. She felt irritated. She added, 'Don't let's exaggerate, Douglas dear. You know as well as I do that all sorts of catastrophes can happen inside a marriage without destroying it.
'I most heartily believe it, said Douglas, with the slightly self-conscious accent of the happily married man who knows about such things by hearsay. 'Marriage is a sacrament. And we must believe, in such cases, a special grace assists our love.
'My love just exasperates Randall, said Ann. She wanted to bring the discussion down to earth. 'But he'll come back, for hundreds of reasons of habit and convenience. Thank God marriages don't depend on love!
Douglas seemed a little shocked. He said, 'In a purely temporal sense, perhaps not. But the marriage service contains the word «love». It is the first thing that we promise to do. The continuation of love is a duty, and it is a matter much more genuinely subject to the will than is commonly supposed nowadays. Even if we leave divine grace out of the picture.
Ann felt tired and disinclined to consider the picture with or without divine grace. She could feel Swann's attention like a plucking of many strings. It was as if he wanted to break her down. Perhaps he did, even if unconsciously, want her to break down so that he could console her. There were a hundred things that she ought to be doing. She had promised Bowshott that she would help with the spraying. The proofs of the catalogue must be corrected. Miranda's clothes needed attention. She said, 'Well, I doubt if Randall has any love left for me by now. It doesn't matter. But it did matter. What else mattered if this didn't?
'You must enclose him in a net of goodness and loving kindness, said Douglas.
The image of the enraged Randall so trammelled almost made Ann laugh, and with that an agonizing protective tenderness towards her husband brimmed up in her heart, so that at the next moment she almost wept. She said, 'I don't know about that! My love for Randall is terribly imperfect. I can't see it having any miraculous effect!
'Most of our love is shabby stuff, said Douglas. 'But there is always a thin line of gold, the bit of pure love on which all the rest depends and which redeems all the rest.
Ann thought he was talking sense, but the slight tone of exaltation wrought terribly upon her nerves. 'Perhaps, she said. 'But one can't see things like that. All that one sees is shapeless and awkward.
As she uttered the words she felt, shapeless and awkward is what I am. She had been awkward at school, and had been told that it would pass. It had not passed, and she had learnt to live with it, and it had become no easier as she grew older. She had had, she must have had, some grace when Randall first loved her and when her hair was almost as red as Miranda's: some wild grace lent her by the very fact of the dazzling, the enchanting Randall's love. But that time was hard even to imagine now. What remained was awkwardness and effort, the endless effort of confronting people with none of whom she had any sense of fitting. Had she and Randall ever' fitted'? Perhaps, in the days of their happiness, their personalities had been too hazy for the question to arise. Now the haze had cleared and they had hardened into incompatible shapes. Yet 'fitting' was still something that was possible. With Douglas, for instance, she felt almost perfectly at ease. And with Felix. Her thoughts touched this and took flight at once. It was a place where thoughts must not go. I am always saying no, said Ann to herself, all my strength has to go into saying no. I have no strength left for the positive. No wonder Randall finds me deadly, no wonder he says I kill all his gaiety. But why is it like this? And she recalled dimly and with puzzlement some quotation which said that the devil was the spirit which was always saying no.
'Shapeless and awkward, said Douglas. 'Precisely. We must not expect our lives to have a visible shape. They are invisibly shaped by God. Goodness accepts the contingent. Love accepts the contingent. Nothing is more fatal to love than to want everything to have form.
'Randall wants everything to have form, said Ann. 'But then he's an artist.
'He is a man before he is an artist, said Douglas with magisterial severity.
Ann felt she could not stand much more of this discussion. She hated this sense of their cornering Randall. She said. 'I must get on with my work, and began to rise.
Douglas Swann detained her. He inclined his smooth face towards her, drawing his chin back over his clerical collar and opening a little wider his dark brown eyes which were let with such startling immediacy into the sweep of his cheek. He said, 'Ann, you do pray, don't you?
Ann said almost furiously, 'Yes, of course. I pray every night that Randall will come back. Then she burst into wild tears.
'There, my child, my child, murmured Swann. They had both risen. He spoke with a sense of achievement, as of one who has brought a difficult piece of navigation to a successful conclusion. He began to draw the sobbing Ann to rest against his shoulder.
The drawing-room door opened abruptly to admit Mildred Finch. 'Dear me! said Mildred.
The next moment Ann was searching her pockets for a handkerchief and Douglas Swann was coughing and dusting down his coat.
'Oh, Mildred —’ said Ann. She found the handkerchief. All her face, as she rubbed it, seemed to be wet with tears. It is astonishing how many tears can flow in an instant. The instant in any case was over and she dried her face and smoothed her hair back behind her ears.
Mildred came round the edge of the semicircle of dolls and said, 'There, my dear; don't take on. She cast a hostile glance at Swann who was standing a few paces away and looking anxiously at Ann.
Ann, who was fairly composed now, said, 'I'm so glad to see you» and blew her nose. 'I don't know why I broke down so stupidly. I've been quite cheerful.
Mildred looked sceptical, and then set her feet apart in a patient yet stubborn pose which indicated with brutal clarity that she was waiting for Swann to go.
Swann said to Ann in a voice of significant tenderness. 'Are you all right now?
Mildred said, 'Of course she's not all right! Then she added conversationally, 'I've just walked up from the village. It looks quite like rain now. Fortunately I've got my umbrella.
Swann looked at— Ann for another moment. Ann said, 'I'm fine.
Thank you for being so kind, Douglas. Swann patted her lightly on the shoulder, smiled and nodded to Mildred, murmured something about having to get back and left the room.