Douglas was really the — only person she could talk to. He was not impecably wise, but he was discreet and the scrupulousness of his attachment to her could serve instead of, could even induce, wisdom. So she had summoned him. And as she now emerged from the nursery and crossed the road she caught sight of him further down the hill entering the main gate of Grayhallock. When she arrived he was already waiting in the drawing-room.
'My dear Ann, said Douglas Swann, bowing and swaying over her hand, 'how are you, my dear? You wanted to see me? I was coming anyway, you know.
Ann had not at all thought out what she wanted to say to him, but she felt relief as at an imminent confession. He was, after all, a priest.
She said, 'Douglas, I want an exorcism.
'An exorcism?
'I think I'm going mad.
Swann looked at her anxiously, not sure how to take her words, and smoothed his black bird's plume of hair. 'You couldn't go mad if you tried, my dear. Now do let's sit down and smoke a cigarette. Shall I make you some coffee?
'No thanks, said Ann. She sat down heavily in one of the armchairs and Swann pulled his chair up beside her. She said, 'It's just that I'm somehow obsessed with Randall. He stops me from thinking. I feel that he's got inside me. I feel that he'll be with me, like a cancer inside me, for the rest of my life. The violence of her own words startled her., 'That is just the reverse side of your love for him, said Swann. 'You must purify that love. You will purify it.
'I'm not sure that it is love any more, said Ann. 'Not proper love. She stared at the dead electric fire. Was her long love for Randall over? It was possible.
'Oh yes it is, said Swann. 'One doesn't stop loving a person just like that, whatever they do. We spoke of this once before. Marriage is a sacrament. Here especially God's grace can lift and enlighten our poor human loves.
'Marriage, said Ann. 'Do you really think Randall will come back? It seemed a hundred years since she had talked of married love with Douglas and he had advised her to hold Randall in her loving net.
'I don't know, said Swann. 'But whether he does or not it will matter how you love him. And whether he does or not you will still be married to him.
There was a hardness in the words which bruised Ann. 'You think that I should keep a light burning for Randall?
'Yes, of course, said Swann. 'And humanly speaking, as it were, as well as ecclesiastically speaking. But surely you think this too?
Ann got up and stared out of the window. Out of a dirty golden sky a few drops of rain were falling. Penn in mackintosh and wellingtons was tramping across the lawn. He waved to her and she waved back. She said, 'I shall give Randall a divorce if he wants one.
'I don't think you should be in any hurry to do so, said Swann. 'But in any case that won't alter your own position. We know, don't we, what we think about the permanence of marriage.
'So I should devote the rest of my life to purifying my image of the absent Randall?
'This isn't like you, Ann.
'I don't know what I'm like any more. I feel how I've lived all the time in unconsciousness.
'Being good is a state of unconsciousness.
'Then perhaps I shall stop being good. It looks as if it's going to be too difficult from now on anyway. She sat down again and pushed her hair back.
'You're tired out. Can't you manage a holiday?
'Someone offered to drive me to Greece.
'Well, why don't you go? Do go. Clare and I can keep an eye on things here.
She felt again that unfamiliar sensation and she saw herself on the road south in the very dark blue Mercedes. 'Ah, I've been dead all these years.
'You are precisely mistaken, said Swann, 'You have been alive all these years. You are momentarily dead now.
Ann was silent. What did she want from Douglas? She wanted him to support her own view of the matter. And since he was not doing so she might as well end the conversation. So she had a view of her own which was different from Douglas's?
'You're doing me a lot of good, she said.
Swann smiled and patted her knee. 'Is the exorcism working? Was it? She lifted her head and it was as if the great scarlet cloud were gone, the whirling images were gone, and there was only a great space and a great light. 'Yes, it's working.
'I'm so glad, he said. 'I know we think alike really. Prayer, if I may say' so, is so important here. I have known constant prayer to remove the most rooted resentment.
'Ah, but I don't feel resentment, said Ann. 'I don't, I don't. It was true.
'If you can love him now and keep him in your heart that will be a joy that is better than happiness.
'Better than happiness. She rose to her feet. She wanted to be alone now.
'The marriage bond is an indissoluble mystical union of souls.
Who knows what good your love may not do him, even if you never meet again.
'How true, said Ann. 'You know, I think I'll take that Greek holiday after all.
'Well done! said Swann. He was being led towards the door. 'On no account miss Delphi. Clare and I were in Greece ten years ago. I think we've still got all our guide-books. We'll lend them to you.
'You are very kind. Thank Clare for the bottled apricots, will you?
The door shut behind him at last. Ann returned to the drawing room. She lay down on the floor and buried her face in the hearth rug. She felt exhausted, purged. Yet it was a strange purging. Perhaps Douglas had been right to say that goodness was a state of unconsciousness. But what she had to do with now was consciousness, and she was profoundly and terribly aware of a change in the structure of her world, as if the crystals were forming with a difference. It was not that her image of Douglas himself as good had in any way altered. It was that he could no longer, in the mirror of her being now so alarmingly brightened, properly reflect himself. His words, which in him were good words, were at her side of the picture temptation, almost corruption. Whatever she could do for Randall she could not do that. A saint might do it, but she could not. She could not thus hold him; and as she imagined this 'holding' she saw it almost as vindictive, revengeful, something to do with death. No, she must let Randall go, she must let him go properly, she must cut the painter. This idea of cutting him free shed for her a certain light, wherein she glimpsed for a moment, like a figure seen in a flash of lightning, what she herself must look like to Randall, what she must, in these last years, have looked like, have been. She saw the deadness of it; and Randall's words came back with a force which she could almost echo: 'You weigh upon me. You imprison me. She must set Randall free.
But was that not also setting herself free? She had never thought about freedom, it had never been a value to her. Now suddenly, as she felt it to be so vividly desirable, she looked back over her thoughts, trying to doubt them. Where did the corruption lie? Yet, as she reflected, this question seemed less important, consumed, dimmed by a sort of realism, which she still hesitated to dignify with the name of truth. The world had changed and there was no going back. She must live as best she could in the new world. She rolled over on her back and looked at the high white ceiling of the drawing-room, now dusky and yellowish in the rainy afternoon light, and it seemed to her like a lofty Southern sky, infinitely far and blue and hazy with brilliance. She lay there stunned and dazzled.