A Severed Head

It was snowing hard in Oxford, and must have been doing so for some time, as there was a good inch of soft feathery snow on the ground as I stepped out of the train and began to look around for my sister. I soon saw her and noted that she was dressed entirely in black: on instinct, no doubt. She came up to me and leaned back her small pale face, under its little velvet cap, to be kissed. Rosemary has the attractiveness which is sometimes called petite. She has the long Lynch-Gibbon face and the powerful nose and mouth, but all scaled down, smoothed over, and covered with an exquisite ivory faintly freckled skin. The Lynch-Gibbon face is made for men, I have always felt, and to my eye Rosemary's appearance, for all its sweetness, has always something of an air of caricature.

'Hello, flower,' I said, kissing her.

'Hello, Martin,' said Rosemary, unsmiling and clearly a little shocked at what she felt as my levity. 'This is grave news,' she added, as we pushed our way to the exit. I followed her trim black figure out, and we got into Alexander's Sunbeam Rapier.

'It's bloody news,' I said. 'Never mind. How are you and Alexander?'

'We're as well as can be expected,' said Rosemary. She sounded weighed down by my troubles. 'Oh, Martin, I am sorry!'

'Me too,' I said. 'I like the cute little hat, Rosemary. Is it new?'

'Dear Martin,' said Rosemary, 'don't play-act with me.'

Now we were driving along St Giles. The snow was falling steadily out of a tawny sky. Its white blanket emphasized the black gauntness of the bare plane trees and made the yellow fronts of the tall Georgian houses glow to a rich terracotta.

'I can hardly believe it,' said Rosemary. 'You and Antonia parting, after such a long time! Do you know, I was very surprised indeed.'

I could hardly bear her relish. I looked down at her small high-heeled black-shod feet on the pedals. 'Have you been snowed up at Rembers?'

'Not really,' said Rosemary, 'though I must say it seems to have snowed more there than here. Isn't it odd how it always seems to snow more in the country? Water Lane was blocked last week, but the other roads are fairly clear. The Gilliad-Smiths have been using chains on their car. We haven't bothered. Alexander says it's bad for the tyres. Still, Badgett had to help push us out of the gate once or twice. Where will you live now, Martin?'

'I don't know,' I said. 'Certainly not at Hereford Square. I suppose I'd better find a flat.'

'Darling it's impossible to get a flat,' said Rosemary, 'at least a flat that's fit to live in, unless you pay the earth.'

'Then I shall pay the earth,' I said. 'How long have you been down here?'

'About a week,' said Rosemary. 'Don't let Antonia cheat you about the furniture and things. I suppose as she's the guilty party it should all really belong to you.'

'Not at all,' I said, 'there's no such rule! And her money went into the house as well as mine. We shall sort things out amicably.'

'I think you're wonderful!' said Rosemary. 'You don't seem in the least bitter. I should be mad with rage if I were you. You treated that man as your best friend.»

'He's still my best friend.'

'You're very philosophical about it,' said Rosemary. 'But don't overdo it. You must be miserable and bitter somewhere in your soul. A bit of good cursing may be just what you need.'

'I'm miserable everywhere in my soul,» I said. 'Bitterness is another thing. There's no point in it. Can we talk about something else?»

'Well, Alexander and I will stand by you,' said Rosemary. 'We'll look for a flat for you and we'll help you move in and then if you like I'll come and be your part-time housekeeper. I should like that. I haven't seen half enough of you in these last two or three years. I was just thinking that the other day. And you'll have to have a housekeeper, won't you, and professional ones cost the earth.'

'You're very thoughtful,' I said. 'What's Alexander working on just now?'

'He says he's stuck,' said Rosemary. 'By the way, Alexander's dreadfully cut up about you and Antonia.'

'Naturally,' I said. 'He adores Antonia.'

'I happened to be there when he opened her letter,' said Rosemary. 'I've never seen him so shaken.'

'Her letter?' I said. 'So she wrote to him about it, did she?' Somehow this irritated me terribly.

'Well, I gather so,' said Rosemary. 'Anyhow all I'm saying is, be kind and tactful to Alexander, be specially nice to him.' 'To console him for my wife having left me,' I said. 'All right, flower.'

'Martin!' said Rosemary. Some minutes later we turned into the gate of Rembers.

Six

'Since I left Plumtree Down in Te

quoted Alexander, as he dangled his long broad-nailed hand in front of his new fan heater. The sleeve of his white smock fluttered and rippled in the warm wind.

It was half an hour later and we were sitting in the bay-window a

In the creamy white smock, self-consciously old fashioned, my brother seemed dressed to represent a miller in an opera. His big pale face in repose had an eighteenth-century appearance, heavy, intelligent, the slightest bit degenerate, speaking of a past of generals and gentlemen adventurers, profoundly English in the way in which only Anglo-Irish faces can now be. One might have called him 'noble' in the sense of the word which is usually reserved for animals.

It was an odd thing about Alexander, and one which I noted ever anew, especially when I saw him at Rembers, that although the form of his face perfectly recalled my father, its spirit and animation perfectly recalled my mother. More than in Rosemary or me, here she lived on, as indeed we both profoundly apprehended in our relation to Alexander. We passed as being, and I suppose we were, a very united family; and though I ruled out financial fortunes and largely played my father's role, Alexander in playing my mother's was the real head of the family. Here in the house and here in the studio, whose whitewashed walls were still dotted with her water-colours and pastel-shaded lithographs, I recalled her clearly, with a sad shudder of memory, and with that particular painful guilty thrilling sense of being both stifled and protected with which a return to my old home always afflicted me; and now it was as if my pain for Antonia had become the same pain, so closely was it now blended in quality, though more intense, with the obscure malaise of my homecomings. Perhaps indeed it had always been the same pain, a mingled shadow cast forward and backward across my destiny.

We had not yet put the lights on, and we sat together in the window-seat, not looking at each other but turned toward the silent movement of the snow and the now invisible 'view' to enjoy which Alexander had a few years ago had the big bay window built. Beyond the curtain which divided it from the a