Europe -- Social conditions -- 20th century -- Fiction; Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 20th century -- Fiction; Love stories
“If there was a moon,” she said at last, “a little way behind Harrod’s
you would see a small hill, and on the hill you would see a white house.
That is where Gerald and I were born. Perhaps Gerald knows why now. That
is one of the many things Napier and I have to talk out in the
solitudes, why all we men and women are born. There must be a reason.
Across the fields this way is Sutton Marle, where Napier was born. We
used to play beneath this tree, Gerald, Boy, Napier and I. Boy was older
than us, and bossed us. So there was a revolt, and then we made two
camps, Boy and Gerald, Napier and I. Sometimes Aunt Eve, who took care
of Gerald and me when mother died, would take us all up to London, and
we would have tea at Harrod’s. Napier and I loved Harrod’s because we at
once got lost there. And so we called this tree Harrod’s, because we
were happy here, too. We were twelve then. Later on they discouraged our
being together. Aunt Eve didn’t want me to be made miserable when I grew
up by not being allowed to marry Napier, for she knew that I didn’t come
into Sir Maurice’s plans. Poor Maurice, I’ve crashed into them now,
haven’t I! Father got poorer, we sold this house, and went to live in
Cambridge Square. Napier was not allowed to see me any more, but we
managed to meet somehow. Gerald helped, Aunt Eve helped, Boy helped.
That was when Boy first loved me, he said later, because of my
determination not to lose Napier. But Sir Maurice won. I was stronger
than Napier, but I was not so strong as Sir Maurice. He wanted Napier to
marry a rich girl, and Iris March was only the daughter of the younger
branch of a bankrupt house. One day, when I was eighteen, I got a wire
from Napier to meet him here at Harrod’s that afternoon. I borrowed the
money for a taxi--bit from Boy, bit from Hilary--and here Napier was,
white, desperate. In a general clean-up before going up to Oxford he had
promised his father never to see me again. ‘I like Iris,’ Sir Maurice
had said, ‘but she comes of rotten stock.’ I don’t think we had ever
realised before that we were in love. I suppose I grew up in that one
second. But Napier was still a boy of eighteen, while I was suddenly as
old as the Queen of Hearts. I told him I loved him. Dear, I have known
many men, I have married two, but I have only told one that I loved him,
and he was a boy. Poor Napier, so torn, white, distracted. Afraid of my
love, which seemed to him almost unholy, afraid of his father, who
seemed to him almost holy. England, my England! His father was strong in
Napier, and the Harpendens were strong in him. They were stronger than
me at eighteen, and they were stronger than the sweet memories of
Harrod’s. I said to Napier then, just over there where the lights fall
by that trunk, I said, eighteen to eighteen: ‘Napier, I think I have a
body that burns for love. Napier, I shall burn it with love, but I never
will say ‘I love you’ to any man but you, because it never will be
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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