Those Barren Leaves by Aldous Huxley (100 books to read txt) 📕

“Make an end?” Calamy repeated. He desired it, of course, above everything⁠—to make an end, to be free. But he found himself adding, with a kind of submarine laughter below the surface of his voice: “Do you think you can make an end?”

“Why not?”

“Suppose I don’t allow you to?” Did she imagine, then, that she wasn’t in his power, that he couldn’t make her obey his will whenever he desired? “I don’t allow you,” he said, and his voice quivered with the rising mirth. He bent over her and began to kiss her on the mouth; with his hands he held and caressed her. What an insanity, he said to himself.

“No, no.” Mary struggled a little; but in the end she allowed herself to be overcome. She lay still, trembling, like one who has been tortured on the rack.

On their return, somewhat low-spirited, from Montefiascone, Mrs. Aldwinkle and her party found Mary Thriplow alone in the palace.

“And Calamy?” Mrs. Aldwinkle inquired.

“He’s gone into the mountains,” said Miss Thriplow in a serious, matter-of-fact voice.

“Why?”

“He felt like that,” Mary answered. “He wanted to be alone to think. I understand it so well. The prospect of your return filled him almost with terror. He went off two or three days ago.”

“Into the mountains?” echoed Mrs. Aldwinkle. “Is he sleeping in the woods, or in a cave, or something of that kind?”

“He’s taken a room in a peasant’s cottage on the road up to the marble quarries. It’s a lovely place.”

“This sounds most interesting,” said Mr. Cardan. “I must really climb up and have a look at him.”

“I’m sure he’d rather you didn’t,” said Miss Thriplow. “He wants to be left alone. I understand it so well,” she repeated.

Mr. Cardan looked at her curiously; her face expressed a bright and serious serenity. “I’m surprised that you too don’t retire from the world,” he said, twinkling. He had not felt as cheerful as this since before the dismal day of poor Grace’s funeral.

Miss Thriplow smiled a Christian smile. “You think it’s a joke,” she said, shaking her head. “But it isn’t really, you know.”

“I’m sure it isn’t,” Mr. Cardan made haste to protest. “And believe me, I never meant to imply that it was. Never, on my word. I merely said⁠—quite seriously, I assure you⁠—that I was surprised that you too⁠ ⁠…”

“Well, you see, it doesn’t seem to me necessary to go away bodily,” Miss Thriplow explained. “It’s always seemed to me that one can live the hermit’s life, if one wants to, in the heart of London, anywhere.”

“Quite,” said Mr. Cardan. “You’re perfectly right.”

“I think he might have waited till I came back,” said Mrs. Aldwinkle rather resentfully. “The least he could have done was to leave a note.” She looked at Miss Thriplow angrily, as though it were she who were to blame for Calamy’s impoliteness. “Well, I must go and get out of my dusty clothes,” she added crossly, and walked away to her room. Her irritation was the disguise and public manifestation of a profound depression. They’re all going, she was thinking, they’re all slipping away. First Chelifer, now Calamy. Like all the rest. Mournfully she looked back over her life. Everybody, everything had always slipped away from her. She had always missed all the really important, exciting things; they had invariably happened, somehow, just round the corner, out of her sight. The days were so short, so few now. Death approached, approached. Why had Cardan brought that horrible imbecile creature to die in front of her like that? She didn’t want to be reminded of death. Mrs. Aldwinkle shuddered. I’m getting old, she thought; and the little clock on the mantelpiece, ticking away in the silence of her huge room, took up the refrain: Getting old, getting old, getting old, it repeated again and again, endlessly. Getting old⁠—Mrs. Aldwinkle looked at herself in the glass⁠—and that electric massage machine hadn’t arrived. True, it was on its way; but it would be weeks before it got here. The posts were so slow. Everything conspired against her. If she had had it before, if she’d looked younger⁠ ⁠… who knew? Getting old, getting old, repeated the little clock. In a couple of days from now Chelifer would be going back to England; he’d go away, he’d live apart from her, live such a wonderful, beautiful life. She’d miss it all. And Calamy had already gone; what was he doing, sitting there in the mountains? He was thinking wonderful thoughts, thoughts that might hold the secret she had always been seeking and had never found, thoughts that might bring the consolation and tranquillity of which she always so sorely stood in need. She was missing them, she’d never know them. Getting old, getting old. She took off her hat and tossed it on to the bed. It seemed to her that she was the unhappiest woman in the world.

That evening, while she was brushing Mrs. Aldwinkle’s hair, Irene, braving the dangers of Aunt Lilian’s terrifying fun, screwed up her courage to say: “I can never be grateful enough to you, Auntie, for having talked to me about Hovenden.”

“What about him?” asked Mrs. Aldwinkle, from whose mind the painful events of the last few weeks had quite obliterated such trivial memories.

Irene blushed with embarrassment. This was a question she had not anticipated. Was it really possible that Aunt Lilian could have forgotten those momentous and epoch-making words of hers? “Why,” she began stammering, “what you said about⁠ ⁠… I mean⁠ ⁠… when you said that he looked as though⁠ ⁠… well, as though he liked me.”

“Oh yes,” said Mrs. Aldwinkle without interest.

“Don’t you remember?”

“Yes, yes,” Mrs. Aldwinkle nodded. “What about it?”

“Well,” Irene went on, still painfully embarrassed, “you see⁠ ⁠… that made me⁠ ⁠… that made me pay attention, if you understand.”

“Hm,” said Mrs. Aldwinkle. There was a silence. Getting old, getting old, repeated the little clock remorselessly.

Irene leaned forward and suddenly boiled over with confidences. “I love him so much, Aunt Lilian,” she said, speaking very rapidly, “so much, so much. It’s the real thing this time. And he