The Once and Future King (#1-4)

  Thank God for the aged

  And for age itself, and illness and the grave.

  When we are old and ill, and particularly in the coffin,

  It is no trouble to behave.

  Guenever was twenty—two as she sat at her petit point and thought of Lancelot. She was not half—way to her coffin, not ill even, and she only had six senses. It is difficult to imagine her.

  A chaos of the mind and body – a time for weeping at sunsets and at the glamour of moonlight – a confusion and profusion of beliefs and hopes, in God, in Truth, in Love, and in Eternity – an ability to be transported by the beauty of physical objects – a heart to ache or swell – a joy so joyful and a sorrow so sorrowful that oceans could lie between them: then, as a counterpoise to these attractive features, outcrops of selfishness indecently exposed – restlessness or inability to settle down and stop bothering the middle—aged – pert argument on abstract subjects like Beauty, as if they were of any interest to the middle—aged – lack of experience as to when truth should be suppressed in deference to the middle—aged – general effervescence and nuisance and unfittingness to the set patterns of the seventh sense – these must have been some of Guenever’s characteristics at twenty—two, because they are everybody’s. But on top of them there were the broad and yet uncertain lines of her personal character – lines which made her different from the innocent Elaine, lines of less pathos perhaps but more reality, lines of power which made her into the individual Jenny that Lancelot loved.

  ‘Oh, Lancelot,’ she sang as she stitched at the shield—crown. ‘Oh, Lance, come back soon. Come back with your crooked smile, or with your own way of walking which shows whether you are angry or puzzled – come back to tell me that it does not matter whether love is a sin or not. Come back to say that it is enough that I should be Jenny and you should be Lance, whatever may happen to anybody.’

  The startling thing was that he came. Straight from Elaine, straight from her robbery, Lancelot came like an arrow to the heart of love. He had slept with Guenever already in deceit, already had been cheated of his tenfold might. He was a lie now, in God’s eyes as he saw them, so he felt that he might as well be a lie in earnest. No more to be the best knight in the world, no more to work miracles against magic, no more to have compensation for ugliness and emptiness in his soul, the young man sped to his sweetheart for consolation. There was the clatter of his iron—shod horse on the cobbles, which made the Queen drop her needlework to see whether it was Arthur back from his hunting – the ring of his chain—mail feet upon the stairs, going chink—chink like spurs against the stone – and then, before she was quite certain of what had happened, Guenever was laughing or weeping, unfaithful to her husband, as she had always known she would be.

  Chapter XIV

  Arthur said: ‘Here is a letter from your father, Lance. He says he is being attacked by King Claudas. I promised to help him against Claudas, if it was necessary, in exchange for his help at Bedegraine. I shall have to go.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘What do you want to do?’

  ‘How do you mean, what do I want to do?’

  ‘Well, do you want to come with me or to stay here?’

  Lancelot cleared his throat and said: ‘I want to do whatever you think best.’

  ‘It will be difficult for you,’ said Arthur. ‘I hate to ask you. But would you mind if I asked you to stay?’

  Lancelot could not think of the safe words, so the King mistook his silence for disappointment.

  ‘Of course, you have a right to see your father and mother,’ he said. ‘I don’t want you to stay, if it hurts you too much. Probably we can manage it another way.’

  ‘Why did you want to leave me in England?’

  ‘There ought to be somebody here to look after the factions. I should feel safer in France if I knew there was a strong man left behind. There is going to be trouble in Cornwall soon, between Tristram and Mark, and there is the Orkney feud. You know the difficulties. And it would be nice to think there was somebody looking after Gwen.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Lancelot, choosing the words with pain, ‘it would be better to trust somebody else.’

  ‘Don’t be absurd. How could I trust anybody more? You would only have to show that mug of yours outside the dog kennel and all the thieves would run away at once.’

  ‘It is not a very handsome one.’

  ‘Cut—throat!’ exclaimed the King affectionately, and he thumped his friend on the back. He went off to arrange about the expedition.

  They had a year of joy, twelve months of the strange heaven which the salmon know on beds of river shingle, under the gin—clear water. For twenty—four years they were guilty, but this first year was the only one which seemed like happiness. Looking back on it, when they were old, they did not remember that in this year it had ever rained or frozen. The four seasons were coloured like the edge of a rose petal for them.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Lancelot, ‘why you should love me. Are you sure you do? Is there some mistake about it?’

  ‘My Lance.’

  ‘But my face,’ he said. ‘I am so horrible. Now I can believe that God might love the world, whatever it was like, because of himself.’

  At other times, they were in a terror which came from him. Guenever did not feel remorse on her own account, but she caught it from her lover.

  ‘I dare not think. Don’t think. Kiss me, Jenny.’

  ‘Why think?’

  ‘I can’t help thinking.’

  ‘Dear Lance!’

  Then there were different times when they quarrelled about nothing – but even the quarrels were those of lovers, which seemed sweet when they remembered them afterwards.

  ‘Your toes are like the little pigs which went to market.’

  ‘I wish you would not say things like that. It is not respectful.’

  ‘Respectful!’

  ‘Yes, respectful. Why shouldn’t you be respectful? I am the Queen, after all.’

  ‘Do you seriously mean to tell me that I am supposed to treat you with respect? I suppose I am to kneel on one knee all the time and kiss your hand?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t be so selfish. If there is one thing I can’t stand, it is being treated like a possession.’

  ‘Selfish, indeed!’

  And the Queen would stamp her foot, or perhaps sulk for a day. But she forgave him when he had made a proper act of contrition.

  One day, when they were at the stage of telling each other their private feelings, with a sort of innocent amazement when they corresponded, Lancelot gave the Queen his secret.

  ‘Jenny, when I was little I hated myself. I don’t know why. I was ashamed. I was a very holy little boy.’

  ‘You are not very holy now,’ she said, laughing. She did not understand what she was being told.

  ‘One day my brother asked me to lend him an arrow. I had two or three specially straight ones, which I was very careful of, and his were a bit warped. I pretended that I had lost my straight arrows, and said I couldn’t lend them to him.’

  ‘Little liar!’

  ‘I know I was. Afterwards I had the most dreadful remorse for having told him the lie, and I thought I had been untrue to God. So I went out to a bed of stinging nettles that was on the moat, and put my arrow arm into them, as a punishment. I rolled up my sleeve and put it right in.’

  ‘Poor Lance! What an innocent you must have been.’

  ‘But, Jenny, they didn’t sting me! I am sure I am right in remembering that they didn’t sting me.’

  ‘Do you mean there was a miracle?’

  ‘I don’t know. It is difficult to be sure. I was such a dreamy boy, always living in a make—up world where I was Arthur’s greatest knight. I may have made it up about the nettles. But I think I can remember the shock when they didn’t sting.’

  ‘I am sure it was a miracle,’ said the Queen decidedly.

  ‘Jenny, all my life I
have wanted to do miracles. I have wanted to be holy. I suppose it was ambition or pride or some other unworthy thing. It was not enough for me to conquer the world – I wanted to conquer heaven too. I was so grasping that it was not enough to be the strongest knight – I had to be the best as well. That is the worst of making day—dreams. It is why I tried to keep away from you. I knew that if I was not pure, I could never do miracles. And I did do a miracle, too: a splendid one. I got a girl out of some boiling water, who was enchanted into it. She was called Elaine. Then I lost my power. Now that we are together, I shall never be able to do my miracles any more.’

  He did not like to tell her the full truth about Elaine, for he thought that it would hurt her feelings to know that he had come to her as the second.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because we are wicked.’

  ‘Personally I have never done a miracle,’ said the Queen, rather coldly. ‘So I have less to regret.’

  ‘But, Jenny, I am not regretting anything. You are my miracle, and I would throw them overboard all over again for the sake of you. I was only trying to tell you about the things I felt when I was small.’

  ‘Well, I can’t say I understand.’

  ‘Can’t you understand wanting to be good at things? No, I can see that you would not have to. It is only people who are lacking, or bad, or inferior, who have to be good at things. You have always been full and perfect, so you had nothing to make up for. But I have always been making up. I feel dreadful sometimes, even now, with you, when I know that I can’t be the best knight any longer.’

  ‘Then we had better stop, and you can make a good confession, and do some more miracles.’

  ‘You know we can’t stop.’

  ‘The whole thing seems fanciful to me,’ said the Queen. ‘I don’t understand it. It seems unpractical and selfish.’

  ‘I know I am selfish. I can’t help it. I try not to be. But how can I help being what I was made? Oh, can’t you understand what I am telling you? I was lonely when I was small, and I worked hard at my exercises. I used to tell myself that I would be a great explorer, and cross the Chorasmian Waste: or I would be a great king, like Alexander or St Louis: or a great healer: I would find out a balsam which cured wounds and give it away free: perhaps I would be a saint, and salve wounds just by touching them, or I would find something important – a relic of the True Cross, or the Holy Grail, or something like that. These were my dreams, Jenny. I am only telling you what I used to day—dream about. They are what I mean by my miracles, which are lost now. I have given you my hopes, Jenny, as a present from my love.’

  Chapter XV

  The year of their happiness ended with Arthur’s return – and almost immediately collapsed in ruin, but not on account of the King. The evening after his home—coming, while he was still giving them details of the defeat of Claudas as they happened to come into his memory, there was a disturbance at the Porter’s Lodge, and Sir Bors was ushered into the Great Hall at dinner. He was Lancelot’s cousin, and had been spending a holiday at the castle of Corbin, investigating the hauntings. He had some news for Lancelot, which he told him in a whisper after dinner – but unfortunately he was a misogynist, and, like most people of that sort, he had the female failing of indiscretion. He told the news to some of his bosom friends as well. Soon it was all over the court. The news was that Elaine of Corbin had given birth to a fine son, whom she had christened Galahad – which was Lancelot’s first name, as you remember.

  ‘So this,’ said Guenever, when she next saw her lover alone, ‘so this is why you lost your miracles. It was all lies about your giving them to me.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Guenever began to breathe through her nose. She was feeling as if there were two red thumbs behind her eyeballs, trying to push them out, and she did not want to look at him. She was trying not to make a scene, and she dreaded her heart. She had shame and hatred of what she might say, but she could not help saying it. She was like a person swimming in a rough sea.

  ‘You know what I mean,’ she said bitterly, looking away.

  ‘Jenny, I wanted to tell you, but it was too difficult to explain.’

  ‘I can understand the difficulty.’

  ‘It is not what you think.’

  ‘What I think!’ she cried. ‘How do you know what I think? I think what everybody would think – that you are a mean seducer, just a liar, you and your miracles. And I was fool enough to believe you.’

  Lancelot turned his head at each of her stabs, as if he were trying to let them glance off him. He looked on the ground, to hide his eyes. He had wide eyes, which generally gave him an expression of fear or surprise.

  ‘Elaine means nothing to me,’ he said.

  ‘Then she ought to do. How can you say that she means nothing to you when she is the mother of your child? When you tried to keep her secret? No, don’t touch me, go away.’

  ‘I can’t go away, when it is like this.’

  ‘If you touch me I shall go to the King.’

  ‘Guenever, I was made drunk at Corbin. Then they told me that you were waiting for me at Case, and they took me to a dark room with Elaine in it. I came away next morning.’

  ‘A clumsy lie.’

  ‘It is true.’

  ‘A baby wouldn’t believe it.’

  ‘I can’t make you believe it, if you don’t want to. I drew my sword to kill Elaine, when I found out.’

  ‘I will have her killed.’

  ‘It was not her fault.’

  The Queen began plucking at the neck of her dress, as if it were too tight for her.

  ‘You are standing up for her,’ she said. ‘You are in love with her, and deceiving me. I thought so all along.’

  ‘I swear I am telling the truth.’

  She suddenly gave up and began to cry.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’ she asked. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you had a baby? Why have you lied to me all the time? I suppose she was your famous miracle, which you were so proud of.’

  Lancelot, who also suffered from violent emotions, began to cry in turn. He put his arms round her.

  ‘I didn’t know I had one,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want one. It was not my seeking.’

  ‘If you had told me the truth, I could have believed you.’

  ‘I wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t. I was afraid you would be hurt.’

  ‘It has hurt me worse like this.’

  ‘I know it has.’

  The Queen dried her tears and looked at him, smiling like a spring shower. In a minute they were kissing, feeling like the green earth refreshed by rain. They thought that they understood each other once more – but their doubt had been planted. Now, in their love, which was stronger, there were the seeds of hatred and fear and confusion growing at the same time: for love can exist with hatred, each preying on the other, and this is what gives it its greatest fury.

  Chapter XVI

  In the castle of Corbin, the child Elaine was making ready for her journey. She was coming to capture Lancelot from Guenever, an expedition of which everybody except herself could feel the pathos. She had no weapons to fight with, and did not know how to fight. She was quite without character. Lancelot did not love her. And she was in the yet more hopeless position of loving him. She had nothing to oppose against the Queen’s maturity except her own immaturity and humble love, nothing except the fat baby which she was carrying to its father – a baby which was to him only the symbol of a cruel trick. It was an expedition like that of an army without weapons against an impregnable fortress, an army which at the same time had its hands tied behind its back. Elaine, with an artlessness which could only be explained by the fact that she had spent most of her life in the seclusion of her magic cauldron, had decided to meet Guenever on her own ground. She had ordered gowns of the utmost magnificence and sophistication – and in these, which would only make her look all the more stupid and provincial, she was going to Camelot to fight her battle with the Englis
h Queen.

  If Elaine had not been Elaine, she might have taken Galahad as her weapon. Pathos and proprietorship, rightly applied to a nature like Lancelot’s, might have been successful in binding him. But Elaine was not clever, did not understand the attempt to bind her hero. She took Galahad because she adored him. She took him only because she did not want to be parted from her baby, and because she wanted to show him off to his father, and partly because she wanted to compare the faces. It was a year since she had set eyes on the man for whom her child—mind lived.

  Lancelot, while Elaine was planning his capture, remained with the Queen at court. But he now remained without the temporary peace of heart which he had been able to invent for himself while the King was away. In the King’s absence he had been able to drown himself in the passing minute – but Arthur was perpetually at his elbow now, as a comment on his treachery. He had not buried his love for Arthur in his passion for Guenever, but still felt for him. To a medieval nature like Lancelot’s, with its fatal weakness for loving the highest when he saw it, this was a position of pain. He could not bear to be made to feel that his sentiment for Guenever was an ignoble sentiment, for it was the profound feeling of his life – yet every circumstance now conspired to make it seem ignoble. The hasty moments together, the locked doors and base contrivances, the guilty manoeuvres which the husband’s presence forced on the lovers – these had the effect of soiling what had no excuse unless it was beautiful. On top of this stain there was the torture of knowing that Arthur was kind, simple and upright – of knowing that he was always on the edge of hurting Arthur dreadfully, although he loved him. Then there was pain about Guenever herself, the tiny plant of bitterness which they had sown, or seen sown, in each other’s eyes, on the occasion of their first quarrel of suspicion. It was a pain to him to be in love with a jealous and suspicious woman. She had given him a mortal blow by not believing his explanation about Elaine instantly. Yet he was unable not to love her. Finally there were the revolted elements of his own character – his strange desire for purity and honour and spiritual excellence. All these things, working together with the unconscious dread of Elaine’s arrival with his son, broke his happiness without allowing him to escape. He seldom sat down, but strayed about with nervous movements, picking things up and setting them down without looking at them, walking to windows and looking out but seeing nothing.