The Girl in a Swing

'Yes, and for the matter of that Jesus certainly wasn't

  sentimental, either. In fact, He could be damned ruthless on

  occasion,' said Tony.' "Whoso shall offend one of these little

  ones, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged

  about his neck and he were drowned in the depth of the

  sea."'

  'Oh, Tony, don't!' cried Kathe, so sharply that we both

  jumped.

  'Sorry!' said Tony in surprise. 'Well, all I meant was that

  I sense almost a kind of grim relish in that. You know, like

  Weir of Hermiston - "I was glad to get Jopp haangit, and

  what for would I pretend I wasna?" '

  'You don't refute Kathe, though - about the physical

  Aphrodite?'

  'No, I reckon she's got a fair point. The Church is fairly

  well on to it nowadays, as a matter of fact, but I fully admit

  it's not covered in the gospels. I suppose one could say a

  whole lot more, but I'm not a believer in the hard sell, as

  you know. The product's good enough to sell itself to any

  thinking person, given time. And all too often a hot gospeller's

  only shoving things down on top of other stuff that

  really needs to come out first, so that after a bit the stuff

  underneath pushes all the undigested hot gospelling up and

  out, and the victim's back at square one.'

  'Well, this lover feels generous enough to the rest of the

  world, anyway,' I said, 'and so he darned well should, I

  reckon. If you listen you'll hear me fairly bawling the Te

  Deum tomorrow morning - or even if you don't listen, I

  dare say.'

  ' 'Tell you what,' said Kathe, Til come and bawl it too,

  if you like.'

  As I looked at her in happy surprise she murmured, as

  though to herself, 'Go there - well, perhaps -' Then, pointing

  across the river, 'Can you see the water-rat running about

  over there, on that mud by the fluffy pink flowers - what

  d'you call them?'

  282

  'Hemp agrimony. They deserve a better name, I always

  think.'

  'Gretchen-by-the-brook? The milkmaid's flounces?'

  'The parson's duster. What are you holding forth on tomorrow,

  Tony? Got a text?'

  'Acts i, 7. "It is not for you to know the times or the

  seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power." And

  talking of times and seasons, I'd better be getting back for

  a quick bite before the Boys' Club. You and I can agree on

  one thing, anyway, Kathe -'

  'I don't believe it!'

  '- That is a rising trout. He's just risen for about the fifth

  time in the same place. Could you catch him, Alan?'

  'I wish it was my water. I'd have a damned good try.'

  'Perhaps it may be before long. You'll be able to afford it.

  What would you use?'

  'Oh, I don't know - sedge, black gnat. Coachman, perhaps

  - it's getting quite dark.'

  There was a mist coming off the water, and a cool, river

  smell of reeds and mud. The spiders were at work already,

  twining between the tall grasses. Looking upstream as we

  re-crossed the plank bridge, I saw the new moon setting in

  a green, western sky. However things might turn out, I

  thought, Kathe and I could hardly be more fortunate and

  happy.

  Stepping off the bridge she turned and asked, 'What are

  you thinking?'

  'Only what I'm always thinking. "Countries, Townes,

  Courts: Beg from above a patterne of your love."'

  'Well, I'm quite ready to give it to them; but d'you think

  some of them might get more than they bargained for?' She

  put her hand in mine. 'Dear Alan, will you take me out to

  dinner? I really would love it this evening.'

  'Why, you're trembling, Kathe!'

  'Spannung! It's all the excitement, Alan! Heaven knows

  there's enough to feel excited about, don't you think?'

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  To my eyes there was an almost regal quality about Kathe's

  appearance at church next morning. Not that she appeared

  to be putting herself forward; on the contrary, she was

  positively demure. But just as she had looked beyond all

  doubt a swimmer on the banks of the Itchetucknee, so now

  she seemed to effuse a kind of soft, involuntary lustre of

  femininity. I suppose people - women, anyway - have always

  enjoyed making a fuss of a newly-married girl. At

  least, they appear to be making a fuss", but it is also their

  way of sniffing her over - a new member of the pack. After

  the service, as Tony stood at the porch shaking hands and

  making himself agreeable, as clergymen do, several ladies

  came up to chat to Kathe and me in the sunshine, asking her

  how she liked England, whether she found the food in our

  restaurants as awful as foreigners always seem to think, how

  the shops compared with Denmark, how Newbury struck

  her and so on. She could not have responded more graciously,

  modestly or acceptably. It was obvious that they were delighted

  with her.

  In the middle of all this Phil Mannion, one of our churchwardens,

  took me aside to talk about the arrangements for

  Harvest Festival. He wanted to borrow some large bowls and

  dishes from my stock. Phil was always a great arranger well

  in advance and maker of mountains out of molehills. He got

  my agreement, which was all he really needed, quickly

  enough, but then said, 'If you could just come back inside for

  a moment, Alan, I'd like to show you what I've got in mind.'

  'All right,' I said, 'as long as it is just for a moment. Only

  I hardly like to leave my wife alone at the mercy of that lot.

  Just look at them, putting her through the hoop!'

  'Well, she seems to be doing fine; girl like that, get away

  with murder. But look, Alan, by the door here, I thought if

  we had a really huge dish with something of everything on

  it - you know, eggs, vegetables, flowers and so on. What's

  the biggest dish you could let us have?'

  As we leant against the wall of the west tower, he talking

  on and I idly agreeing with this and that, I became abstracted,

  looking up the noble sixteenth-century arcades of

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  the nave and imagining Kathe and myself standing at the

  chancel steps. 'Those whom God hath joined together, let no

  man put asunder.' A private service, with my mother and

  Flick and perhaps one or two friends. Surely in time it would

  come about. But it must wait for Kathe's readiness. I remembered

  Tony's remark about trying to push stuff down on top

  of things that still needed to come out. One day she'd suggest

  it herself.

  St Nicholas's has a fine set of Victorian stained-glass

  windows, like a great picture-book - miracles one side,

  parables the other. I looked at the sower and his seed (the

  seed is falling from his hand in a sort of fan-shaped, semisolid

  plane) and the marriage in Cana of Galilee. Pity, I

  thought, that we couldn't invite the White Horse to our

  wedding. I'd love to see him come clumping up the aisle, like

  Don Giovanni's Stone Guest: I'd give him a bucket of champagne.
br />   Just now I could do with a pint of bitter myself - the

  thirst after righteousness, as my father used to call it. Perhaps

  Phil would be through in a minute.

  Next morning I telephoned the V. & A. and made an appointment

  to see Mr John Mallet on Tuesday afternoon.

  'Are you coming up with me, Kathe?'

  She was arranging four or five pieces of Royal Copenhagen

  and Bing & Gr0ndahl on an occasional table to one side of

  the shop. She put down the plate she was holding and

  turned round, gazing at me with the look I knew, of restrained,

  indulgent amusement.

  'I said, "Are you coming up to the V. & A. with me?" '

  Smiling now, she shook her head.

  'Oh, but why not? It's your discovery - the credit's all

  yours. Don't you want to be there when it's authenticated?'

  'I don't need to be told. The White Horse told me.'

  All that morning she was quiet and distant, withdrawn

  into her beautiful self like a leopard gazing out past sightseers

  to whom it has ceased to pay any attention. About

  noon I went out to the bank; and on my return found her

  285

  sitting in the office, reading Lane and Charleston's 1960

  paper about the Girl in a Swing in my bound Transactions of

  the English Ceramic Circle.

  I put a hand on her shoulder. 'Learnt anything?'

  'Nothing you didn't tell me. Das stimmt damit ein."

  'Coming out for a bite?'

  'Mrs Taswell's gone out already. I'll mind the shop and go

  when you come back.'

  'You're all right, darling, are you?'

  She got up, put the book back on the shelf and stood

  looking at me in something of the dismissive way in which

  she had looked at the students drifting down the Florida

  river.

  'I was never better.'

  I was moved by her serenity and confidence. Pray God it

  would be justified, I thought. Often I felt myself her follower

  and servant. If, now, for whatever reason, she wanted to be

  solitary, it was no business of mine. I went out to lunch.

  When I came back she had already gone home, leaving a

  note in which she assured me that nothing was wrong - 'on

  the contrary, believe me, my dearest' - and hoped I would

  myself return as early as I could.

  That evening it rained - a light, summer rain, portending

  no real break-up of the fine weather - and I, who would

  have preferred to be working in the garden as a relief for my

  tension, fell to dusting and re-arranging the ceramic collection;

  taking pieces out of their cabinets, fingering the glazes

  and placing each in turn under a light on the Stannards'

  occasional table.

  Kathe spent some time finishing her letter of thanks to

  Flick and writing another to my mother, but then, having

  opened the French windows on the wet garden, sat at the

  piano and began playing bits of Schumann's 'Carnaval'.

  After a time the graceful, charming music began to have its

  effect on me, and I gave over my restless re-arranging and

  sat by the windows, watching the quick bobbing of the leaves

  under the raindrops and, farther off, the grey, undulating

  drift across the cornfield and the distant downs. When at

  length she paused I said, 'You've restored my peace of mind.'

  286

  'Not peace but a sword.'

  'How?'

  'Oh - well, a knife and fork, anyway. I'll make you a huge

  chive omelette if you like, and after that I'm going to have

  a whole hour in the bath.'

  But when I came upstairs myself she was already in bed,

  neither reading nor drowsing, but awaiting me with a kind

  of alert expectancy. This I guessed to be her way of reacting

  to the anxiety and excitement of the day, to which she

  would not admit. Once in bed myself, I took her in my arms

  but then, sensing that for once she was not inclined for

  pleasure, lay beside her in silence, holding her hand.

  Our little custom was that it was Kathe who always put

  out the light, either before or after love-making, just as she

  had a mind to. Tonight she did not put it out, and after

  a while I dropped off to sleep. Later, waking for a few

  moments, I saw that the light was still on and she was

  awake. Whether she had yet slept I could not tell, but I was

  myself so drowsy that I returned to sleep at once: and in

  this second sleep I had a dream.

  I was approaching the V. & A. for my meeting with Mallet,

  carrying the Girl in a Swing in her box. I came down the

  Brompton Road, up the steps and in through the revolving

  doors. But as soon as I got inside, I found myself in a vast

  hall, so big that I could not even see the walls. In the centre

  was a raised dais and on this a girl was standing - a living

  girl, and yet she was porcelain; white, naked and very beautiful.

  She might have been the Sevres Galatea of Falconet,

  or Boizot's Bather. All around her, below, stood a concourse

  of people, both men and women; and these, too, were all

  porcelain or pottery, alive and waiting intently. Looking

  about me I recognized many of them, just as I might have

  recognized real people at a concert or in church. The Bow

  Liberty and Matrimony were there, Bustelli's Nymphenburg

  Columbine, the Longton Hall goatherd, the Chelsea ratcatcher,

  the Derby Diana; yes, and Garibaldi in his rough,

  red shirt - he was there. These and many more stood gazing

  at me and waiting. Slowly, at their silent invitation, I approached

  the dais; and as I did so realized that the white

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  girl was Kathe. She held out her arms to me and I, halfshrinking

  from what I now knew to be the conferment of

  great honour, ascended the dais and took her hands in mine.

  The people below still stood in silence, but all smiling, their

  uplifted faces expressing their joy. We were a monarch and

  his queen and these were our subjects, waiting for us to

  establish our kingdom - their kingdom - and to claim

  for them the recognition due to their beauty, the admiration

  of the world.

  In the dream I could feel within my encircling arm both

  the warm, living flesh and the cool, hard glaze of my queen.

  I saw the quaint enamelled eyes of the people shining as

  they stared up at us, the most beautiful and splendid court

  the world had ever known. And suddenly, in the very moment

  of this exaltation, I became appallingly aware of what they

  themselves did not realize - their own fragility. They were

  helpless, more vulnerable than any people in the world, for

  ever dependent on seclusion and protection, and doomed at

  last, one day, to be smashed. One step outside and I could

  not defend them, could not save them from being shattered

  on the pavements and broken against the walls. And as I

  stood helplessly, miserably looking down at their happy

  faces, they faded, receding towards the distant edges of the

  hall, and I woke to find Kathe's arms about me.

  We lay without speaking. I was beyond desire, or any

  feeling but
the memory of the dream. I shed tears, yet she

  asked no questions, only continuing to embrace me, as

  though we ourselves had been those porcelain people, capable

  of movement and feeling though not of speech. At last

  she whispered, 'It has to be'; in a tone not of comfort or

  sympathy, but of such conviction and apparent understanding

  that for one groping instant I wondered whether she,

  too, had dreamt my dream.

  I fell asleep again and did not wake until well after eight.

  Kathe had made tea, run my bath and brushed a dark, go-toLondon

  suit. She seemed altogether her usual self and said

  nothing about the strange night we had passed.

  'I don't think I'd put on the waistcoat, darling,' she said.

  'Just look outside - that purple rim round the sky - it's

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  going to be the hottest day yet. The dew's nearly all off the

  grass already. I don't envy you your trip, but y'all take care

  now - plural - you and your porcelain girl.'

  London. A sweltering afternoon at the V. & A. The attendants

  in shirt-sleeve order and Mr John Mallet in a light-weight,

  white jacket - tall, scholarly and courteous.

  'My goodness, what a hot day, isn't it?' he said as we sat

  down together in his office. 'Like the Mediterranean. Have

  you come up from the country, Mr Desland? Going back

  there tonight? I'm sure you'll be glad to get out of London.'

  'Well, that'll rather depend on what you're going to tell

  me.' It sounded abrupt, but I couldn't help it. Now that the

  moment was upon me, I felt nervous.

  'A serious matter, eh? Well, we'll do our best to help as

  far as we can. Does that mysterious parcel contain what

  you've brought to show me?'

  'It does.'

  I opened the box and stood the figure on his desk. A silence

  ensued, while he looked at it carefully for some time.

  'This is - er - rather remarkable, Mr Desland,' said Mallet

  at length. 'I wonder, might I ask you to tell me what you

  think about it yourself - and perhaps where you got it, if

  that's not being unduly inquisitive?'

  'My wife saw it at a country sale and bought it for twenty

  pounds.'

  'Great heavens! What a wonderful lady!'

  'Yes. The - er - enamelling strikes me particularly, and you

  might like to glance at the under-side of the base.'

  'Good gracious!' As he put it back on the desk I said,

  'You asked me what I think. I think it's a third figure of the

  Girl in a Swing, unique in being enamelled, with features that

  suggest that it may have been made at a factory at or near

  Bow, or at any rate more closely connected with Bow than

  with Chelsea.'

  'Yes. Yes, I see.' Mallet, still examining, paused for a good

  half-minute. 'Well,' he went on at length, 'what my advice

  comes down to, Mr Desland, is that I should say you were

  289

  probably right. As you know, it used to be thought, largely

  on the evidence of Simeon Shaw's History of the Staffordshire

  Potteries, that the potters who migrated from there to London

  in the seventeen-forties and 'fifties went only to the

  Chelsea factory. Shaw refers to the existence of a second

  Chelsea factory, and it used to be supposed that this and

  the Girl-in-a-Swing factory must have been one and the

  same. But we now know that in fact some of those Staffordshire

  potters went to Bow. Samuel Parr, for instance - well,

  you know about Phoebe Parr, I suppose?'

  'Yes, I know about Phoebe Parr.' I could not suppress a

  shudder. Even now, the little girl at the bottom of the sea

  was something I did not care to recall.

  'Very sad, isn't it? So many children died in those days.

  Well, she proves Samuel Parr for one, and then there was

  Joshua Astbury. Shaw didn't tell us everything, that's about

  the size of it. Chelsea wasn't the only factory to go in for

  slip-casting. I think the truth is that there was a good deal

  of to-ing and fro-ing by potters between Chelsea and Bow.

  We know, of course, that Thomas Frye had a porcelain

  factory at Bow; and we know that in 1754 John Fry - whoever

  he may have been - paid tax on some land apparently

  owned by that factory.

  I waited without speaking, but my hands were not steady.

  Mallet turned back to the figure on the desk.

  'And now you come along with this lady. And there are

  three most interesting things about her. First of all, she's a

  third Girl in a Swing all right. There's not a doubt of that.

  She's slip-cast, and her glaze is quite unmistakable. Then,

  secondly, she's got this very exciting incised name, "John