XV. Vesper for a swan
It would be evening when she arrived.
She wouldn't tell him. She wouldn't tell him because he wouldn't care. Perhaps he would even be happy for her day-long outing. He would certainly be happy, because solitude was his religion.
She didn't want to admit to herself that she knew why; she didn't want to acknowledge that in the abscence of those you love, anyone else's company is poison. Even another's love becomes poison. Had love ever been described as poison? Some poets said love was like a ray of light in the darkness. Like a splash of water on parched land. Like the first snowdrop of the last winter days. She had never read about love being called poison. Poetry lied as it always did.
So why did he willingly shrink from the light? Like a mole, preferring the darkness. Preferring parched land. Could man live on memories alone? Could man live by tormenting himself every second? Could man live and never see the sun? Perhaps, she thought, Perhaps. If he were blind. A mole is blind, he doesn't know that, if he had eyes, he could bask in the sunlight. But could he not feel its warmth on his skin?
The carriage rattled on her way to the London outskirts. In a moment of bravery, she thought she'd go to Brighton, to the sea. In that moment, she had thought she'd ask him to come, too, and she had even thought of the words that would make them go. And yet, as usual, the bravery and resolve drained with the darkness of night; daylight sobered her: she wouldn't be able to persuade him. And she would never go there alone. It would be too painful.
The promise of a house by the sea seemed so far away, and yet...how had he reacted when she had said she wanted to retreat with him, to somewhere warmer? Consumed, as always, by his own thoughts of revenge, he had muttered a consent. And yet, one minute he was cold, the other he was hot, and perhaps the next moment he would say he had never agreed to it.
She knew where to ask for the carriage to be stopped. Perhaps, as close as she would ever get to a holiday by the sea was sitting by a pond in the London outskirts. Perhaps, the wet ground caking her widow's dress would be a fair equivalent of the sand she imagined cascading off her skirts in sheets. Perhaps she could talk to the marshes, and as they moved, she would imagine that there was someone there, next to her.
But no, she would not be upset that she wasn't on Brighton Beach, but on an unnamed stretch of land in front of a shallow pond. It was better than nothing. It was good enough. And good enough was good enough for her.
She sat by the marshes, on the wet ground before the pond, and listened to everything, everything that reminded her that what she wanted to hear, whom she wanted to talk to and recieve lengthy answers, like they did in the novels she had never had any patience for, wasn't here. She listened to idle, uninteresting birdsong. To the leaves rustling.
To the footsteps. The footsteps she tried to ignore, because she knew they were not his.
«Yer not supposed te sit her, ma'am. Ye'd better leave.»
He was a typical shepherd boy. Reddish – brown hair sticking up at the very top of his head, freckled skin, open – hearted brown eyes, a wide smile. Many women would even consider this young man handsome. He was attractive, in a young, innocent way. She wished she could lay her hands on his head and let him steal away her infatuation. For it was pointless, like a letter without an answer.
Sometimes, she looked at the black-framed picture on the wall of her shop, and imagined her dead husband speaking to her, his moustache ruffling, scratching his bald head. Some letters are not meant to be answered. You keep thinking that the letter hasn't reached its address. But think, maybe it has. Maybe it has, but the one to whom you addressed it is unable to answer, although he wants to. Perhaps he doesn't even want to. And she, brushing off the voice of reason, would think to herself, If you say that again, I swear I will take that damned portrait of yours down. In an instant, don't you doubt.
«I don't think there's anything wrong with me sitting here, love,» she said, leaving her lips slightly parted, looking at him with what she felt was an appealing expression. It was a look she almost permanently wore around him.
The shepherd looked a little disconcerted.
«Well, I...I mean...I 'ave my sheep 'ere.»
«Well, they're not with ye now, hm?» She fluttered her eyelashes. The young boy smiled. Why did she appeal so to young men? She would bet any money on this young shepherd being yet another poor motherless boy. Of course he saw a mother in her. They would all love her as anything, as a mother, a sister, an aunt, a friend...they would use friendly words and put their arms around her shoulders, when she wanted only his hands, and on her waist.
He sat down next to her, a piece of straw in his mouth. Did all shepherds chew straw? They did in the petty novels she had never had any patience for.
Not bent on talking more than this shepherd boy, she turned to gaze at the water.
She gasped.
Two swans swam into view, right out of the marshes, one black and the other white, so beautifully close to each other, so beautifully together. She traced the elegant curve of their necks, the graceful symmetry of the feathers, the glimmering black eyes, the soft streaks they left in the water as they swam past, with her eyes.
She turned around, to the shepherd, expecting him to be watching the swans with the same rapture, the same adoration, perhaps even the same envy - though she wouldn't admit it to herself - as she did, for he was a man of nature. A man of pastures and waters. A man so young, with his entire life shining in front of him. She had not expected his expression to be that of a grown man. To be that similar to his as he brooded, gazing out of the window.
«Somethin troublin ye son?» She asked, looking at him the way she would look at a child.
He sighed, running a hand through his auburn hair, still sucking on the piece of straw. His other hand clenched and unclenched on his lap.
«I shouldn't bother ye with me problems, ma'am,» he said, though he did not say it dismissively.
«Don't be silly, son,» she said, and she thought her voice sounded rather distant, as if in reality she were thinking of something different.
He sighed.
«Beautiful, ain't they?» she said, nodding towards the swans. Now, her voice sounded encouraging, as if in reality she wanted him to answer something else.
He frowned, and stared down at the ground, wrinkling his forehead and absently picking at the loose, wet soil, still chewing his straw.
«They only know one love, ye know? If one o' them dies,» he said, gesturing at the white swan, that swam, so close, to the black swan, «the other will be alone forever. In mournin' forever.»
She hadn't known that. And, perhaps, she wished she hadn't; they were only animals, true, but she had no patience for constancy. She had no understanding for those who didn't move on. It was disconcerting to learn that this constancy and attachment she had found so unnatural was actually natural. When the shepherd boy spoke again, his voice was as grown and mature as his expression, his face, creased with a deep frown.
«I love someone like that. I've loved her fer years. She's old enough to be me mother, but I don't care. I've loved 'er since I met 'er...when she was thirty. She means the world to me, if only she'd understand. She's happily married. Thinks I see 'er as a mother, and its not a surprise, fer an orphan...» she would have won a large sum of money if she had betted on his parentlessness. «It's painful, but I know I must let 'er be 'appy. I might die without 'er, an mind yeh I need no young fair maid, only her – but I'll die happiest if I know she's 'appy too.»
There was a startled silence. She had no right to judge him for his strange love. As if one could read of a love like hers in the novels she had no patience for.
"She's so kind to me," he continued, his voice nearly tearful, "every time I come round, she lets me eat at 'er table, gives me buns and cakes to take 'ome with me. Thinks I come round for 'er bakin'...when really, all I want is a glimpse of 'er...just a glimpse, and its enough..." he broke off abruptly, turning his head to her. His cheeks grew red, and his eyes looked to the ground. "I'm sorry," he said, hesitantly. Hesitantly, and quietly..."I shouldn' ave."
«Ye should fight fer 'er, son,» she said. She didn't care for his embarassment. The idea of leaving him, even if he was unhappy by her side, was unbearable.
He stared at her, long and hard. «I don't know why I love 'er so, ma'am, but I won't make 'er unhappy. If I need to, I'll-» he straightened out, grabbing his shirt with his fists, «tie meself up and stop meself from doing something to harm 'er happiness, because sometimes I...» his voice sounded choked up. «I 'ave dark thoughts.»
Who doesn't, she thought.
"Don't worry, son, it's all right," she said. Her hand twitched to pat him on the shoulder, and yet, she held back; she had no reason to prolong this pointless conversation; she had nothing to do here. Nothing more. She had better go back and tell the carriage man to take her back early. Nothing was keeping her here now. She had sought for escape; for freedom from what was tormenting her; she had sought peace; she had found the opposite – a young man who had, just like her, sent a letter and recieved no answer. A young man on the verge of tears. A young man who, like her, yearned for escape, freedom, peace.
She stood up, muttered something curt and polite about being late and having to leave. She did not pause to look back, for she was filled with newfound zeal. Her heart beat violently against her ribs; the shepherd boy, still sitting there, at the bank of the river, did not have what he desired because he was too weak to take action. Inside her, she felt sure she, resilient and strong as she found herself, would gain his heart, whatever the price.
She did not understand that it was impossible.
She did not understand that he was a not a mole who willingly shrank from sunlight.
He was a swan.
As she walked away, the two swans, black and white, swam towards eachother and pressed their beautiful heads together, forming a heart with their slender necks.
The river would be their home, their sanctuary. And yet, time has never been sentient. Years later, in the middle of winter, when untrodden snow lay on the riverbank, he would find the white swan lifeless, her beautiful neck sprawled on the snow, white on white, barely distinguishable if not for the pattern of her beak. The beak he nuzzled repeatedly, trying to revive her, flapping his wings and twisting his neck, mute as he was.
And if one came by the lake, be it at dawn, or dusk, one would see the black swan circle the pond with a bowed head, his lone reflection lost in the still waters.
Half a year later, the lake would be deserted. Deserted, but for two feathers, floating together.
Two feathers.
One black, one white.