Chapter 56
Mary spent most of the next few days alone in Mr. Gardiner’s library, studying the Lyrical Ballads. At teatime one afternoon, when her aunt came searching for her, she was so deeply immersed in her reading that, when Mrs. Gardiner gently touched her shoulder, she sprang up in surprise.
“I’m so sorry, Mary,” exclaimed her aunt. “I didn’t mean to alarm you. You must be quite lost to the world in that book.”
She looked over at the title.
“It is poetry, then, just as you feared. How are you finding it?”
“Some of the poems are quite simple to grasp and easy to enjoy; but others puzzle me. I have read them over and over, but I still don’t know what to think of them.”
“That must be a new sensation for you, I imagine?” asked Mrs. Gardiner, noting Mary’s preoccupied air.
There was no point in asking her to take a view on young George’s attempt at copying out the alphabet; her mind was elsewhere.
“I should warn you, a confession of that nature will be irresistible to Tom. He will explain them to you, at great length, from now until dinner time, unless you keep him in check.”
Mary smiled politely and went back to the little book.
She was not sure that explanation, in the usual sense, would be of much help to her.
She had begun to suspect that the more opaque poems were not susceptible to analysis at all, or at least not of the rational kind she knew best. They seemed to ask something very different from their reader.
She was not sure yet exactly what it was, but she would do all she could to discover it.
She was determined to have something intelligent to say to Mr. Hayward when he came to discuss them.
He arrived on a sunny Saturday morning, freed from his office and eager to talk of something other than the law.
Mrs. Gardiner was occupied with the children in the nursery upstairs, and Mr. Gardiner was occupied with writing letters in his library, so he and Mary had the drawing room to themselves.
Mr. Hayward looked around, as if something was not quite to his liking, before boldly lifting one of the several card tables scattered about the room and placing it in front of the high windows.
When he had satisfied himself that it was now in the perfect position to take best advantage of the sharp morning light, he drew up two chairs at either side.
From the sideboard, Mary fetched the jug of lemon water she had arranged to be there for their use; and soon they were both seated comfortably at the table, each with a copy of the Lyrical Ballads in their hands.
“This reminds me a little of preparing for my examinations,” remarked Mr. Hayward. “So, where shall we start? How did you like the Ballads?”
“I began rather slowly,” said Mary. “I did not realise before that poetry requires a special kind of concentration all of its own. I had to learn how to read them properly before I could begin to think of enjoying them.”
“Yes, a poem demands a particular kind of effort, if it is to be appreciated. But I cannot believe you did not persevere?”
“Yes, I did—and I was rewarded, for there were many poems that pleased me. The simpler ones, those about humble people.”
She opened the book and began to turn the pages.
“I very much liked ‘We are Seven.’ No-one could fail to be moved by it, if they had any feeling heart.”
She found the place and began to read.
“Their graves are green, they may be seen,”
The little Maid replied,
“Twelve steps or more from my mother’s door,
And they are side by side.
My stockings there I often knit,
My kerchief there I hem;
And there upon the ground I sit,
And sing a song to them.”
She looked up, her eyes bright.
“It is very affecting, is it not? But there were others which, as you hinted to me, did not give up their secrets so easily. I had to read them again and again before I began to understand their meaning.”
She reached for her glass and filled it with lemon water from the jug. Her hand trembled very slightly as she did so. She knew once she began to describe what had happened—the great discovery she had made—she would find it hard to stop.
“But, oh, Mr. Hayward—when you finally understand—when a poem speaks to you at last, as one did to me last night—it is wonderful, is it not?”
She longed to describe to him how it happened—the flash of insight that had come upon her unawares as she lay reading in bed—the excitement she had felt in understanding what the poet intended—the way she had hugged herself with the sheer pleasure of seeing it at last—but this was too much to be said, even to Mr. Hayward.
“So poetry has touched you, then?” he replied, with a playful smile. “It has broken through that rational reserve?”
“It is unfair to mock me, sir. And very ungenerous too.”
“Yes, I am wrong to do so,” he admitted, his amused expression gradually becoming more serious now.
“In truth, I am delighted for you. You have experienced a sensation I know I could not live without, and I am exceedingly happy for you. Will you tell me which poem it was that affected you so strongly?”
She turned to a page marked with a piece of paper.
“It is this one.”
She reached across the table and handed the book silently to him.
“‘Tintern Abbey.’” He looked up and their eyes met. “How extraordinary that this should be your favourite. It is mine too. I like it best of all Mr. Wordsworth’s works.”
In the distance, she heard the muffled rumble of the City streets.
Upstairs, the children ran around in the nursery, their footsteps loud on the wooden floors.
The drawing room, in contrast, seemed remarkably still.
In the silence, she was suddenly very aware of Mr. Hayward’s presence, of his hands holding the book, the whiteness of his cuffs against his dark coat.
“I am very pleased,” he said softly, “that we think as one about this poem—that it moves you as much as it does me. But I am not surprised. I think you have it within you to feel very deeply, when you allow yourself to do so.”
Mary was at a loss to know what to say, or how to answer. From the street, she heard the cry of a woman selling cherries from her barrow.
“Round and sound, five pence a pound.”
Her voice was pure, clear, and very loud. Mr. Hayward started up and seemed to recollect himself. He handed the book back to Mary, drew his own copy from his pocket, and turned its pages until he found “Tintern Abbey.”
“Before we talk more about the poem itself,” he said in a more even tone, “I should be interested to know what happened to make you appreciate its power?”
Mary considered his question. In the past, her instinct would have been to say nothing, to reveal as little as possible of her private self. But now, with a new courage, she resolved to be candid.
“I suppose it is my habit to dissect and analyse what I read,” she began. “Indeed, it is how I make sense of things in general. But with ‘Tintern Abbey,’ it did not work. No matter how hard I tried, I could not get to the heart of it. Something always eluded me.”
She shifted in her chair. Perhaps the bodice of her new dress was a little tight? Suddenly she felt very warm; but she continued.
“Then it occurred to me that I was coming at it in quite the wrong way. I was belabouring it with my mind—trying to think it into submission. I began to fear I might be about to destroy the very thing I wanted to understand. It struck me that a poem was perhaps too fragile an object to bear the weight of too much ‘rational examination.’”
She ran her fingers across the smooth cotton of her dress, playing with the pleats as she spoke.
“I must say, I was not entirely pleased with that idea. It was very unsettling. If I could not call upon my intellect to help me make sense of things, what else was there for me to rely upon?”
“So what did you do?”
“I made the hardest possible choice for someone like myself. I left it alone. I stopped examining and underlining. I made no more notes in the margins. I allowed myself to do nothing more than to read—and quietly reflect upon it. And then a few days later—when I least expected it—I made the leap. That is the only way I can explain it.”
“Ah, yes!” cried Mr. Hayward. “‘The leap!’ I know exactly what you mean! It is the moment when we enter fully into the poet’s imagination. When we truly understand what it is he means.”
“Yes,” replied Mary quietly. “That is what happened. It was a very surprising sensation for me, unlike anything I have experienced before.”
“You should be very pleased with yourself,” declared Mr. Hayward excitedly. “Many people never manage to make such a connection. I long to know which parts of it particularly affected you. Tell me exactly what you felt when you read it.”
Mary took another glass of water and tried to compose herself. She wanted to make no mistakes. She opened her book at the marked page, and began.
“At first, the poem seems both very beautiful and very simple. The poet sits beneath a tree at the top of a high valley, gazing down to the river below.”
“‘O sylvan Wye,’” murmured Mr. Hayward, “‘thou wanderer through the woods.’”
Mary noticed he did not consult his book; he knew the poem by heart.
“Mr. Wordsworth describes the landscape with great brilliance. We feel ourselves plunged into the heart of ‘the wild secluded scene.’”
Mr. Hayward did not hurry her, so she took a deep breath and continued.
“All this is excellently done. But just as we think we have the measure of what the poet wants to say, we realise he has something far more extraordinary to convey to us.”
She turned the pages of her book, her excitement growing.