III

      They gathered in The Vaults. Their shadows craned across the walls, creating arches of light and dark that moved as the artists moved amongst one another, shaking hands and embracing friends.
      It was a barrel like room full of studded Chesterfield armchairs, lit with candles. There was a smell of Sandlewood in the air. Incense burned. Here they performed to eachother, taking turns at delivering a scene from a new play, reciting poetry, singing songs or performing sequences from self-choreographed ballet and, always, with that youthful intensity in their hearts and eyes. As Felix sang his verse in a shrill whisper there was total silence as they listened:

A child or a princess, a girl in a blue dress
With bluebells and lilacs laced into her petticoat -
Oh take me by the ribbon in your hair
And lead me the way of the dreamer

I seek you, inhaling the blood of the poppy
I look for your name in the smoke of the drowsy leaves
I see you in visions but then you are gone
Oh take me and let me dissolve in the sound of forever and ever.

There - I can see you at the gate of your garden,
a foolish enchanting, truth in your eyes.
Turn from me, you know I will follow,
Till you tell me with laughter, the reason I wander
forever through mazes that vanish into dark.
Oh take me by the ribbon in your hair
And lead me the way of the dreamer.

I trust you and follow but where do you lead me?
Through sunlight and haze and nightingale song.
You lead me with singing until I have lost you
And never can follow but fall to the ground
As sleep gently pulls me away.

      Iseult thought he seemed the human embodiment of a silver cigarette case, his hair as pale as his skin, his whole self seeming to flicker in the unsteady light.
      She played and sang with Miranda on the harp, like sirens of a mythical past. They sang of shipwrecks and lost sailors to whom they gave their hearts and of castles made of stone that were settled upon clouds. Their voices embraced each other and their movements over their instruments as they plucked and strummed were like a slow dance; they were flowers bowing their heads in the wind.
      Milicent read her prose on the difficulties of the modern world: the ironies of trying to be good and being worse; the inevitable hypocrisy; the people who make no effort; the people who think that they make an effort so think they are better than you; the difficulties of believing in equality but having to dismiss everything 'your man' does on the grounds that 'after all, he's just a man.' But it was all in good sport and very well observed. They laughed at themselves and everybody else and as they displayed their talents a gathering motion rolled them onwards and more and more remembered their desire to make themselves heard and took to the stage until all were satisfied that they had said their piece.
      Then, happily, they would make their way home or retire to the house of a welcoming socialite and carry on with their songs until the morning.