“Well enough.” Mr. Bosworth held up the newspaper. “There’s been enough happening since last Monday to excite a man. What do you think of it all now, David?”
David glanced at the sedate headlines to the restrained columns, tucked away into the middle of the paper as if to lessen their importance. “Disturbing,” he said lamely. “Don’t get too excited, Father,” he added gently. “If we were Germans we could do something about it. But as it is—” He placed a hand on his father’s shoulder. He was minimising his own feelings to calm his father.
His father looked at him, and then smiled sadly. “I know,” he said, “you have your own worries, and plenty of them. You don’t like the news, either, but you are glad to forget it. And it is, fundamentally, the Germans’ problem. But they won’t face it, for in their hearts they believe that Germany is never at fault. So they will look round for others on whom to blame this Reichstag fire, and persuade themselves that whatever they do—or allow to be done, and that’s the next stage to actual doing—is right. And the trouble will grow.” His voice suddenly sharpened. “Don’t people ever read history properly? Or do they think that if they know a list of dates and what king ruled when, then that is enough? All this has happened before, when Napoleon started his career. Step by step—it is all there for us to read in the history books.” Then his voice softened again. “I can’t blame you or any of your friends. Most people did not find this news even disturbing. Probably thought it was a little bit of added excitement in the newspapers, instead of the daily diet of divorce cases and dull political speeches. I can’t blame you when even the chaps who are paid to know write generalisations like this.” He pointed angrily at the pages of print, at the other newspapers piled at his elbow. “And all these comments from the world’s capitals... They aren’t real comments at all. Nothing but a lot of soft soap.”
“Yes,” David said unhappily. “But look, Father—some of my friends are worried. But what can we do? What magazine or newspaper with any circulation is going to print what we would like to write? What Member of Parliament or diplomat is going to listen to what an undergraduate has to say? And we’ve got to think of our own personal lives—who else will read the books for us, pass our examinations, get us started in jobs? We have got to concentrate on what we have to do, for until that is done we aren’t even treated as if we were adult. Most of us can’t vote, and we’d be expelled from the University if we got married. Why, we would be censured by most people if we even got publicly engaged. Funny thing, that. Remember my American friend Burns? He tells me that a student in America can get engaged if he damned well wants to. And a lot of students are married too. Are we any less adult than American men? Except, of course, when it comes to a war. Then, by God, we are all considered adult enough to go out and kill.”
“Well, David,” Mr. Bosworth said slowly, for it was difficult for him to say the things he ought to say when he believed so little in them, “the universities in this country think that a man’s work is disturbed by marriage. He doesn’t get such good results if he has a wife to interfere with his work.”
“Which is the reason,” David said, with heavy sarcasm, “that America is such a poor, undeveloped, backward country.”
His father had to smile. Life wasn’t a debating society, he was reflecting: David was right when he implied that, however excellent arguments might seem when they were logically stated, they didn’t always produce the only good results when worked out in practice. For a nation that prides itself on its tolerance, we English really like to believe that only our way is the correct way, he thought sadly.
“Besides,” David went on, defending the young men who were as powerless as they were made to feel, “none of us wants to start marching, and how else could you deal with Germany? And, what’s more, how would it look in the history books if we interfered at this moment in German affairs? That would just back up all that Hitler has been screaming: we are jealous of Germany and want to kick her in the teeth whenever possible.”
“I didn’t mention marching, as far as I recall,” his father said sharply. “All I want is that people understand what is going on. We should take the warning signal and keep watch. That’s all.”
“I agree,” David said, and thought of some way to turn the conversation. His father had never forgiven Germany for her treachery in 1914, and because he was one of a very small minority who still remember—a minority that was argued down and snubbed and attacked by all the broad-minded people who knew better—he had become hypersensitive about the whole thing.
And what, David suddenly thought, if they are all wrong and Father is right? It was an unpleasant thought, chilling him for the long moment he had unveiled it in his mind. Then he covered it over by walking to the table and lifting the edge of the folded napkin. Sandwiches, as he had thought. “Look, Father, I’ll go and forage in the pantry. There must be something to cook there, surely. What do you think about ’phoning—”
“What we need is a batch of new diplomats, the best brains we have. And with guts and red blood,” his father was saying. He looked at David pointedly.
“Well, I’ve got red blood,” David said. “But I don’t know about these other qualifications.” God, he thought in desperation, here we start this all over again. “I was saying, what about ’phoning Penny? We’ll have lunch here with you. There must be something in the larder. Penny says she can cook. Let’s try her out, shall we?”
“Perhaps I should be safer with sandwiches,” his father said. “And, in any case, I rather like being here alone when I have so much to read.” No piano today, thank Heaven. “Where are you and Penny going this afternoon?”
“Hampton Court.” That, David had thought, would be a change from Regent’s Park and the Zoo. The Tower wasn’t too bad, either, if you avoided the popular exhibits. But the museums and art galleries were just as bad as Westminster Abbey; no conversation possible, for the smallest remark had to be delivered in an awed whisper, and if you hadn’t whispered with enough awe there was always a sentinel on duty with a reminding eye.
“I do believe you’ve seen more of your London this winter than in all the other years of your life put together,” his father remarked. “You weren’t ever much of a sightseer.” He looked at David with open amusement. David had flushed, and then he laughed too.
“You had better leave soon,” his father suggested.
“I’ll give Penny a ring, and tell her to come over. There are plenty of days for Hampton Court.” After the Finals are over, David added to himself: this would have to be his last visit to town this term. Then came Easter, and Penny would be in Scotland. Then his last term, and a damned lot of work too. No time to travel to London, unless his work went miraculously well.
His father’s face saddened.
“Now what was that?” David asked quickly.
“Nothing,” his father answered. How pleasant to be able to say you had plenty of days to go to Hampton Court or any other place. Plenty of days... He half sighed. David started towards the door.
“No, David,” his father said, sharply enough to halt him. “Not today. This is one of my grouchy days. I like your Penny, and so I want her to like me. And I also want to read my newspapers, and compose a few speeches that I’d like to be able to make. Arguing with myself is most enjoyable, because I always end up, somehow or other, by agreeing with myself.” He smiled broadly. “Come away from that door, David. If you don’t I’ll talk to you about Germany.”
David knew he meant that too, so he came back to his chair. He said, “Well, let’s have some family news. How is Margaret? She hasn’t written very much recently.”
“Margaret is concentrating on music at the moment,” Mr. Bosworth said. He glanced ruefully at the ceiling towards the room upstairs. “Less scales, though, I must admit. And some new pieces too. She has been attending these afternoon classes quite regularly. And she has been seeing a good deal of Miss Rawson.”
David looked at his father quickly. What had made him say tha
t? “More than usual?” David asked sharply.
His father considered for a moment. “Miss Rawson is coming to live here once the Easter vacation is over. Margaret says you won’t need your room after that. She says you are obviously going to marry Penelope Lorrimer as soon as you can.”
David was silent. “Father,” he said at last, “if you were me and mother had been Penny, wouldn’t you?”
His father did not answer for some moments. He seemed almost as if he had forgotten the question. Then he glanced at his son. I am sorry for all these young men, he thought, for these young men and women. All planning the beginning of careers, the beginning of their real life. None of them know how little time they may have. None of them have yet discovered that they may plan and work; and all that they have planned, worked for, may be swept away by men they have never seen who appear to have nothing to do with their lives.
He roused himself to say, “Frankly I don’t think you should wait any longer than is necessary. And it is for you and Penny to decide that. You know, when you are happily married, the years become shorter and shorter. Too short.” The newspapers slid off his lap, and David stooped to pick them up. He folded them neatly, placing the pages in the correct order, and laid them carefully on the small reading-table beside his father’s chair. He said nothing.
“Too short,” his father repeated. “So have all the happiness you can before it is taken away from you. That was the chief lesson I learned in my life.” His voice was low, as if he were tiring. He glanced at the clock. “Don’t be late, David. Give Penelope my love.”
“There is still plenty of time,” David said, but he looked anxiously at the clock. He pretended to be interested in the new books from the library which were on the reading-table. “Has Margaret a lot of other women friends?”
“No. Or, at least, I don’t see any of them,” his father said. And then his voice sharpened, “And you haven’t plenty of time.”
“What about men?”
“At the moment she thinks us a bad lot.”
“That sounds like an overdose of Rawson,” David said worriedly.
“Better leave, David. Glad you came, but I’ll see Penny another day,” his father urged. He picked up the Sunday Times. “Now, let’s see what we have here,” he said, in a tone of voice which announced he knew quite well what to expect.
David let himself be reassured, partly by the renewed vigour in his father’s voice, partly by the determined look on his face. He could not have been exhausted, after all. And he apparently was not very worried about Margaret. But I am, David thought. Once his Finals were over he would deal with this Old Man of the Sea Rawson. Margaret would never have any chance for real happiness if she had Florence Rawson hanging round her neck, making her distrust and dislike everyone except Florence Rawson. As he picked up his hat from the hallstand, and twisted the knot of his foulard tie to sit squarely against his blue shirt collar, he stared at himself angrily in the mirror. And then he left the house quickly.
He turned to wave to his father, and then, hat in hand, strode down the Walk. After all, his father had said very definitely that he wanted no visitors this afternoon. And there was really no time to telephone Penny now. He should have done that when the idea had first struck him. Hell, he said to himself.
The houses seemed smaller in the bright spring light. Their bricks were more soot-stained. There was the smell of Sunday dinners cooking on the small gas-ovens. One pair of lace curtains quivered gently as their owner watched him discreetly. Opposite the row of neat little boxes the skeleton branches of the lime-tree looked as if they had little strength to bloom this year. David halted at the corner, and turned to wave once more towards his father’s window. “All right, all right,” he said under his breath. “You are damned relieved that Father didn’t want you around, that you could have Penny to yourself today.” He gave one last glance at the window. He would be late for Penny now. He set off at a steady run towards the Tube station. That was one way, too, of working off his anger.
He arrived, rather short of breath but in a better temper, in time to catch one of the faster trains. That piece of luck helped too. He was unworried and in good humour when he boarded the train. And he remembered his father’s decided voice and look when he had said, “Glad you came but...”
That reassured David nicely, probably because he wanted to be reassured.
24
O WESTERN WIND...
The sharp March wind had driven most of the visitors to Hampton Court inside the palace. There they could wander comfortably through the halls and rooms which lay open, with all their ancient display, to the public.
But David, although he wore no coat, and Penny, in her new spring suit, did not seem to notice the wind. All they noticed, indeed, was the fact that Hampton Court was most pleasantly uncrowded. In this quiet corner of the gardens they could even feel alone. David slipped his arm around her waist as they paced slowly up and down between the hedges of yew, cleanly trimmed into patterns of neatness. At least, Penny had decided, they must be yew: she could hardly imagine Cardinal Wolsey allowing anything except the very best yew to be planted in his gardens. But now she had forgotten about Wolsey’s pride in possession and Henry VIII’s little piece of sharp practice, which you could forgive because it had been directed against the Cardinal—injustice always seemed comic when practised against the mighty—and she was only thinking about David’s plans. By the telling they were becoming their plans. There was warmth from his body and warmth from the hope in his words.
“Oh, David,” Penny said suddenly, and caught his hand and pressed it to her side, so that his arm tightened round her waist. “So soon?” No more dreary months of loneliness, no more waiting and worrying, no more of this awful feeling of time slipping away, of living only for the future. She laughed with equal suddenness. The wind had whipped the colour into the smooth skin of her cheeks; her eyes were all the more blue for the blue sky above; her hair was as shining as the spring sun.
“It could not be too soon,” he said. He was smiling, but his voice was strained as if all the emotion inside him, so suddenly aroused by her happy laugh, had made simple words almost too difficult to put together in a sentence. He halted, and they came to a stop. They were no longer smiling. They faced each other, gripping hands, feeling each other’s emotion so intensely that happiness and pain were no longer distinguishable. The long moments passed, their hands dropped, and they began walking once more. David’s stride was uneven, and Penny’s balance seemed unsteady (but she, at least, had high heels on which to blame that), for she lurched against his arm and then said, “Sorry!” in so stilted a way, as if he were a stranger, that he laughed.
“I suppose most people would say we are insane,” he said. But if this is insanity, then I never want to be sane. “That woman certainly would.” He looked with growing annoyance towards the stranger who had chosen to invade this small corner of the gardens and who was watching them in a frightened kind of way. And there was another, just behind her, a man who was pacing slowly along the box border of a formal flower bed. Didn’t he know that there were much better hyacinths to be seen elsewhere? Never left alone, David thought bitterly. If it isn’t relatives or friends it is a landlady or a strange female with a cold red nose pointed in our direction. Why couldn’t she stare at the flower beds as the man beside her was doing?
The strange female, who wouldn’t have recognised herself by that description, took a hesitating step and then halted. For the last two minutes she had been wondering if she might ask that nice young couple what time it was. So silly of her to have forgotten to pin on her watch; it had been lying on the dressing-table, and she had said, “Now don’t forget that. You know Emily does not like being late for tea.” And she had forgotten it after all. And really you couldn’t trust sundials now, what with all this Winter and Summer Time foolishness, when did you take an hour off or put an hour on, so frightfully bewildering to the poor things? And she had seemed to see only men i
n the last five minutes. There was one just behind her now. He couldn’t be following her, could he? And she couldn’t ask a strange man, anyway, what time it was. And tea was at four. And that did mean four o’clock. Emily disapproved of people who arrived early too. And it was a pity, indeed it was, to leave this charming garden even if it was rather cold today, so disappointing for spring, before she really must. Not that the people Emily invited to tea were not interesting too, but after all they couldn’t quite compare with Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour and Mary—it was dreadful how school children today were taught that nasty word before her name—and Elizabeth, and that awful Charles II. Emily always said that this had been a court of shocking iniquity, and what all these mazes and hidden gardens were built for was best forgotten, Emily... oh, dear, she really must ask these young people the time.
She halted in dismay as she realised that they were in the middle of a conversation, and a very private one, too. “Not insane,” the young lady was saying; “sane at last. I know now, for the first time, why I was born and why I should live at all. It cannot be insanity to find that out. It is the only thing that makes life sane.”
Penny stopped and looked at the shrinking owner of the timid voice which had spoken and yet had scarcely been heard. The time, David said, was exactly ten minutes past four. It was their turn to be startled as Emily’s friend said, “Oh, dear!” in a horrified voice, and rushed out of the garden with her scarf and umbrella a-flutter.
“I probably frightened her,” Penny said, smiling now, but with the deep colour of embarrassment still clinging to her cheeks.
David said nothing. He was wondering why on earth elderly females who wanted to know the time just had to come over at that moment. Why on earth hadn’t she asked the man who had been so near her? Why had she chosen to interrupt them? And now Penny was pretending to laugh at herself and her serious phrases, and when she spoke again it would be about some ordinary thing, but not about the moment they had both felt so intensely. He knew that, and yet hoped he was wrong, as he watched the varying emotions in her face. God, he thought suddenly, there isn’t an expression on her face that I cannot read now, there isn’t one movement of her body that I don’t know off by heart, and yet I cannot be sure of her. Knowing, yet not knowing. Perhaps that was what kept people plunging more deeply into love, knowing and yet not knowing. Love was wild contrast: you knew, yet you were unsure; you trusted, yet you were jealous; you were amazed that you had found so much, and yet you wanted more; you were content with one woman, yet wanted her to be a hundred women; you were tied to her more closely with every hour you spent with her, tied hand and foot, and yet you were free in a strange new way, startled with such freedom; you were relaxed—feeling, here I am happy, here I am at home—and yet you knew tension and constant effort. Constant effort in a love that had been effortless and natural—because you were unsure, jealous, demanding, desirous, painfully conscious of your own lack of worth—perhaps that was love. Perhaps love lived on constant effort, however effortless and natural it seemed.
Friends and Lovers Page 25
