Now, God be Thanked

by John Masters

  Harry, talking to his eldest son, felt warmth almost visibly coursing through his veins. The quarrel was over, the breach healed. Together, with Richard’s support, he could be strong enough to help Rose in her hour of trial and, perhaps, death. He stopped talking, suddenly chilled as he heard the now familiar tap tap tap behind him. The mayor’s voice said, ‘Mr Harry, this is one of our heroes – ’

  Quentin, from the side, stared closer. The man had joined the regiment just before the war, certainly giving a false age … he was really about sixteen then … spent a few days in Quentin’s A Company before the Adjutant found out that he was a natural bugler and had him transferred … ‘Wounded, gassed, and blinded at Ypres last spring,’ the mayor was saying …

  What was his name? Couldn’t for the life of him remember.

  The soldier leaned forward and spoke to Harry and Richard. ‘Are you the candidates? And one of you’s going to be Member of Parliament?’

  Harry said, ‘Yes. I am the new member, and this is my son.’

  The soldier took off his black glasses, revealing ulcerated blue-white eyeballs, no distinction between iris and sclera. He said, ‘Do you know what you’re doing? At all?’

  The mayor blustered, ‘Now, look here …!’

  The soldier said, ‘I’m only asking them what they must have been asking themselves, all along, if they care.’ He turned again to Harry. ‘Do you?’

  He replaced the glasses and tap tapped away. The mayor spread his hands and began to apologize. Richard looked at his father and said, ‘Well, do we?’

  Harry closed his eyes and pressed his hands over them. trying to shut out the vision of the sightless eyeballs. A few moments ago he had been feeling warm, strong, good … He muttered, ‘I must think, Richard, I must think … Give me a little time.’

  The next day, Saturday, was one of those rare autumn days in England, when it is cold but sunny, the air sharp and fresh, sky brilliant pale blue, the bare branches of the trees waving in clear outline against it, hoarfrost on the grass in the early morning. Johnny Merritt drove slowly along the road to Beighton and Walstone, conscious that it was a glorious day, and confident that it would be the most glorious of his life. The road, running eastward below the North Down, gave an extensive view over the densely peopled and long-settled Weald of Kent. The slanting cowls of oast houses stood like giant monks amid the hop fields, bare and sere now, the tall poles an army of men without banners. The car purred, and he was wearing a suit of brown heather tweed woven in the Island of Lewis, in the Hebrides – a suit with knickers and a Norfolk jacket. He had ordered the suit in Savile Row early in September, but the pressure of making officers’ uniforms had delayed its completion until two weeks ago, when he had had his first fitting. His second and final fitting had been on Monday, and now he had the suit; and it was perfect; and so were his greenish woollen stockings, and his plain dark woollen tie; and so was the day.

  He slowed, hearing the shrill cry of a hunting horn from close ahead. Then he saw the hunt streaming across a field to his right, heading for the road. The hounds led, in full cry, sterns waving like a hurrying brown and black and white forest. He recognized Lord Swanwick, pounding along on the same great bay he had ridden for the New Year’s Day meet … then the whippers-in … then the field.

  Suddenly the fox crossed the road close in front of him, its tongue lolling, but running fast, and apparently easily. It disappeared through the far hedge. Three minutes later hounds came – the dog pack today, all baying and whining with excitement. Now came the Master and the whippers-in, sailing over the hedge in long curves of scarlet and white and blue and buff and black … foam blowing back from the green-stained bits, red nostrils flared. Another car, coming the other way, had also stopped to let the hunt pass. Many of the riders were cantering along the edge of the field looking for a gate. Half a dozen had jumped both hedges and were in the open again, heading up the slope of the Down. The fox had vanished.

  Johnny looked after them, his hands on the steering wheel, the sound of the motor loud in his ears. Ten months ago everything he had seen at the New Year’s Day meet had seemed strange – beautiful and romantic, perhaps, but foreign. Now, it was not; it had become a part of him, in reality, not only in the legacy of a shared history.

  The sound of the horn faded. He drove on. It was half-past eleven.

  At half-past twelve he was standing very straight by the empty hearth in the music room of Walstone Manor, a tankard of Elephant ale in his hand, facing Christopher Cate, squire of Walstone. Cate was sitting in a high-backed wooden chair, his long legs sprawling, ale on the desk beside him.

  ‘I have come to tell you I love your daughter, sir, and to ask your permission to marry her.’

  Christopher said, ‘Have you, by Jove? … Well, I’m not really surprised. We’ve seen a lot of you since you came over from America – how long ago?’

  ‘Over a year, sir.’

  Christopher whistled. ‘As long as that? How time flies … Does your father know of this? Your mother is dead, is she not?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I wrote to my father two weeks ago. Today he cabled me.’ He fished in his pocket, and handed the squire a cable. Christopher read, ‘Delighted with news. Suggest you obtain Stella’s parents’ permission to pay your court but delay formal engagement until Betty and I arrive second week in December.’

  ‘Betty? Oh, your sister … Well, that sounds very sensible to me. You know that Stella’s mother is not here to give her approval?’

  ‘I know, sir. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I’m sure she would approve … except perhaps that you are not of Irish descent.’

  ‘If you want to ask me any questions about my financial position and prospects, sir …’

  Christopher waved his pewter tankard. ‘That can wait till your father arrives. They must be our guests, when they come, for as long as they wish. Will you inform them? No, I’ll write myself, telling him how glad we will all be if this … comes off. Do you have some reason to believe that Stella will agree to marry you?’

  ‘Yes, sir. We’ve seen quite a bit of each other in Hedlington, sir,’ Johnny hastened to add. ‘always chaperoned or in public places, sir. I wouldn’t harm her reputation for the world … especially as I hope that it will soon be linked to mine.’

  ‘She’s here now. Did you know?’

  ‘Yes, sir. She told me yesterday, at the Town Hall, that she’d come down by the early train this morning.’

  ‘She’ll be in the drawing-room, reading, if she’s not walking the dogs. Bring her here, if she’s in.’

  Johnny left the room and Christopher Cate went to the wine cupboard and took out a bottle of amontillado and three glasses. It was a pity that Margaret wasn’t here; Laurence too; but Margaret would hear about it somehow, presumably – once he’d put an announcement in The Times and Telegraph. Laurence would be home over Christmas, of course. With Johnny’s father and sister here too it would be quite a jolly Christmas, happier than he had expected, with the war going the way it was.

  Johnny and Stella came in and he handed them each a glass of sherry and took the third for himself. ‘Stella,’ he said, ‘do you know this young man?’

  ‘Of course I do Daddy,’ she said, smiling up at Johnny.

  ‘He claims he wants to marry you. And, I suppose, take you back to America some day. What do you say to that?’

  She was blushing now, then her hand went out and took Johnny’s. ‘I think I’d like that.’

  ‘You know he doesn’t speak any known language?’

  ‘I can understand him, Daddy.’

  ‘Well, I propose that we follow the suggestion made by Johnny’s father – that you should delay a formal engagement until after he arrives next month. Do you have any objection?’

  Stella hesitated a bit and said, ‘It wouldn’t have to be a long engagement, would it, Daddy?’

  Johnny said, ‘I hope not, sir. It doesn’t seem sensible to me to have an engagement at all, if it’s goin
g to be a long one.’

  ‘I agree. We’ll be seeing Mr Merritt, say, about the middle of December. I hope we can plan a marriage for early February if he agrees. I’ll have to get your Aunt Louise to act as hostess here and help me with the arrangements … though she’s so busy with the farm.’

  ‘Why not Aunt Fiona?’ Stella said. ‘She’s not doing anything.’

  ‘That is a better idea. Well, here’s to you both … your happiness … and from now until you are married, you may loosen the bonds of custom as far as you think good. Some old ducks will quack, but you’re both sensible people and, as Johnny has said, your reputation is as important to him, now, as it is to you. You must get to know each other as well as possible before you take this step … the most important in your lives … You’ll spend the day with us, of course, Johnny?’

  ‘Love to, sir.’

  ‘And the night, too, why not? Tomorrow’s Sunday.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Lunch must be nearly ready … Oh dear, does Mrs Abell know Johnny’s here?’

  ‘I told her, early, that he was coming,’ Stella said, blushing.

  The big sports Sunbeam rolled fast towards Hedlington in the flat light of late afternoon. Stella, sitting up straight on the seat beside Johnny, wished she could curl up closer to him, partly for warmth, and partly because it would be, somehow, more proper for what she felt. Her father was right when he said that they must get to know each other as well as possible in the next few weeks; and this brief day and night at the Manor had been a good beginning. He had stayed before, many times, and it was during those brief visits that she had felt she was really in love with him. In the intervals, when she did not see him, she sometimes had to think hard to recreate his face in her mind’s eye, and certainly the timbre of his voice in her ear. But there was no one else … the old doctor who had flirted with her, and actually kissed her, no longer worked at Lady Blackwell’s; Stephen Irwin was gone completely from her – from the world, too, for he had been killed during the summer. She had read his name in the casualty lists, and had sat still a long time, waiting to learn what she would feel at the death of her first lover, the man who had taken her virginity and taught her lust … no, showed her how humans express it. She had felt nothing: only a memory of the pain in Probyn’s cottage, Florinda’s hand holding hers, the Woman’s eyes intense on her, the smell of smoke …

  They’d walked there yesterday afternoon, she and Johnny, and talked for an hour with Probyn. Johnny had asked him about his great poaching plans and Probyn had pretended to give details, but really he’d said nothing. Florinda was still in London. She had been Lord Cantley’s kept woman all summer: a thing like that could not be concealed from the village. But now Cantley had joined the army and what would happen to Florinda? Would she come back to Walstone? Lady Swanwick certainly wouldn’t have her back as lady’s maid, after she had been her son’s mistress. And she wouldn’t want to live in the cottage, after what she had known in London … or would she?

  No one had mentioned her, not Probyn, nor Fletcher, nor the Woman. And of course, no one had mentioned what the Woman had done for Stella nearly eight months ago.

  And in the evening she and her father and Johnny had sat by the fire and played Old Maid for a time; and after dinner her father had played the violin for them. She had sat, listening, her hand in Johnny’s. When it was over, Johnny had leaned over and, with her father standing over them, bow in hand, had kissed her gently on the lips, and said, ‘I’m happier than I have ever been in my life, Stella … and thank you, sir.’

  Johnny brought up the subject now, as he slowed the big car to pass through the crooked street of Beighton. ‘I felt strange last night, when your father was playing for us. I didn’t know then what it was. I couldn’t identify it. I tried all night, and most of today.’

  ‘You’ve been absent-minded,’ she said, laughing. ‘You’ve called me Betty twice. Is she very pretty?’

  ‘I suppose so. Yes, she is. You’ll see for yourself soon enough … But I think I’ve found out why the music – the room, the evening, you, your father – all worked together to make me feel so strange. And perhaps that’s the reason I called you Betty … I am realizing – the music brought it out – that this is where I came from – England, a house like your manor … this earth – ’ he freed one hand from the wheel and waved it at the fields and the rising curve of the Downs … ‘I first felt something at Henley, but that was superficial – I was having a sort of American tourist’s romantic dream. There was the Thames, Runnymede just down the river, Magna Carta, Hampton Court, Oxford … dreaming spires, lords, ladies, Leander … It was wonderful, but I was outside it. Last night I realized that I am inside it.’

  The car slowed again and Stella’s heart beat faster. A narrow lane led off to the right towards the foot of the Down. Was Johnny going to take the car up there, where no one would come, and …? He drove into the lane a few yards and stopped. The car blocked the lane from tall hedge to hedge, but it was in full view of the main road passing behind. He took both her hands, and, leaning over, kissed her. She relaxed, breathing evenly. She could feel the lack of urgency in him; there was just his gentleness, and consideration of her, his lips soft and undemanding. She felt pleasantly comforted, and her heart returned to its normal beat.

  Johnny said, ‘I’ve been wrestling in my mind with what I ought to do. I was so eager to fight the Germans when I came over. I still am, but in the meantime I’ve learned how to run a factory. Your Uncle Richard’s taught me, and it’s gotten into my blood. He’s a really brilliant executive. Mr Overfeld’s told me so a dozen times, and he doesn’t throw bouquets around much. Morgan’s an excellent plant foreman, and between the three of them there’s little I can do. I feel useless.’

  ‘What are you going to do, then?’ she asked. If Johnny was not going to make cars at the JMC she wondered where they would go, what his work could possibly be. She realized, for the first time, that they might not live in England after they were married. How could that thought never have crossed her mind before?

  ‘I’m going to fight,’ he said slowly, ‘it’s the right thing to do … you made me see that again, when I was losing sight of it in my absorption with the JMC.’

  ‘Johnny! I made you see that?’

  ‘Yes. You have been so scornful of fit young men who don’t volunteer. Quite rightly.’

  ‘But I meant Englishmen! You’re an American!’

  ‘I am, and always will be. But I feel … have always felt … that this is America’s war, too.’

  She said, bewildered, ‘But what … what will become of me?’ She had imagined days of peace and calm somewhere in Kent, a nice small old house close to Walstone and Hedlington, herself waiting for Johnny to come home every evening, to fly into his arms, and then … then surely passion would overwhelm her, more than it had with Captain Irwin? Night after night, for ever, to be held safe by that desire from all others … to be cradled in that excitement, needing no other. She remembered the old doctor’s kiss and blushed: her body had softened in that moment, her mind leaped in anticipation.

  Johnny said, ‘The question is, do you want us to get married as soon as we can, or would it be better to wait till the war’s over, in case something happens to me?’

  She looked into his face. He was terribly serious, frowning at her. She did not know how to answer him, for the question had come at her out of nowhere, and it seemed an impossible question to answer. For months now he had been preparing her for the idea of marriage. Slowly, she had come to accept it. She would be his wife and they would make love every night and she would bear his children. What else was marriage? She felt suddenly frightened, and lost. What would become of her?

  He said, ‘I would give anything to be able just to trot off to work every morning, come back to you every evening … but I can’t. We’ll be no worse off than all the other people who love each other, whether they’re young, like us, or whether they’re old, and have l
oved each other for years. They know, and I know, that Lovelace was right – “I could not love thee, dear so much, lov’d I not honour more.”’

  She said slowly, ‘I don’t want to wait …’ She thought, I’ll stay at home with Daddy, and be the lady of the house … Laurence will be back for his school holidays, and we can spend our days on the Downs or along the river … I can give up my work at the hospital, then I won’t have to go into Hedlington, and meet so many other people.

  Johnny cried, ‘You want us to get married? Oh, my darling, how I hoped you’d say that! … And, you know, they won’t be sending me to France at once. I’ll go to some sort of training camp, but I’ll be in England for several weeks, at least, and I’m not going to join up until after we’re married, and have had a honeymoon.’

  ‘What are you going to join?’ she asked, feeling that she was watching herself and him, and listening to the two of them talking, from a long way above, dissociated.

  ‘The Royal Flying Corps. Guy talked a lot about it during the summer. He’s quite a salesman.’

  Daily Telegraph, Monday, November 8, 1915

  THE ALLIES AND ENEMY COMMERCE

  American Protest

  A further Note from the United States Government with reference to the measures adopted by the Allies to prevent goods reaching or leaving Germany has been presented to Sir Edward Grey by Dr Hines Page, the American Ambassador in London.

  It consists of a lengthy and technical argument on the law of blockade and contraband … Throughout the Note the measures of the Allies are referred to as ‘the so-called blockade’, and the American arguments are summarized by Dr Page in the following words:

  ‘1. The methods sought to be employed by Great Britain to obtain and use evidence of enemy destination of cargoes bound for neutral ports and to impose a contraband character upon such cargoes are without justification.