Noble in Reason

by Phyllis Bentley

  It was in the summer of 1944, when the V-one flying bombs were forcing upon the people of London a nerve-racking ordeal, admirably borne, that one morning I was greeted by my secretary with an announcement that Miss Merridew could not come to the office that day. I was at once alarmed, for the previous night had been a disturbed one; I had counted no less than eighteen V bombs flying at intervals overhead— these hateful instruments of destruction always sounded directly overhead to the solitary listener. The message concluded that Miss Merridew’s grandfather had been killed in a bus returning home from a concert the night before, by a flying bomb. That this sad ending of a very dear old friend was a positive relief to me because it was he and not Hermia who had perished, showed me how deeply my feelings were involved with Hermia. I left the Ministry immediately and went out to Hammersmith.

  Hermia opened the door to me. Her charming face, usually so serene, was ravaged by grief, and when she saw me she could not control her tears, which poured heavily down her cheeks. I put my arm round her waist and drew her to me; she clung to my shoulder and wept despairingly. Usually she was so quiet in her ways, so moderate in her expression, that the strength and passion of her feeling—her body seemed torn by her deep anguished sobs—was a revelation to me; it was in that moment that I made up my mind to ask her to marry me.

  The next few days were occupied by the necessary wretched formalities of burying the remains of poor Mr. M; but on the following Sunday, work fortunately permitting, I arranged to take Hermia out to Richmond in the afternoon—in the prevailing petrol shortage, a bus was the only means of transport allowed to an ordinary citizen like myself. Before I set out to call for her, I looked in the mirror, wondering whether my plan of marriage was altogether too presumptuous, since there was sixteen years’ difference in age between Hermia and myself. It was with some amusement that I observed in my appearance all those signs of sophistication which as a lad I would have given anything to possess, but which now seemed so many barriers between myself and my wishes. The deeply lined forehead, the well-batbered greying hair, the London-tailored suit of expensive West Riding cloth, the broad shoulders, the look of irony about the eyes and mouth— how the ugly, untidy, uncertain, ill-clad young Chris yearned for such an air of ease and assurance! I had paid heavily to achieve it, however; it remained to be seen whether the price had been too high. One trifle seemed to offer me ground for hope, namely that in our first interview at the Ministry, Hermia had remembered the exact number of years since we had last met. This seemed to me emotionally significant, but might after all merely rise from Hermia’s characteristic precision.

  The day was sunny; at Richmond crowds of cheerful Londoners, dressed in spite of the difficulties of coupons in bright summer clothes, were rowing on the river, walking on the bank, playing or love-making or eating picnic meals beneath the trees, and talking and laughing at all times at the top of their voices. Hermia and I sat at tea on a terrace and watched this animated scene with much enjoyment. These were the people whom Hitler was then representing as cowed and panic-stricken beneath the hail of flying bombs. I remarked on this, concluding with some gusto that Hitler could never defeat a people who could enjoy themselves so heartily in such alarming circumstances.

  “You always like to see people enjoying themselves, don’t you, Chris?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “It’s one of your nicer traits,” said Hermia with a smile in her quiet voice.

  Well, this is the moment, I thought; and at the thought experienced a pang of doubt and hesitation. To marry Hermia, if she consented, would be to have this warmth and sweetness always beside me, but to lose my freedom. Not to marry Hermia would be to keep my freedom. But freedom for what?

  “Will you marry me, Hermia?”

  “Yes.”

  I was rather taken aback by the promptitude of this answer.

  “I’m sixteen years older than you, a widower with a son in the Army.”

  “Are you trying to persuade me to decline?”

  “No! I just want you to be sure of your own feelings before you decide.”

  “I’ve been sure of my feelings for a long time, Chris,” said Hermia. “I loved you the first moment I saw you.”

  “What!” I exclaimed in a thoroughly West Riding tone, startled out of my departmental composure. “Nay! Never!” I then laughed at my Yorkshire bluntness, and added; “You see what it would be like, married to a Yorkshireman.”

  “I see.”

  “But did you really care for me? What did I do or say to turn your attention to me? You were quite a child, surely.”

  “No, I was already at the University. My mother was haranguing me and you deliberately diverted her attention; you rescued me from a scolding.”

  “I’m ashamed to say I don’t remember the occasion.”

  “That’s because such acts of kindness are so habitual to you, you don’t notice them.”

  “Oh, no!” said I, shaking my head: “Though I’m deliciously flattered, of course, I can’t have you marrying me under false pretences. It’s just because I suffered so much from parental domination myself that I always notice it in other families.”

  “That’s just what I mean.”

  “In short,” I said, taking her hand between mine: “You’re prepared to risk it, eh?”

  “Yes,” said Hermia, smiling.

  We were married the following month, by the Hammersmith registrar. I had, of course, invited all my family but hardly expected them to appear; John and Edie came, however, and at the last moment Robert turned up, having obtained a day’s compassionate leave to attend—a piece of consideration which rather surprised me in him. (It turned out later that he was then considering marriage for himself, so had kindly feelings on the subject.) The West Riding remained practically unmolested by bombs throughout the War, its inhabitants meanwhile watching the various ordeals of London with respectful awe and indignation, so that to John and Edie an excursion to London where V-bombs were still continually falling seemed quite an adventure. Between their excitement at this and their alarm at my marriage with a woman so much younger than myself and from a milieu so different from their own, they looked quite pale and uneasy throughout the ceremony. But before they left to catch a northern train they were smiling, entirely reassured; Hermia by simply being her quiet serene self had conquered them.

  “Well, you’ve been lucky, Chris,” said John in an earnest complimentary tone, shaking me by the hand: “You have that, lad, I can tell you.”

  For once in our lives we were in entire agreement.

  2

  The impulse which led me to contract my completely happy marriage sprang from very deep roots. Mr. M, the man of books, was my true hero, my “father image”; he was the object of the first choice I made independently for myself, breaking away from my family (as represented by Henry) to do so; he was the occasion of my first success in life, the source of the knowledge I valued most, the foundation of all my writings; his book-lined shop, his agreeable loggia by the Thames, were the only places where I had ever felt completely relaxed and at ease. For me, therefore, the Merridew family offered a climate of happy confidence; Mr. M’s grand-daughter was perhaps the only woman in the world whose statement that she loved me I could believe, and whom therefore I could venture to love.

  Moreover, Hermia’s youth placed me willy-nilly in the rôle which my childhood experiences with Netta had made me deeply desire, fear and admire: the rôle of protector. This rôle called out all the better side of my nature. Frankly, it was often a struggle to maintain: to cope with the ordinary practical details of normal family life, to be a support when electricity failed or gas exploded, to deal with porters, waiters, workmen, doctors, nurses, and all the officials the Welfare State is heir to, has never been easy to me; I have always had to brace myself and make demands or ask questions. But just because this protective rôle had once seemed so agonizingly difficult, almost impossible, for me to play, its enactment now gave me a sense of pr
ofound satisfaction and achievement.

  3

  The war over, we settled happily at Upper Bairstow.

  It was an extraordinary and delightful experience to me to live with someone of whose principles and conduct I wholeheartedly approved. I did not need to compassionate, to try to understand; I admired and enjoyed. Hermia had a sense of justice so scrupulous that she wished even spoons and forks to enjoy their proper turns, a loving respect for all creation which even included inanimate objects—she never in her life threw anything down carelessly so as to cause it discomfort, cross its grain. This, and her very great sweetness and gentleness of manner, combined with the perfect integrity and high intelligence I have mentioned before to arouse in me a respect, a trust for Hermia as well as a lasting love and tenderness. The pleasures of being loved by a woman of true modesty and delicacy tend to be somewhat undervalued to-day, but if such a woman murmurs: “I am so happy,” when she lies in your arms, the declaration has a value far exceeding that of easier conquests.

  Hermia has always been extremely well liked in the West Riding. (Indeed, I was very soon obliged to enlarge and asphalt the steep lane leading to our house, at my own expense, for the convenience of our many visitors, who were previously always having difficulties with their cars necessitating much waving of torches, pushing, reversing, shouting orders and so on.) She adapted herself easily to West Riding life but was capable of keeping to her own ideas with a quiet tenacity which earned the respect of its inhabitants. For instance: hearing from Edie during the months preceding the birth of our first child that pink was the colour traditionally assigned to infant girls and blue to boys, Hermia began with grave care to make preparations in both colours—to avoid, as I suggested, any appearance of sex favouritism, or perhaps so that whatever its sex the infant would feel at home in its furnishings. She smiled when I teased her by asking which of these motives was operative, but continued her preparations as before. Accordingly the Upper Bairstow pram, for example, was furnished in soft shades of both colours: a blue cushion was embroidered in blue and pink, a fleecy pram cover was blue on one side, pink on the other, and a row of plastic rattles arranged across the hood sported alternately the appropriate shades. In the event this duplication appeared to have been prophetic, for twins of different sex were born. (John was highly amused by this occurrence, which he described as a sensible arrangement on my part to make up for lost time.)

  Of those darling and precious beings, the twins Nicholas and Christabel, and our third child born much later, Henrietta, what am I to say? The whole focus of life changes when one has children. Their infancy is perhaps the happiest time in a man’s (and certainly in a woman’s) life. Their exquisite fingers, which close over one’s own in a clasp of infinite trust; their soft fresh cheeks, their lovely smile; their recognition of one’s identity, for they actually hold out their little arms towards one in an attitude of love—all these produce the most extraordinary sensations in a man’s heart, worth a lifetime of the struggle necessary to maintain these exacting creatures. As they grow, the difficulties of their care often exceed its surface pleasure, but of course they are still infinitely worth while. It is both more and less than love one feels for them; one is, simply, as irrevocably and biologically committed to their welfare as one is to trying to keep alive; the most cowardly or the most selfish of men will plunge without a pause to their rescue or make undreamed-of sacrifices on their behalf.

  All parents tend to think their children paragons, and as regards Nick and Chrissie I am no exception. They are dark like their mother, tall like myself; healthy in body and apparently happy in mind. Nick is quiet and thoughtful but not shy, with a clear and exact way of speech and a turn of speed in games. (At times he has an odd look of Henry.) He is doing very well at school, quite brilliantly in fact, and will evidently, to my great joy and pride, go on to some university. Chrissie is a lively sturdy tomboy, merry, bright-cheeked, bright-eyed, with a coltish clumsiness, always springing up and rushing somewhere in an impetuous hurry, to the detriment of any movables which may lie on her course. As regards lessons, she remains cheerfully at the average mark, but she is well liked at school; indeed her friends stream in and out of Upper Bairstow continually; there are always some around. The only criticism ever made of Chrissie, even by John, is that her heart is too warm, too soft towards lame ducks of one kind or another. This is not a reproach to her in the eyes of Hermia and myself, though occasionally we have to rescue Chrissie from some ludicrous or awkward consequences of her too quixotic generosity.

  “You ought to have let well alone,” says John sardonically to me sometimes. “You should have stopped there, Chris.”

  To this I reply with an emphatic negative. But it is true that Henrietta—Rie, as we call her—has caused us infinitely more trouble than the other two put together, and may perhaps continue to do so for the rest of her life. After the ordeal of producing twins, Hermia thought the bearing of a single child would be easily accomplished, but the birth proved difficult and she was seriously ill for several weeks. This was a bad beginning, and Rie has kept up this maximum anxiety ever since. Of delicate constitution, always ailing—I remember now with what a pang I saw the lines of her little ribs clearly visible in her thin body as Hermia rubbed her chest—stormy and sullen by turns, sallow, with her father’s large nose and untidy fair hair, Rie was in her early years a really difficult child. Devoted to me, she was apt to be fiercely jealous of Hermia, and though Hermia diminished this to some extent by being so quietly good that there were no aggressive spikes or moral hollows in her behaviour on which the claws of jealous criticism could fix, the problem remained. There was another problem, too, with which Rie confronted us: her jealousy of the twins. Nicholas and Christabel are heartily fond of Rie, indeed they cherish her most carefully against all the dangers to which her delicacy exposes her. But being much older, they have interests to which they cannot as yet introduce her, and as twins they have an especial biological bond which nothing can diminish. All this matters the more because Rie is a child of sensitive and deep affection; storms of feeling rage across her and can be seen reflected in her plain but mobile little face.

  In the hurly-burly of the first decade of my family life, the continual effort required by the “bringing-up” of my children, two lines of thought constantly pressed themselves upon me.

  The first concerned my childhood life at Ashroyd. I perceived now that there had been a warmth, a decency, an honest affection, an unselfishness, an absence of the coarse and the false, in our home life then which I only hoped my own home would emulate—if Hermia and I did half as well as my parents, I should congratulate myself. Yet what misery I had then experienced! To imagine that my own children, beneath their smooth fresh faces and springing hair, were suffering such agony as I went through, was a source of great anxiety to me. Chrissie I am sure has always been happy; she is rather like Netta in her joyous acceptance of life. But of Nick, who is very properly and naturally devoted to his mother, I have never been so sure. However, one day in his early teens we had a discussion on the subject of my writings, which I hope may have set the tone of our relationship. Someone having mentioned my books to Nick at school, he asked me with an air of some distaste whether I expected him to read them.

  The answer which sprang to my lips was a negative, but on reflection it seemed to me that both Nick and I would be running from our lions if we shirked this problem. Since Azgid and his story were a commonplace of reference in our household, I said so.

  “But I can’t read them all one after the other now,” objected Nick in his quiet polite tones. “There are too many, really.”

  “No. All the same I think I shall lay down a parental command on this point,” said I. “You must have read them all by the time you’re twenty-one. But I leave the time, place and manner of the reading to your discretion, and no report on your opinion of them is demanded.”

  “Fair enough,” said Nick, nodding judicially.

  No commen
t on my behaviour from my son could have given me more satisfaction, and we parted smiling amicably. (By the way, I don’t think Chrissie ever managed to finish a book of mine, while Rie of course devoured them all at an early age.)

  The second train of my thought at this time, started no doubt by the first, consisted of an intense interest in the child-parent relationship as I saw it in other families, and thus in the personalities of my own nephews and nieces, to which I had never given much attention before.

  John’s twins, sardonic, efficient, energetic, well-meaning and bossy, with reddish hair, seemed born to be the hospital matrons they now were, while Anne, though prettier and more attractive to men, was also sufficiently well equipped with aggressive qualities. I surmised that Edie might have had trouble in their teens with three such bouncing daughters and ventured to ask her if this was so, basing the question, of course, on my need for advice about my own children. Edie agreed that her girls had been a handful, but she had not the words to tell me whether she had suffered from a jealous devotion on their part to John, or how she had coped with this and managed to retain, as she undoubtedly had, a strong position of command in the family. I noticed, however, with a painful sense of life’s ironies, that it was Robert on whom she chiefly relied, and indeed he played the part of a most devoted and loving son to her.

  Robert was by this time the handsomest of the Jarmaynes; a strong, tall, fair fellow, with a line of head and hand more elegant than John’s other children, and a good deal of wit, he married so young that it was clear he had a great desire for a home of his own. Though his own family rapidly increased, he was always extremely kind to my children, whom of course he regarded as his half-brother and sisters, and for some reason had an especial feeling for Rie, who always seemed more at ease with him than with anybody else. She loved to go to Hilbert Mills and walk round the various departments with him, holding his hand. Indeed I could almost have felt some jealousy of her affection for Robert, if she had not flown to me and clung to me as soon as I appeared. I sometimes wondered whether this too open announcement of her preference for her father wounded Robert, for I noticed certain signs of discomfort in him on these occasions; he was not a man who showed feeling easily, but a slight heightening of colour and an avoidance of my eyes were visible.