Sarah Morris Remembers

by D. E. Stevenson

  Two members of the Board seemed particularly interested in Charles’s home in Austria and asked why he had spent such a long time there with his family and had now decided to give up all connection with them. Charles replied that he felt he owed a duty to his family – especially to his father – and had wanted to do all he could for them. He now felt that he had repaid his obligations to his family and was free to live his own life.

  They asked a great many questions, some of which seemed irrelevant, but Charles answered them all. He told them that his idea of becoming a British subject had been conceived while he was at St. Clement’s College, reading history and English literature; it had been in his mind for years. He repeated that his mother was British and that he found Britain very congenial; everyone was kind and friendly.

  “But that was several years ago,” said an elderly member of the Board. “After that you went home to Austria. Why have you suddenly made up your mind that you want to become a British subject?”

  “I couldn’t bear to live in a country dominated by Hitler, sir,” replied Charles. “If my application is granted I intend to enlist in the British Army.”

  “It does you credit, Mr. Reeder, but you would be more useful as an interpreter.”

  *

  “I’m sure that was the key to the puzzle, Sarah,” said Charles. “I saw them looking at each other and nodding. They wouldn’t have taken all that trouble over my case if I hadn’t been fluent in French and German.”

  “Did they seem friendly?”

  “At first they were very stiff and starchy, but towards the end of the interview they thawed out and became more friendly . . . all except one man who said little but looked disagreeable. Eventually I was dismissed and told that my case would be carefully considered and I would hear the result in due course. As I was coming away I said I would be very grateful if I could be informed of the result as soon as possible as I was engaged to be married to an English girl. They were interested to hear that and asked several questions about you.”

  Charles sighed and added, “I’m sure it would be all right if it were not for that one man. He didn’t like me.”

  *

  Charles had just finished telling me about his interview when father came through the little green gate which led to the churchyard.

  “I’ll speak to him,” said Charles, rising and walking towards him across the lawn.

  I got up and followed.

  “Mr. Morris,” said Charles. “May I have your permission to marry Sarah? Perhaps this is not the correct way to ask (we do things differently in my country) but please forgive me and give your consent.”

  “I’ve told Sarah I’m willing to give my consent to an engagement.”

  “Thank you, sir. We want to be married as soon as possible.”

  “Sarah is only eighteen. I should like you to wait——”

  “I’ve loved Sarah for years,” said Charles earnestly. “I shall do my best to make her happy. I’m not a wealthy man but my mother left me sufficient capital to ensure a reasonably comfortable income. I can give you details——”

  “It isn’t your financial position,” interrupted father. “It’s the uncertainty of your future. You’re hoping to become a naturalised British subject, aren’t you? Well, you must wait until it’s settled.”

  “But we don’t want to wait!” exclaimed Charles, in desperation. “I had my interview yesterday and they promised to let me know the result ‘in due course.’ It might be to-morrow or it might take weeks; you know what these Government departments are! Sarah and I want a little time to be happy together before – before anything happens.”

  “You mean before there is war.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Father hesitated and then said, “No, Charles. I’m sorry but I can’t give my consent. You must wait until the matter is settled.”

  I signed to Charles to say no more; I knew it was hopeless.

  “I’m sorry,” repeated father, then he turned and walked away and disappeared into the house.

  Chapter Eighteen

  There was a wooden seat in the churchyard, quite near mother’s grave; I had gone there several times and had sat there doing the mending. I wasn’t good at mending – mother had always done it – but it had to be done. The seat was at the edge of the churchyard and had a pleasant view over a low hedge to the fields and the village of Fairfield.

  One fine Saturday afternoon when I was sitting there I heard the roar of a motor-bike coming up the hill, and a few minutes later Lewis came striding up the path towards me; he was in khaki uniform.

  “Hallo,” he said. “I suppose you’re surprised to see me dressed up as a soldier-boy?”

  I was too surprised to answer.

  “Well, there’s nothing very startling about it. I’ve always wanted to make the Army my profession, but there was such a hullabaloo when I wanted to go to Sandhurst that I gave in and went to St. Clement’s College instead. The first thing I did when I got there was to join the Officers’ Training Corps. So now you know,” added Lewis, sitting down beside me and taking off his cap.

  “You never told us!”

  “I didn’t want another hullabaloo.”

  “But, Lewis——” I began.

  Lewis didn’t listen. He continued earnestly, “It was the wisest thing I ever did in my life. There will be conscription, of course, so it’s better to be a trained officer – better for me and better for my country. Besides it’s what I’ve always wanted. Willy is good at machinery so he’ll be roped in to make munitions. You ought to join the Wrens.”

  “Leave Father all alone!”

  “Minnie would look after him.”

  “I couldn’t possibly! He depends on me – he would be miserable alone with Minnie. You must be mad, Lewis!”

  Lewis looked surprised, but he just said, “Don’t lose your wool; I was trying to help you, that’s all. What will you do if women are conscripted?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I only know that my duty is to look after Father.”

  “There’s going to be war, sooner or later,” said Lewis . . . and went on to talk about it. He was excited at the prospect; he didn’t remember the last war so he wasn’t dreading its horrors.

  “Don’t talk about it,” I said at last. “I can’t bear to think of it. Thousands of people will be killed! We’ve had one war casualty in the family already.”

  “You mean Mother?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you often come here?” asked Lewis after a short silence.

  “Yes, quite often. I suppose it’s silly but I have a feeling she likes me to come. I feel peaceful and – and comforted.”

  He nodded understandingly. “I miss her dreadfully, Sarah. I liked to feel she was here, at the Vicarage. It was a sort of anchor. We’ve been out on an exercise to-day – that’s why I’m in uniform – and I thought I’d come and sit here for a little before going back to Oxford. I brought some flowers; they’re just wild flowers that I picked in the hedges, but she liked wild flowers, didn’t she?”

  He showed me what he had picked: dog-roses and honeysuckle. Then he got up and put them on her grave.

  As I watched him standing there, bare-headed, I thought how pleased she would be if she knew . . . perhaps she did know.

  When he came back we were silent for a while and I went on with the mending.

  “Charles seems under the weather,” said Lewis at last. “I met him the other day coming out of the Bodleian; he told me you and he were engaged and wanted to be married but Father was being obstructive. I don’t wonder, really. Charles is an Austrian, which means he’s an enemy alien.”

  “Charles has applied to become naturalised.”

  “Oh, that’s the idea!”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I’m not really surprised,” said Lewis thoughtfully. “We’ve had talks about political matters . . . and he likes this country. I remember him saying ‘the air is free.’ It would be ghastly to live in a
country where the air wasn’t free and you couldn’t say what you liked.”

  Lewis was looking at the matter from a slightly different angle; but it was Lewis’s nature to think of his own personal comfort . . . and it was quite an interesting angle.

  “In that case,” said Lewis. “I mean if Charles becomes naturalised there’s no reason why you shouldn’t marry him.”

  “Will you talk to Father about it?”

  “Talk to him?”

  “Yes. I want to marry Charles now, as soon as possible, so that we can have a little time together before war comes. Could you stay here to-night and try to persuade him? Please Lewis! He might listen to you.”

  “All right. I don’t suppose he’ll listen to me but I can have a try.”

  Father was very pleased to see Lewis, as I knew he would be. At supper he talked about his plans for the future.

  “I can’t stay here if war breaks out,” said father.

  “You can’t stay here?” I asked in astonishment.

  “They don’t really need me here; Fairfield is a backwater. I shall be more useful in London.”

  “London may be bombed,” said Lewis.

  “It will be bombed. It will be Target Number One; that’s why I want to be there, to help people in distress. Sarah and Lottie can go to Craignethan; they’ll be safe there. I shall take lodgings in London and help Mr. Hetherington in St. Rule’s parish. He’ll be glad of my help.”

  “But, Father——” began Lewis.

  “Oh, I dare say you’re surprised,” interrupted father. “You look upon me as an old man, but I’m only fifty-eight – and perfectly strong and healthy. I can’t sit here doing nothing if the country is at war; I want to be in the thick of it. Of course if your mother were here it would be different; she would be my first consideration.”

  “Have you told the vestry about your plans?” I asked.

  “I told them I was thinking of it; they said I was mad.”

  To me it seemed quite mad: father, who had lived in a quiet country parish for twenty years, to be thinking of giving up his home and taking lodgings in London! However my own plans were so uncertain that it was no good saying anything.

  *

  After supper I said I was tired (it was perfectly true; I was tired all the time. I was tired of waiting and wondering when Charles would hear about his future; tired of thinking about it). I went upstairs, leaving father and Lewis to have a talk.

  For some time I lay in bed reading Greenmantle. I found I could read Buchan’s adventure stories; my mind was so full of worries that I couldn’t read any other kind of book. It was nearly midnight and I was just going to turn out the light when there was a gentle tap on my door and Lewis came in.

  He sat down on the end of my bed. “Well, I’ve done it, Sarah,” he announced. “Don’t ask me how I did it because I don’t know. At first he was adamant. He said you must wait until Charles heard definitely whether his application for naturalisation would be granted; he said that if you were to marry Charles you would take his nationality. You see the point, don’t you?”

  “Yes, but it’s only a question of time. I mean, he’s sure to get it sooner or later.”

  “Father thinks it’s doubtful. He said he was responsible for you and it would be wrong for him to give his consent. It seemed hopeless to pursue the matter further so I began to talk about his crazy plan of leaving Fairfield and going to London.”

  “It is crazy,” I agreed.

  “Absolutely crazy – at his age. I tried to tell him so, as tactfully as possible, when suddenly he interrupted me and said, ‘You think I’m mad, Lewis. Everyone thinks I’m mad to give up a good living and a comfortable house and go to London, but I’m determined to do it . . . and, if I’m going to do what I want, I’ve got no right to prevent Charles and Sarah from doing what they want. Both plans are mad – the world is upside down – so you can tell Sarah in the morning that they can go ahead with their arrangements and we’ll all be mad together.’ That’s what he said. I didn’t wait till the morning because I thought you might be wondering . . . and there was a streak of light under your door. Why on earth are you crying, Sarah? I thought you’d be pleased.”

  “I always cry when I’m pleased,” I declared hysterically, and I put my arms round him and hugged him.

  “Silly old Sally!” said Lewis, giving me a brotherly hug.

  *

  We decided to be married in a Roman Catholic church in Oxford. It was a “mixed marriage” so it must be quiet and simple, with only the family present and Minnie Dell and a few of Charles’s Oxford friends. I wrote to the grans and told them all about it and asked if they would come but they said they were too old. They both wrote very kind letters and sent me a hundred pounds, and said they would like to see Charles. Would it be possible for us to come to Craignethan for a few days?

  I showed their letters to Charles and he agreed that we ought to visit them. We had arranged to go to Skye for our honeymoon so we could easily spend a couple of nights at Craignethan on our way home.

  Charles was busy making arrangements for the wedding and working at his book. He wanted to get all his notes for the book completed before we were married. We had made up our minds to “forget” about the naturalisation (we were tired of thinking about it). If the application was granted before we were married so much the better, if not it couldn’t be helped.

  In spite of all his work, Charles came to Fairfield nearly every day; he took me for spins in his car and we went for walks together. It was a very happy time.

  One morning, when I had been doing the shopping in the village, I returned to find Charles in the garden.

  We sat down and talked for a few minutes and he told me about his book. He had finished the historical part, which was the most troublesome; the rest of it, which was to consist of his own experiences, could be done later.

  “You’ve been talking to Minnie,” I said.

  “Witch!” exclaimed Charles. “How did you know?”

  I knew because he had caught Minnie’s intonation. Her voice had a Scottish lilt. Charles, with his “musician’s ear,” was very susceptible to accents and intonations. Sometimes he spoke – almost – like an Englishman, but when he had been in Austria for a time his foreign accent was quite noticeable and if he were upset or excited his English became less “elastic.”

  “Well, that’s all very interesting,” said Charles, smiling. “But it’s a lovely day and I was going to suggest we should have a walk in the woods.”

  We climbed over the wall at the top of the garden and went up past the old oak-tree and the Druids’ stones.

  “Do you remember the first time we came this way?” asked Charles.

  “What a donkey I was!”

  “You were a very sweet little girl.”

  “I was ‘a new experience’ for you.”

  “You were, indeed,” said Charles. “You were friendly and natural; there was no silly nonsense about you. I knew then, quite definitely, that you would grow up into a wonderful woman and I made up my mind to marry you. I’ve had to wait a long time but it has been worth while.”

  I took his arm. “I’ve always known that you were the nicest person in the world.”

  Our plans were settled now: the wedding was arranged for next week and after that we were going north in Charles’s car. I showed Charles the letter from the hotel in Skye saying they would reserve a room for us.

  “It’s wonderful,” said Charles, with a little sigh. “My mother talked to me about Skye when I was a child; she used to come and sit on my bed and tell me about the jagged Cuillins and the white sands and the soft mists and the smell of the sea-wrack – I think she was homesick for her island – and to me it has always been a place in a dream. Now it has become real.”

  “This letter has made it real.”

  “You always understand, Sarah! Yes, that letter saying that there’s a room reserved for us – a room in Skye! I’m going there at last and I’m going with you
.”

  As he was going away I asked if he were coming to-morrow.

  He nodded. “I’ll come at tea-time if I can manage it. If not I’ll come on Saturday. Will that be all right?”

  “Yes, of course,” I said. “Just come when you can.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Charles didn’t come to tea on Friday but I knew he was busy so I wasn’t surprised. I, too, was busy; there were many things to arrange before the wedding; Mrs. Price had offered to come to church every Saturday morning while I was away to arrange the flowers and clean the brasses and I had accepted her offer gratefully . . . but with a hidden smile (a little saying of grandpapa’s had come to my mind: “a poacher makes the best keeper”). I had settled with Minnie about meals for father; I had bought some new clothes and two suitcases and I was making some nightgowns.

  Father had a vestry meeting on Friday evening. It was the beginning of July and, as it was still quite light, I sat by the drawing-room window, sewing. Gradually the light faded and the garden grew dim except for a bed of tea-roses. They were mother’s roses – father had given them to her some years ago for her birthday, twelve beautiful little bushes of tea-roses! I thought of mother as I looked at them and remembered how much pleasure they had given her. In the dusk of the evening each little bloom seemed to glow with a light of its own.

  Presently father came home from his meeting and went up to bed. It was now quite dark so I switched on the standard lamp above my head but I was too lazy to go on with my sewing. I sat there with the half finished nightgown in my lap, thinking of Charles and feeling happy. In six days we would be married . . . it was almost too wonderful to be true. I thought of our honeymoon in Skye and I thought of taking him to Craignethan to see the grans; I was longing to show them my Charles, I knew they would love him.

  It was quiet and peaceful. My heart was quiet and peaceful too. Then, in the distance, I heard the sound of footsteps approaching and for some reason I was suddenly frightened. . . .

  A moment later the tall figure of Charles emerged from the gloom; he came in at the glass door, sank on to his knees beside me and exclaimed, “Oh God, what am I to do!”