by E. H. Young
“Neither have I, till lately, but that’s where I’ve always wanted to be.”
“Oh, of course,” Rhoda said, and, after a pause and the rekindling of James’s pipe, the bright, pale flare of the match and then the red glow of the tiny fire in the bowl, she said, “I can’t think of anything nicer than working hard all day and being very tired and then sitting outside for a little while before you go to bed and thinking of all the things you’ve got to do to-morrow.”
“Then you’re lucky, because you can do that now.”
“But there’s nothing I want to do to-morrow except come back here in the evening, perhaps. We’ve got an awful aunt staying with us, you know.”
“Yes, I know. But you wouldn’t want to do everything that has to be done on a farm. How about carting muck?”
“I like the smell,” she said. “And nice to know you’re going to feed the ground.”
“Yes, yes,” he said. She had the root of the matter in her. “You’ll have to be a farmer.”
“How can I?” she asked gloomily. “But you can,” she said, enviously.
“I’m not so sure. If I’d listened to the news I might be nearer knowing. That’s partly why I didn’t.”
“Oh,” Rhoda said, and she hoped the other part was a wish to talk to her. “But farmers—” she began.
“But I’m not a farmer. I’m no more use at present than anybody else. Besides—”
“No,” Rhoda said, “Yes. I see. You couldn’t. But perhaps—And anyhow, afterwards. But there’s not much hope for me. I might be allowed to be a gardener and that’s the nearest I’ll get to it.” She was leaning forward, her hands on her knees, and he could see her abrupt, short nose outlined against a sky that was not quite dark. She was like a person bound but ready to start off as soon as the bonds were loosed. “The nearest I’ll get,” she repeated.
“Then,” he said, “you’ll have to—oh, wait and see. You don’t know what may happen.” He had been going to say that if she could not be a farmer she would have to marry one and he had stopped because, with the words on his lips, he had thought, unemotionally, that he would rather like to marry her himself, some day, when they were both old enough. She had the qualities he liked in man or woman and though she was not pretty, she had a compensating eagerness, like a colt’s, and he wished he could give her the equivalent of a lump of sugar or a carrot and a friendly pat, but he liked her too much to do that and he said, more to himself than to her, “And you’re still at school.”
“And rather a dunce,” she said. “I ought to be much higher up. Sandra’s only a year older than me, but I’m more than a year behind her. Still, I’m beginning to get a bit more interested. I expect you were good at school.”
“Just average,” James said.
The distant protestations of sanity stopped abruptly and, as if in derision, a lion roared.
“Funny, rather nice,” James said, “to think my grandfather used to sit out here and listen to that noise. Different lions, though, I suppose. Has my mother ever told you about the wire door he made for her bedroom, to keep out the snakes and things? Hasn’t she? She tells it to everybody. He must have been a good father to have.”
“Was yours nice, too?” Rhoda asked, and after a pause, James said, “Mixed,” and knocked out his pipe. She took that as a sign that the interview was over but, as she went towards the house, James said, “And if I have to go away, don’t forget me.”
“Forget you!” she said. “When I once like a person I never stop.”
Chapter LII
The policeman on duty at the cross-roads near the church thought Mrs. Fraser must be looking for something she had lost. Her head was down and she walked with quick, short steps instead of moving with the easy swing which was quick too, but looked slow because it was obviously effortless. He had no chance to give her his usual special salute and it was lucky there was no traffic at the moment for she went across the road without looking to right or left. Perhaps, he thought, she had lost one of the earrings she always wore. An observant man, he had never seen her without them of one kind or another. Yes, she was searching the ground, for normally she carried her head high and looked about her with interest and pleasure; he was sorry to see her in any kind of distress, and, wishing he could help her, he watched her as she went across the Green until he had to turn his attention to his business.
The policeman was right in thinking she had lost something but wrong in thinking she was in search of it. She knew it was not to be found and her head was low because the loss shamed her and she did not want to see shame on other faces or, worse still, not to see it. She had been wandering about the house, upstairs and down, into the garden and back again, pacing the long sitting-room, touching things, trying not to cry and now she had hurried out in search of comfort on the hill. She had gone there often in times of trouble, though there had never been a trouble like this one, and she had gone when she was happy, increasing her happiness with the sight of the gorge and the river winding its sluggish way to the channel, the bridge flung so lightly across the chasm and the pale, distant hills. “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills,” she said to herself, but when she came to the place from which she hoped to see them, they were not there. They had retreated, as she wished she could do, behind a thickness of cloud, and that was fitting. There was nothing she could raise her head for, nothing, she thought, dropping her hands heavily on to the railings and seeing in the massed trees on the other side of the river not the golds and yellows of autumn showing here and there, but a dishonourable tarnish creeping over them. And in her mind she saw the whole of the country she loved so well, its wide moors, its hills dotted with sheep and threaded by streams of cold, clear water, its placid little rivers broadly bordered by meadows richly coloured with cattle and dazzling in early summer with yellow and white and green; she saw the villages tucked cosily into valleys and the spires or towers of their grey churches rising above the clustering trees; manor houses, benign with age and experience in their open parks; great cathedrals like couchant guardian monsters, dominating the cities they overlooked or unmoved in the midst of them; everything that was beautiful, explaining and being explained by its people, seemed to her to have that tarnish on it, or to be blurred, deadened, to have lost its loveliness and its meaning and she thought the breaking of the waves all round these shores had the sound of hissing in it.
Tears started into her eyes and rolled down her cheeks; she could not keep her mouth steady, but she pressed the tears away with the backs of her hands, for people were passing behind her and, having cleared her eyes, she wondered whether she need have bothered, whether she would not see tears on other faces and, for once, strangers would be friends in a common trouble. She could hear children laughing and shouting round the squat tower, not knowing they had lost the chief part of their inheritance; she looked at the middle-aged man and woman who leaned over the railings near her and they seemed well content as they exchanged their homely comments, and she turned from them to face the footpath and watch the passers-by—an old man, puffing at his pipe, a young one, walking slowly, his nose in a book, a few youths indulging in a little horseplay and emitting loud, mirthless laughter, a tired mother who could not be expected to look much further than the necessity to get her lagging children home to bed, two well-dressed women of uncertain age, talking with cheerful animation in crisp, cultured tones, confident of themselves and their place in a satisfactory world, and she thought, for a moment, that it must be she who was wrong, that nothing untoward had happened and that this day was the same as any other, or a better one than most. She did not meet a glance which, like her own, looked for someone with whom to share a sense of loss and indignity and personal guilt and it seemed to her strange that, behind her now, the cars and carts were still rumbling slowly over the bridge. There should, she thought, have been a hush over the land, not a two minutes’ silence of homag
e and thanksgiving, but an astonished silence of grief and shame. But am I wrong? she asked herself again as a man went by, relief in his quick footsteps and happiness in the set of his mouth and the brightness of his eyes. This man, the two cultured ladies, a plump, smiling matron chatting to another, were these the reasonable people and was she turning a wise compromise into a tragedy? But could what was wise be wrong? And she was convinced that wrong had been done. Possibly, right might eventually be its strange offspring but, however good the child, the sin of the parent must remain, an indelible, black mark in history. And then, as she looked up from her sad contemplation of the footpath, she saw coming towards her and walking lightly, a young man and a girl, their faces bright with the promise of a happy future. She had known them both since they were children and their parents before them, they had been at Chloe’s wedding, and before she could cut across their path or get ahead of them they had seen her. She had to wait for them, to hear the news of their engagement because everything, they said, was all right now, to feel indignation and pity at that phrase and to conceal, in their enchanted hour, her own unhappiness, but when they had passed on, she told herself she must go back to the shelter of her own house where no one would tell her that everything was all right. Felix was free from the bond he hated, he and James were physically safe for a time, at least, but she must, she thought, smiling at her own conceit, be like that Corsican who said he was a patriot before he was a father. She might have had to suffer horribly for Felix, to have known great fear for both her sons, but she would not have been ashamed. She was thankful her shame included neither of them. And Felix had not only been right, according to his standards but, a rare occurrence, he had been rewarded: the country had chosen expediency and, unlike its sturdy self, had lost its head in the belief that its reward was not only here and now but stretched into the future and she feared that, sturdy no longer, it was dwindling to its decline.
She managed to give the policeman a smile, but would not risk hearing a disillusioning word and she reached home to see Felix lifting his bicycle up the area steps. He was going to meet James, he told her, at Lindsay’s place and unless they were asked to stay there for the night, they would bicycle on until they found somewhere to sleep and to-morrow they would be on the hills.
“Poor things as hills,” he said, “but still, hills, and there will be no one there. I want to get out of this. Everybody’s drunk, or will be, with alcohol or idiocy.”
She nodded. It was the best thing he and James could do.
“And,” he said, with an awkward smile, “I feel a bit drunk myself, on neither. We’ll be away to-night, perhaps to-morrow night too. I’ve arranged it with the office. There were a few more days holiday owing to me and they’re so damned cock-a-hoop I wonder they didn’t offer me a partnership to celebrate the occasion. And don’t worry. There are no rocks, worse luck.”
“No, I shan’t worry, but Felix,” she said a little timidly, “have you seen that girl?”
“Why should I?”
“Well, isn’t it odd not to?”
“The conditions don’t exist so the contract is broken. I’ll never see her again if I can help it,” and she knew it was not only the mountains that had cured him but the humiliation of being accepted on her terms.
“You are just like your father,” she told him.
“Me?” he exclaimed.
She laughed. “Yes. Unforgiving. Didn’t you know? And remember there may be a war yet.”
“Yes, that would clean us up, wouldn’t it? But, you see, it won’t be this one,” he said with his malicious grin, swung himself on to his bicycle and looked round to wave before he disappeared.
She went into the quiet house and wondered why she had rushed out of it, for nothing was changed here. She knew her father would have felt to-day as she did, as her sons did and as she knew their father must, and the grandfather clock, which had been her grandfather’s, ticked with an effect of steady continuity. It was the only sound she could hear, as it had been that night when she waked to the certainty of Fergus’s nearness and, through the association of ideas, it was the clock that now seemed to warn her of his presence. Very quietly, she opened the sitting-room door, almost expecting to find him there, but the room was empty, there was no one in the drawing-room, no sign of Sandra or Paul, the house seemed to be deserted until she found Miss Spanner in her bedroom, sunk in a chair, with the paws of the smaller feline which decorated the back of it, hanging limply, with a hint of sympathy, against her shoulders.
“We saw it was coming but we couldn’t really believe it,” she said. “It’s the worst thing that’s ever happened. It’s much worse,” she said slowly, “than if you’d turned me out.” That had been her standard of unhappiness and she had gone beyond it and Rosamund thought there was a kind of nobility in her friend’s plain face, and then, spoiling her fine expression with a squint, Miss Spanner said, “Here’s a fine new chapter in our fair island’s story!”
Characteristically, Rosamund had seen her trouble physically as visual beauty smirched. For Miss Spanner the greatness of her country was expressed, recorded and crystallized in its literature. She loved the essential geniality of it, the controlled splendour, the courage, the good sound core to it—and had that gone for ever? Was it to be a monument to the past, without possibility of issue?
“Our fair island’s story,” she said again and, this time, mournfully. She sat up. “Felix left a message for you.”
“Yes, I’ve seen him.”
“And,” said Miss Spanner, “if I had a bicycle I’d be off too.”
“You certainly would,” Rosamund said.
“Don’t try to be funny. This is no time for being funny.”
“I agree. It’s penance we ought to be doing, not celebrating a triumph. It wouldn’t be so bad,” she said, moving with difficulty about Miss Spanner’s crowded room, “it wouldn’t be so bad if they’d say it’s damnable and disgraceful, but in our lamentable circumstances it couldn’t be helped.”
“But it could have been helped.”
“I know that! I know that! I’m only asking for a sign of shame at having any dealings with those gangsters. How they must be laughing! Actually helping them, helping them, Agnes, to save our own skins! And we’d had warning enough. Our skins ought not to have been in any danger. And what about the skins of the other people? Do you remember how I asked you what we were going to do if we lost our pride in ourselves? Well, we’ve lost it and you said we’d have to get it back. But how? That’s what I want to know. How, how, how?”
“Take care of my ornaments,” said Miss Spanner. “I don’t want to lose them as well. Nobody but an idiot can suppose the trouble’s stopped. This is only the beginning and we’ll get another chance.”
“And refuse to take it.”
“I’m not so sure,” Miss Spanner said slowly. “I can’t believe we’ve gone rotten altogether. And if we take it we’ll save the whole world or go down in glory,” and somewhat abashed by the expression of these beliefs, she rose and straightened the skin on the back of her chair.
Chapter LIII
Mr. Blackett was in high spirits. There had been no difficulty about the removal of his sister. She was as anxious to return to the stuffy little flat she had feared she would see no more as he was to precipitate her departure and he celebrated a double cause for rejoicing by giving her a first class railway ticket. He had played lightly with the idea of accompanying her, in a different compartment, for though he disliked crowds and had a proper scorn for mass emotion, this was a unique occasion and he would have liked to mingle with people who were not indulging their primitive instincts in the usual way of crowds, but marking their approval of political skill and wisdom by honouring the man who represented both. Such impulsive actions were foreign to his character, however, and he went home as usual to find no special jubilation there. On the whole, Flora was
disappointed, Mrs. Blackett said nothing and Rhoda was feeling a little guilty because she could not help being glad that James need not go to war and Mr. Blackett, remembering that he had always foreseen a peaceful outcome, could not, with dignity, express too much joy, and limited himself to a calm benignity.
“You see, I was right,” he said to Mrs. Blackett when they were alone.
“Of course,” she said with quiet emphasis.
He was gratified and looked at her with approval. On the whole she was everything a wife should be, yet—was it because she was his wife?—she did not stir him unless he provoked himself by overcoming her reluctances. She had all the domestic virtues but she lacked that conscious femininity, that tribute to the masculine, which he found in such abundance in Mrs. Fraser.
“I shall go across the road and ask if I may listen to the news again,” he said, “and I think perhaps,” he looked at her slyly, “you might like to come with me.”
“I shouldn’t like it at all,” she said.
“No? Very well.” He felt dangerously bold. He had warned her and she must take the risk.
It was Mrs. Fraser herself who opened the door and, pleasantly granting his request, took him into the sitting-room.
“Paul’s here,” she said. “He will turn on the news for you. Paul, this is Mr. Blackett,” and she left him with the boy who had good manners but to whom he had nothing to say and who, quite rightly, had nothing to say to him.
Paul was quite definitely disappointed at the news. He thought war would be a fine thing with both his brothers in it and a chance, with any luck, of being in it himself, but he knew his disappointment had a different quality from theirs and from his mother’s and he did not speak of it. He sat at one end of the room, Mr. Blackett at the other, the disembodied voice between them, and Mr. Blackett’s happiness was streaked with wonder at Mrs. Fraser’s conduct. With this child’s presence to protect her, surely so much caution was hardly necessary and it was not courteous. He had an odd feeling that he was in disgrace and being punished and he kept silence and did not linger but, as Paul was taking him to the door, Mrs. Fraser—had she timed this descent?—was coming down the stairs, pointing her toes, one hand on the banister rail, moving, he thought, with calculated grace.
