Flowering Wilderness eotc-2

by John Galsworthy

  And, craving for a moment in which to recover her balance, she said: “May I have a wash, Wilfrid?”

  While she was drying her face and hands, she took hold of herself with all her might, and then as suddenly relaxed. Whatever she decided would be wrong, painful, perhaps impossible. Let it go!

  When she came back to the sitting-room he was not there. The door into his bedroom was open, but it was empty. Dinny rushed to the window. He was not in the street. Stack’s voice said.

  “Excuse me, miss: Mr. Desert was called out. He told me to say he would write. Dinner will be ready in a minute.”

  Dinny went straight up to him.

  “Your first impression of me was the right one, Stack; not your second. I am going now. Mr. Desert need have no fear of me. Tell him that, please.”

  “Miss,” said Stack, “I told you he was very sudden; but this is the most sudden thing I’ve ever known him do. I’m sorry, miss. But I’m afraid it’s a case of cutting your losses. If I can be of service to you, I will.”

  “If he leaves England,” said Dinny, “I should like to have Foch.”

  “If I know Mr. Desert, miss, he means to go. I’ve seen it coming on him ever since he had that letter the night before you came round in the early morning.”

  “Well,” said Dinny, “shake hands, and remember what I said.”

  They exchanged a hand-grip, and, still unnaturally steady, she went out and down the stairs. She walked fast, giddy and strange in her head, and nothing but the word: So! recurring in her mind. All that she had felt, all that she had meant to feel, compressed into that word of two letters. In her life she had never felt so withdrawn and tearless, so indifferent as to where she went, what she did, or whom she saw. The world might well be without end, for its end had come. She did not believe that he had designed this way of breaking from her. He had not enough insight into her for that. But, in fact, no way could have been more perfect, more complete. Drag after a man! Impossible! She did not even have to form that thought, it was instinctive.

  She walked and walked for three hours about the London streets, and turned at last towards Westminster with the feeling that if she didn’t she would drop. When she went in at South Square, she summoned all that was left in her to a spurt of gaiety; but, when she had gone up to her room, Fleur said:

  “Something very wrong, Michael.”

  “Poor Dinny! What the hell has he done now?”

  Going to the window, Fleur drew aside the curtain. It was not yet quite dark. Except for two cats, a taxi to the right, and a man on the pavement examining a small bunch of keys, there was nothing to be seen.

  “Shall I go up and see if she’ll talk?”

  “No. If Dinny wants us, she’ll let us know. If it’s as you think, she’ll want no one. She’s proud as the devil when her back’s to the wall.”

  “I hate pride,” said Fleur; and, closing the curtain, she went towards the door. “It comes when you don’t want it, and does you down. If you want a career, don’t have pride.” She went out.

  ‘I don’t know,’ thought Michael, ‘if I have pride, but I haven’t got a career.’ He followed slowly upstairs, and for some little time stood in the doorway of his dressing-room. But no sound came from upstairs…

  Dinny, indeed, was lying on her bed, face down. So this was the end! Why had the force called love exalted and tortured her, then thrown her, used and exhausted, quivering, longing, wounded, startled, to eat her heart out in silence and grief? Love and pride, and the greater of these is pride! So the saying seemed to go within her, and to be squeezed into her pillow. Her love against his pride! Her love against her own pride! And the victory with pride! Wasteful and bitter! Of all that evening only one moment now seemed to her real: when he had turned from the window, and she had thought: ‘He hates me!’ Of course he hated her, standing like the figure of his wounded self-esteem; the one thing that prevented him from crying out: ‘God damn you all! Good-bye!’

  Well, now he could cry it and go! And she—suffer, suffer—and slowly get over it. No! Lie on it, keep it down, keep it silent, press it into her pillows. Make little of it, make nothing of it, while inside her it swelled and ravaged her. The expression of instinct is not so clear as that; but behind all formless throbbing there is meaning; and that was the meaning within Dinny’s silent and half-smothered struggle on her bed. How could she have acted differently? Not her fault that Muskham had sent the letter with that phrase about the protection of a woman! Not her fault that she had rushed down to Royston! What had she done wrong? The whole thing arbitrary, gratuitous! Perhaps love in its courses was always so! It seemed to her that the night ticked while she lay there; the rusty ticking of an old clock. Was it the night, or her own life, abandoned and lying on its face?

  CHAPTER 29

  Wilfrid had obeyed impulse when he ran down into Cork Street. Ever since the sudden breaking off of that fierce undignified scuffle at Royston, and the sight of Dinny standing in the car covering her eyes with a hand, his feelings towards her had been terribly confused. Now at the sudden sight, sound, scent of her, warmth had rushed up in him and spent itself in kisses; but the moment she left him his insane feeling had returned and hurled him down into a London where at least one could walk and meet no one. He went south and became involved with a queue of people trying to get into ‘His Majesty’s.’ He stood among them thinking: ‘As well in here as anywhere.’ But, just as his turn came, he broke away and branched off eastward; passed through Covent Garden, desolate and smelling of garbage; and came out into Ludgate Hill. Hereabouts he was reminded by scent of fish that he had eaten nothing since breakfast. And, going into a restaurant, he drank a cocktail and ate some hors-d’oeuvre. Asking for a sheet of paper and envelope, he wrote:

  “I had to go. If I had stayed, you and I would have been one. I don’t know what I’m going to do—I may finish in the river to-night, or go abroad, or come back to you. Whatever I do, forgive, and believe that I have loved you. Wilfrid.”

  He addressed the envelope and thrust it into his pocket. But he did not post it. He felt he could never express what he was feeling. Again he walked east. Through the City zone, deserted as if it had been mustard-gassed, he was soon in the cheerier Whitechapel Road. He walked, trying to tire himself out and stop the whirling of his thoughts. He moved northwards now, and towards eleven was nearing Chingford. All was moonlit and still when he passed the hotel and went on towards the Forest. One car, a belated cyclist, a couple or two, and three tramps were all he met before he struck off the road in among the trees. Daylight was gone, and the moon was silvering the leaves and branches. Thoroughly exhausted, he lay down on the beech mast. The night was an unwritten poem—the gleam and drip of light like the play of an incoherent mind, fluttering, slipping in and out of reality; never at rest; never the firm silver of true metal; burnished and gone like a dream. Up there were the stars he had travelled by times without number, the Wain, and all the others that seemed meaningless, if not nameless, in this town world.

  He turned over and lay on his face, pressing his forehead to the ground. And suddenly he heard the drone of a flying machine. But through the heavily-leafed boughs he could see no gliding, sky-scurrying shape. Some night-flier to Holland; some English airman pricking out the lighted shape of London, or practising flight between Hendon and an East Coast base. After flying in the war he had never wished to fly again. The very sound of it brought back still that sick, fed-up feeling from which the Armistice had delivered him. The drone passed on and away. A faint rumbling murmur came from London, but here the night was still and warm, with only a frog croaking, a bird cheeping feebly once, two owls hooting against each other. He turned again on to his face, and fell into an uneasy sleep.

  When he woke light was just rifting the clear darkness. A heavy dew had fallen; he felt stiff and chilled, but his mind was clear. He got up and swung his arms, lit a cigarette, and drew the smoke deep in. He sat with his arms clasped round his knees, smoking his cigarette
to its end without ever moving it from his lips, and spitting out the stub with its long ash just before it burned his mouth. Suddenly he began to shiver. He got up to walk back to the road. Stiff and sore, he made poor going. It was full dawn by the time he reached the road, and then, knowing that he ought to go towards London, he went in the opposite direction. He plodded on, and every now and then shivered violently. At last he sat down and, bowed over his knees, fell into a sort of coma. A voice saying: “Hi!” roused him. A fresh-faced young man in a small car had halted alongside. “Anything wrong?”

  “Nothing,” muttered Wilfrid.

  “You appear to be in poor shape, all the same. D’you know what time it is?”

  “No.”

  “Get in here, and I’ll run you to the hotel at Chingford. Got any money?”

  Wilfrid looked at him grimly and laughed.

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t be touchy! What you want is a sleep and some strong coffee! Come on!”

  Wilfrid got up. He could hardly stand. He lay back in the little car, huddled beside the young man, who said: “Now we shan’t be long.”

  In ten minutes, which to a blurred and shivering consciousness might have been five hours, they were in front of the hotel.

  “I know the ‘boots’ here,” said the young man; “I’ll put you in charge of him. What’s your name?”

  “Hell!” muttered Wilfrid.

  “Hi! George! I found this gentleman on the road. He seems to have gone a bit wonky. Put him into some decent bedroom. Heat him up a good hot bottle, and get him into bed with it. Brew him some strong coffee, and see that he drinks it.”

  The boots grinned. “That all?”

  “No; take his temperature, and send for a doctor. Look here, sir,” the young man turned to Wilfrid, “I recommend this chap. He can polish boots with the best. Just let him do for you, and don’t worry. I must get on. It’s six o’clock.” He waited a moment, watching Wilfrid stagger into the hotel on the arm of the ‘boots,’ then sped away.

  The ‘boots’ assisted Wilfrid to a room. “Can you undress, governor?”

  “Yes,” muttered Wilfrid.

  “Then I’ll go and get you that bottle and the coffee. Don’t be afraid, we don’t ‘ave damp beds ’ere. Were you out all night?”

  Wilfrid sat on the bed and did not answer.

  “‘Ere!” said the ‘boots’: “give us your sleeves!” He pulled Wilfrid’s coat off, then his waistcoat and trousers. “You’ve got a proper chill, it seems to me. Your underthings are all damp. Can you stand?”

  Wilfrid shook his head.

  The ‘boots’ stripped the sheets off the bed, pulled Wilfrid’s shirt over his head; then with a struggle wrenched off vest and drawers, and wrapped him in a blanket.

  “Now, governor, a good pull and a pull altogether.” He forced Wilfrid’s head on to the pillow, heaved his legs on to the bed, and covered him with two more blankets.

  “You lie there; I won’t be gone ten minutes.”

  Wilfrid lay, shivering so that his thoughts would not join up, nor his lips make consecutive sounds owing to the violent chattering of his teeth. He became conscious of a chambermaid, then of voices.

  “His teeth’ll break it. Isn’t there another place?”

  “I’ll try under his arm.”

  A thermometer was pressed under his arm and held there.

  “You haven’t got yellow fever, have you, sir?”

  Wilfrid shook his head.

  “Can you raise yourself, governor, and drink this?”

  Robust arms raised him, and he drank.

  “One ‘undred and four.”

  “Gawd! ‘Ere, pop this bottle to his feet, I’ll ‘phone the Doc.”

  Wilfrid could see the maid watching him, as if wondering what sort of fever she was going to catch.

  “Malaria,” he said, suddenly, “not infectious. Give me a cigarette! In my waistcoat.”

  The maid put a cigarette between his lips and lit it. Wilfrid took a long pull.

  “A-again!” he said.

  Again she put it between his lips, and again he took a pull.

  “They say there’s mosquitoes in the forest. Did you find any last night, sir?”

  “In the sys-system.”

  Shivering a little less now, he watched her moving about the room, collecting his clothes, drawing the curtains so that they shaded the bed. Then she approached him, and he smiled up at her.

  “Another nice drop of hot coffee?”

  He shook his head, closed his eyes again, and shivered deep into the bed, conscious that she was still watching him, and then again of voices.

  “Can’t find a name, but he’s some sort of nob. There’s money and this letter in his coat. The doctor’ll be here in five minutes.”

  “Well, I’ll wait till then, but I’ve got my work to do.”

  “Same ’ere. Tell the missus when you call her.”

  He saw the maid stand looking at him with a sort of awe. A stranger and a nob, with a curious disease, interesting to a simple mind. Of his face, pressed into the pillow, she couldn’t see much– one dark cheek, one ear, some hair, the screwed-up eye under the brow. He felt her touch his forehead timidly with a finger. Burning hot, of course!

  “Would you like your friends written to, sir?”

  He shook his head.

  “The doctor’ll be here in a minute.”

  “I’ll be like this two days—nothing to be done—quinine—orange juice—” Seized by a violent fit of shivering, he was silent. He saw the doctor come in; and the maid still leaning against the chest of drawers, biting her little finger. She took it from her mouth, and he heard her say: “Shall I stay, sir?”

  “Yes, you can stay.”

  The doctor’s fingers closed on his pulse, raised his eyelid, pushed his lips apart.

  “Well, sir? Had much of this?”

  Wilfrid nodded.

  “All right! You’ll stay where you are, and shove in quinine, and that’s all I can do for you. Pretty sharp bout.”

  Wilfrid nodded.

  “There are no cards on you. What’s your name?”

  Wilfrid shook his head.

  “All right! Don’t worry! Take this.”

  CHAPTER 30

  Stepping from an omnibus, Dinny walked into the large of Wimbledon Common. After a nearly sleepless night, she had slipped out, leaving a note to say she would be away all day. She hurried over the grass into a birch grove, and lay down. The high moving clouds, the sunlight striking in and out of the birch-tree branches, the water wagtails, the little dry patches of sand, and that stout wood-pigeon, undismayed by her motionless figure, brought her neither peace nor the inclination to think of Nature. She lay on her back, quivering and dry-eyed, wondering for whose inscrutable delight she was thus suffering. The stricken do not look for outside help, they seek within. To go about exuding tragedy was abhorrent to her. She would not do that! But the sweetness of the wind, the moving clouds, the rustle of the breeze, the sound of children’s voices, brought no hint of how she was to disguise herself and face life afresh. The isolation in which she had been ever since the meeting with Wilfrid under Foch’s statue now showed nakedly. All her eggs had been in one basket, and the basket had fallen. She dug with her fingers at the sandy earth; and a dog, seeing a hole, came up and sniffed it. She had begun to live, and now she was dead. “No flowers by request!”

  So sharp had been her realisation of finality yesterday evening that she did not even consider the possibility of tying up the broken thread. If he had pride, so had she! Not the same sort, but as deep in her marrow. No one had any real need of her! Why not go away? She had nearly three hundred pounds. The notion gave her neither exhilaration nor any real relief; but it would save her from making herself a nuisance to those who would expect her to be her old cheerful self. She thought of the hours she had spent with Wilfrid in places like this. So sharp was her memory that she had to cover her lips to prevent anguish welling out of them. Until
she met him she had never felt alone. And now—she WAS alone! Chill, terrifying, endless! Remembering how she had found swift motion good for heartache, she got up and crossed the road where the Sunday stream of cars was already flowing out of town. Uncle Hilary had once exhorted her not to lose her sense of humour. But had she ever had one? At the end of Barnes Common she climbed on to a ‘bus and went back to London. She must have something to eat, or she would be fainting. She got down near Kensington Gardens and went into an hotel.

  After lunch she sat some time in the Gardens, and then walked to Mount Street. No one was in, and she sank down on the sofa in the drawing-room. Thoroughly exhausted, she fell asleep. Her aunt’s entrance woke her, and, sitting up, she said:

  “You can all be happy about me, Aunt Em. It’s finished.”

  Lady Mont stared at her niece sitting there with such a ghostly little smile, and two tears, starting not quite together, ran down her cheeks.

  “I didn’t know you cried at funerals, too, Aunt Em.”

  She got up, went over to her aunt, and with her handkerchief removed the marks the tears had made.

  “There!”

  Lady Mont got up. “I MUST howl,” she said, “I simply must.” And she swayed rapidly out of the room.

  Dinny sat on, that ghost of a smile still on her face. Blore brought in the tea-things, and she talked to him of Wimbledon, and his wife. He did not seem to know which of the two was in worse shape, but, as he was going out, he turned and said:

  “And if I might suggest, Miss Dinny, a little sea air for you.”

  “Yes, Blore, I was thinking of it.”

  “I’m glad, miss; one overdoes it at this time of year.”

  He, too, seemed to know that her course was run. And, feeling suddenly that she could not go on thus attending her own funeral, she stole to the door, listened for sounds, then slipped down the stairs and away.

  But she was so physically exhausted that she could scarcely drag herself as far as St. James’s Park. There she sat down by the water. People, sunbeams, and ducks, shading leaves, spiky reeds, and this sirocco within her! A tall man walking from the Whitehall end made a little convulsive movement, as if to put his hand to his hat, corrected it at sight of her face, and lounged on. Realising what her face must be expressing, she got up, and, trailing on to Westminster Abbey, went in and sat down in a pew. There, bent forward, with her face resting on her arms, she stayed quite half an hour. She had not prayed, but she had rested, and the expression on her face had changed. She felt more fit to face people and not show so much.