Changing Winds Part 100

"_It's with men like these that I want to work, because I believe that they will prepare the place for the foundation of a decent commonwealth.

They aren't miracle-mongers, thank G.o.d, like John Marsh and Galway and Mineely. They aren't up in the sky to-day and down in the mud to-morrow.

They keep to the level._

"_Then there's the Plunkett House lot. You remember, I told you about Sir Horace Plunkett and the Co-operative Movement. Well, I want to get Crews and Jordan and Saxon to link themselves on to the Plunkett House people and form the nucleus of a new Irish Group. There are a few of the men at Trinity College who will come into it, but I'm afraid all the men at the National University are under the influence of Marsh and MacDonagh and the sloppy romantics._

"_You see, dear, don't you, that this job of making a commonwealth of worth in Ireland is a long and difficult one. That's why we've got to be very patient. Everything's against us. We have a contemptible press, a cowardly crowd of corrupt politicians, a greedy people, an ignorant and bigoted priesthood (that includes the Protestant clergy) and a complete lack of social consciousness and plan of life. But then, what's life for, if it isn't to cope with difficulties like that...._"

6

There was snow, thick and long-lying, on the ground when he reached Boveyhayne, and the _crunch-crunch_ of it under their feet, as Mary and he walked home, gave him a feeling of pleasure, and the cold, bracing air exhilarated him so that he laughed at things which would otherwise barely have made him smile. The antics of Rachel's daughter, as related to him by Mary, seemed extraordinarily entertaining, and when he drew Mary's arm in his and pressed it tightly, he felt that there was nothing in heaven or on earth more to be desired than the love of a woman and the love of a child. He had a sense of age, of a pa.s.sed boundary, that made him feel much older than Mary. "Here I am, listening to her as she talks gaily about a child's pranks, nodding my head and laughing, too ... and in a little while I shall tell her everything ... and then I shall go ... and we will not laugh again together. I'm holding her arm closely in mine, and presently I shall kiss her lips, and she will put her arms about me with the careless intimacy of lovers ... and then I shall tell her everything ... and she will kiss me no more ... and our intimacy will shrivel up!..."

He wished to prolong his pleasure in this walk through the snow, and so he took her back to the Manor by long roads and roundabout ways. They did not climb up the old path over the cliff because that was so much shorter than the hair-pin road.... "I must tell her soon," he said to himself, "but before I tell her, I must feel the most of her love for me!"

He listened to her, not for what she was saying, but for the sound of her voice, and made short answers to her so that he might interrupt the flow of her speech as little as possible. When he returned along this road, he would come alone and for the last time, and so, that his memory of her might be full, he would be no more than her auditor and watcher.

Just to have her by his side, her arm in his, and hear her ... that was sufficient.

They walked through the village and when they came to Boveyhayne lane, he said to her, "Isn't there a longer way, Mary!" and she laughed at him, bantering him because of his sudden desire for exercise; but she yielded to him, and they took the longer road that led them past the Roman quarries to the fir tree, standing in isolation where the main roads meet.

"Mary," he said, as they came in sight of the house, "I want to tell you something ... something important!..."

"Yes, Quinny!"

"But not now, dear. To-night! Or to-morrow, perhaps!"

She pinched his cheek in a pretence at anger. "You were always very vague, Quinny!" she said.

"I know," he answered. "It's a kind of ... cowardice, that, isn't it?

I'm vague because I dislike ... am afraid ... to be definite. I'm a frightful coward, Mary!..."

He might approach the subject by these devious ways, he told himself. He had not meant to talk to her about his failure in courage until she and he could be alone in the evening ... this walk together was to be the final lovers' stroll, unmarred by any bitterness ... but even in his effort to postpone the time of telling, he had prepared to tell her ...

and perhaps it was better that she should know now. Here, indeed, in this snowy silence, they were free from any intrusion. It might not be possible to make his confession to her without interruption from Rachel or Mrs. Graham ... and some feeling for the fitness of things made him decide that this outdoor scene was a better place for his purpose than the lamplit interior of the Manor. Through the blown branches of the hedges he could see the thick sheets of snow spread over the fields. The boughs of the fruit-trees in the orchard showed very black beneath their white covering, as if they felt cold, and he looted away quickly to the haystacks in the farmyard that seemed so warm in spite of the snow. The dusk was drawing in, and the grey sky was darkening for the night....

"Mary," he said, so abruptly that she looked up at him enquiringly.

"Let's walk back a little way...."

"But, Quinny, it's getting late. They'll wonder what's happened to us!"

"I want to tell you ... now, Mary!"

He compelled her to turn, as he spoke, and they walked slowly back towards the fir tree.

"What is it, Quinny?" she asked tenderly, as if she would comfort him.

"I ... I want to tell you something!"

"Yes?"

"I hardly know how to begin. It's very difficult, dear...."

"What is it, Quinny?" she demanded, more anxiously.

But still he would not tell her ... he must have her love a little longer.

"Mary, I love you so much, dear ... oh, I feel like a fool when I try to tell you how much I love you!"

"I know you love me, Quinny!"

"And now ... this very minute ... I love you far more than I've ever loved you. Every bit of me is in love with you, Mary. You're very sweet and dear!..."

She had a sense of impending disaster, but she did not express it in her words. "And I love you, Quinny!" she said. "I can't love you more than I've always loved you!..."

"Could you love me less than you've always loved me?" he asked, turning and standing before her so that his eyes were looking into hers.

"I don't know," she answered. "I've never tried!"

He did not say any more for a few moments, but stood with his hands on her shoulders, looking steadily into her eyes, while she looked steadily into his. Then he took his hands from her shoulders and drew her into the shelter of his arms, and kissed her, letting his lips lie long on hers.

"What do you want to tell me?" she said in a whisper.

7

Then he told her.

"I wrote to you when I was at Ballymartin," he said, "but I did not post the letter. I brought it with me. I meant to destroy it because I thought it was too emotional, and then I thought that perhaps I had better let you see it so that you might judge me, not just as I am now, talking to you quietly like this, but as I was when I wrote it!"

He took the letter from his pocket and gave it to her.

"I had to tell you, Mary. I couldn't marry you without letting you know what kind of man I am. I'm too frightened to go to the Front. At the bottom of all my excuses, that's the truth."

She did not speak, but stood with his letter in her hands, turning it over....

"I've tried to persuade myself," he went on, "that I'm of special account, that I ought not to go to the war, but I know very well that in a time like this, no one is of special account. Gilbert said something like that at Tre'Arrdur Bay when I told him that his life was of greater value than the life of ... of a clerk. I suppose, the finer a man is, the more willing he is to take his share in war, and if that's true, I'm not really a fine man. I'm simply a coward, h.o.a.rding up my life in a cupboard, like a miser h.o.a.rding up his money. I should have been the first to spend myself ... like Gilbert and Ninian. I'm the only one of the Improved Tories who hasn't gone! ... Oh, I couldn't offer you myself, dear. I'm too mean ... I'm a failure in fineness.... I used to feel contempt for Jimphy Jayne ... but he didn't hesitate for a moment.

It never entered his head not to go. The moment the war began, Gilbert enlisted, and I suppose Ninian must have left that railway the very minute he heard the news. I was never quite ... never quite on their level, Mary, and I don't suppose I ever shall be now!"

She moved slightly, as if she were tired of remaining in one position, and were s.h.i.+fting to an easier one, but still she did not speak, nor did she raise her eyes to look at him.

"I'm not fit to be your husband," he said. "I'm not fit to be any woman's husband, but much less yours. Even now, when I 'm standing here talking to you in this safety, the thought of ... of being out there makes me s.h.i.+ver with fear. It's the thought of ... of dying!... I think and think of all those young chaps, all the fellows I knew, robbed of their right to live and love, as I love you, and work and make their end in decency and peace ... and I can't bear it. I want to save myself from the wreckage ... to hide myself in safety until this ... this horror is ended!" He paused for a while, as if he were searching for words and then he went on. "There was an officer in my carriage to-day ... going on to Whimple ... and he told me about poison gas ... the men died in frightful agony, he said ... and then he talked about machine guns....

'They can perforate a man like a postage stamp,' he said.... Isn't it vile, Mary?"

Her head was still bent, and as she did not make an answer to him, he turned to look away from her. He remembered how Sheila Morgan, in her anger at his cowardice, had struck him in the face and had furiously bidden him to leave her.... Mary would not strike him, but she, too, would bid him to go from her....

He felt her hand on his arm.

"Quinny!" she said very softly, and he turned to find her standing nearer to him and looking up at him with no less love than she had looked at him before he had made his confession to her.

"I don't love you, Quinny, only for what's fine in you," she said, and her speech was full of hesitation as if she could not adequately express her meaning. "I love you ... for _all_ of you. I just take the bad with the good, and ... and make the best of it, dear!"