Changing Winds Part 90

Henry replied.

"Yes. He was killed the other day in France."

"I hadn't heard. Poor chap!"

"I think he showed extraordinary courage. He started off from London to join the French Army ... all his friends dined him jolly well ... and wished him good-luck, and so on, and then he went off. And a week later, he turned up again with a c.o.c.k-and-bull story about having been arrested as a deserter. He said he'd escaped from prison and, after a lot of difficulty and hards.h.i.+p, got back to England. But he hadn't done anything of the sort. He'd funked it at the last. He got as far as Dover, and then he turned back ... frightened. He stayed in London for a while ... and then he tried again ... and this time he didn't funk it!

They say he was fighting splendidly when he was killed. Men have got the V.C. for less heroic behaviour than that. He'd conquered himself. I used to despise that fellow because he wore eccentric clothes and had his hair cut in a silly fas.h.i.+on ... but I feel proud now of having known him!"

2

Mary met him at Whitcombe, and they walked home, sending his trunk and portmanteau on in the carriage with Widger. He had antic.i.p.ated their meeting with strange emotion, feeling as if he were returning to her after a time of misunderstanding, richer in knowledge, more capable of sympathy. He had not seen her since the first performance of "The Magic Cas.e.m.e.nt," and very much had happened to them since then. His desire for Cecily seemed to have died. He had not troubled to visit her in London ... he could have found time to do so, had he been anxious to see her ... but he had not the wish. He had not written to her about Jimphy ...

he could not bring himself to do that ... and the thought that she might wish to see him did not stir his mind. He felt for her what a man feels for a woman he has loved, but now loves no more: neither like nor dislike, but, occasionally, curiosity that did not last long. She moved him as little as Sheila Morgan had done when he saw her in the field at Ballymartin, big with child, watching her husband drilling.

"There are permanent things in one's life, and there are impermanent things ... and you can't turn the one into the other," he thought to himself, as the little branch railway drove down the Axe Valley. "I wanted Cecily ... and then I didn't want her. There's no more to be said about it than that!"

There were very few people waiting on the platform when the train drew into Whitcombe, and so Henry and Mary saw each other immediately, and when he saw her, standing on the windy platform, with her hand to her hat, he felt more powerfully than he had ever felt it, his old love for her surging through him. Nothing could ever divert him from her for very long ... inevitably he would return to her ... whatever of permanence there was in his life was centred in her. He led her out of the station and they walked along the road at the top of the s.h.i.+ngle ... and as they walked, suddenly he turned to her and, drawing her arm in his, told her that he loved her.

"I haven't much to offer you, Mary ... I'm a poor sort of fellow at the best ... but I need you, and!..."

She did not answer, but she looked up at him with s.h.i.+ning eyes....

"My dear!" he said, and drew her very close to him.

3

They went up the path over the red cliffs and then climbed the steep steps that led to the top of the White Cliff. The night was beginning to gather her clouds about her, but still they did not hurry homewards. Far out, they could see the trawlers returning to the Bay, dipping and rising and plunging and reeling before the wind as from a heavy blow, and then, when it seemed that they must fall, righting themselves and moving swiftly homewards. Beneath them, the sea splashed in great thick waves that tossed their spray high in the air, and the gulls and jackdaws spun round and up and down or huddled themselves in the shelter of the cliffs.

"Mary!" he said, putting his arm about her.

"Yes, Quinny!" she answered so quietly that he could not hear her above the noise of the sea and the wind.

He raised her lips to his and kissed her.

"My dear!" he said again.

4

There was news of Ninian for them when they reached the Manor. Mrs.

Graham, with his letter in her hand, met them at the door.

"He's coming home on leave," she said. "He'll be here to-morrow night.

Then he's going out!..."

She turned away quickly, after she had spoken, and they followed her silently into the drawing-room. She stood for a while at the window, gazing down the avenue where the oaks and the chestnuts mingled their branches and made a covering for pa.s.sers-by.

"I'll just go upstairs," Henry began, but before he could leave the room, Mrs. Graham turned away from the window and went to him.

"I've put you in your old room, Henry," she said. "How are you! You don't look well!"

"I'm tired ... but I shall be all right presently. I'll just go upstairs now!..."

He left her hurriedly, for Mary was anxious to tell her mother of their betrothal, and he wished her to know as quickly as possible. He dallied in his room so that she might have plenty of time in which to learn Mary's news. He sat on the wide window-seat and let his mind roam over his memories. It was in this room that he had first told himself that he loved Mary ... it was at this very window he had stood while he resolved that he would marry Sheila Morgan, and again had considered what Ninian and Gilbert had said about men who marry out of their cla.s.s. Almost he expected to hear the door opening as Gilbert walked in, just as he had done then....

"It's no good mooning like this," he said to himself, and then he went downstairs again.

Mary was sitting beside her mother, holding her hand, and as he entered she turned to look at him, and smiled so that he knew what he must do, and so, without hesitation, he crossed the room to Mrs. Graham and kissed her.

"I'm very glad, Henry!" she said. "Sit down here!"

She moved so that he could sit beside her, and when he had settled himself, she put her hand on his shoulder. "It's nice to have you back again," she said.

They spent the time until dinner in desultory talk that sometimes lapsed into lengthy silence. A high wind was blowing up from the sea, and when they had dined, they drew their chairs close to the fire, and sat quietly in the warmth of it. They could hear the heavy rustle of the leaves as the trees swayed in the wind, and now and then raindrops fell down the chimney and sizzled in the hot coals. The lamps were left unlit, and the firelight made long shadows round the room, flickering over the old polished furniture and the silverware and the dim portraits of dead Grahams....

Mary moved from her chair and, placing a cus.h.i.+on on the floor between Henry and her mother, she sat down and leant her head against him. He bent forward slightly, and placed his hand on her shoulder, and as he did so, she put hers up and took hold of it and so they sat in exquisite peace and quietness until the rising wind, gathering itself together in greater strength, flung itself heavily on the house and shook it roughly. In the lull, they could hear the rain beating sharply on the windows ... and as they listened to the noise of the storm, their minds wandered away, and in their imagination they could see the soldiers in France, crouching in the dark trenches, while the wind and rain beat about them without pity; and in the mind of each of them, probing painfully, was this persistent thought: Here we are in this comfort ...

and there they are _in that_!

5

When Mary had gone to bed, Mrs. Graham began to talk of her to Henry.

"I always knew that she and you would marry, Henry," she said, "even when you seemed to have forgotten about her. You ... you were very fond of Lady Cecily Jayne, weren't you, Henry?" He nodded his head. He wanted to explain that that was over now, that it had been a pa.s.sing thing that had no durability, but he could not make the explanation, and so he did not say anything. "I thought her a very beautiful woman," Mrs. Graham went on. "If I'd been a boy I think I should have loved her, too. Boys are like that!"

She was so gentle and kind and understanding that he lost his shyness, and he confided in her as he would like to have confided in his mother if she had been alive.

"Inside me," he said, "I always loved Mary, even when I was obsessed by ... by some one else. I can't tell you how happy I am, Mrs. Graham. I feel as if I'd got home after a long and bitter journey ... and I don't want to go away again ever. Just to look at Mary seems sufficient ... to know that she's there ... that I can put out my hand and touch her...."

"Ninian will be glad, too," she said, speaking quickly to cover up the difficulty he had in finis.h.i.+ng his speech.

"We've been awfully good friends, we four," he replied, "Ninian and Roger and Gilbert and I. I've always felt about them that we could go on with our friends.h.i.+p just where we left off, even if we were separated from each other for years. We're all proud of each other. I used to think, when we first lived in that house in Bloomsbury, that we'd never separate ... that we'd form a sort of brotherhood of work and friends.h.i.+p ... Roger always preached about The Job Well Done ... but, of course that was impossible. We were bound to diverge and separate ... all sorts of things compel men to do that. Roger married, and now Gilbert and Ninian are soldiers...."

"I feel proud and afraid," Mrs. Graham said. "I'm glad that Ninian has joined ... I think I should hate it if he hadn't ... and yet I wish too that ... that he weren't in it. I'm not much of a patriot, Henry. I love my son more than I love my country. I've never been able to understand those women one reads about who offer their sons gladly. I don't offer Ninian gladly. I offer him ... that's all. I know that men have to defend their country, and I love England and I'm proud to be English ...

but when I've said all that, it's very little when I remember that I love Ninian. I suppose that that's a selfish thing to say ... but I don't care whether it is or not!..." She stopped for a moment or two, and then, with a change of voice, she said, "Do you think the war will last long, Henry?"

"I don't know," he replied. "n.o.body seems able to form any estimate.

When it began I thought it couldn't possibly last for longer than two months, but it looks like going on for a very long time yet. We move forward and we move back ... and more men are killed. That's the only result of anything at present!"

"It's strange," she murmured, "how indifferent one becomes to the death lists. I thought my heart would break when I saw the first Devon casualties, but now one simply doesn't feel anything ... just a vague regret. Sometimes I think I'm growing callous. I can't feel anything when I read that thousands of men have been killed and wounded. It's almost as if I were saying to myself, 'Is that all? Weren't there more?...' I'm not the only one like that. People don't like to admit it, but I've heard people confessing ... I confess myself ... that I get a ... kind of shocked pleasure out of a big casualty list! ... Oh, isn't it disgusting, Henry? One gets more and more coa.r.s.e every day, less sensitive!..."

"Yes," he said, nodding his head and staring into the fire which was now burning down.

And everywhere, it seemed to him, that coa.r.s.ening process was going on, a persistent blunting of the feelings, an itching desire for more and grimmer and bloodier details. One saw it operating in kindly women who visited soldiers in hospital or took them for drives ... an uncontrollable wish to hear the ghastlier things, a greedy anxiety for "experiences." ... And the soldiers loathed these prying women in whom l.u.s.t had taken a new turn: the love l.u.s.t had turned to blood l.u.s.t, and those who had formerly itched for men (and even those who had not) itched now for horrors, more and more horrors.... "Tell me, now," they would say, "did you kill any Germans? I suppose you saw some awful things...."

One saw this coa.r.s.ening process operating on men with incredible swiftness. Their tastes became edgeless ... they entertained themselves with big, splashy things, asking for noise and glare and an inchoate ma.s.sing of colour, and crowds and crowds of bare girls. There was a demand for Nakedness, not the nakedness of cleanly, natural things, but the Nakedness that is partly covered, the Nakedness that hints at Nakedness....

"That's inevitable, I suppose," Henry thought to himself.