MEN MARCHING PAST
After the Warden had closed the door on his sister he came back to the
fireplace. He had been interrupted, and he stood silently with his hand
on the back of the chair, just as he had stood before. He was waiting,
perhaps, for an invitation to speak; for some sign from Mrs. Dashwood
that now that they were alone together, she expected him to talk on,
freely.
She had no suspicion of the real reason why her Aunt Lena had gone away.
May took for granted that she had fled at the first sign of a religious
discussion. May knew that General Sir John Dashwood, like many well
regulated persons, was under the impression that he had, at some proper
moment in his juvenile existence now forgotten, at his mother's knee or
in his ancestral cradle, once and for all weighed, considered and
accepted the sacred truths containing the Christian religion, and that
therefore there was no need to poke about among them and distrust them.
Lady Dashwood had encouraged that sentiment of silent loyalty: it left
more time and energy over for the discussion and arrangement of the
practical affairs of life. May knew all this.
May, sitting by the fire, with her eyes on her work, observed the
hesitation in the Warden's mind. She knew that he was waiting. She
glanced up.
"What was it you were saying?" she asked in the softest of voices, for
now that they were alone there was no one to be annoyed by a religious
discussion.
The Warden moved round and seated himself. But even then he could not
bring his thoughts to the surface: they lay in the back of his mind
urgent, yet reluctant. Meanwhile he began talking about the portrait
again. It served as a stalking horse. He told her some of the old
college stories, stories not only of Langley, but of other Wardens in
the tempestuous days of the Reformation and of the Civil War.
"And yet," he said suddenly, "what were those days compared with these?
Has there been any tragedy like this?" He gazed at her now; with his
narrow eyes strained and sad.
"Just at the beginning of the war," he said, "I heard---- It was one hot
brilliant morning in that early September. It was only a passing
sound--but I shall never forget it, till I die."
May Dashwood's hands dropped to her lap, and she sat listening with her
eyes lowered.
"There was a sound of the feet of men marching past, though I could not
see them. Their feet were trampling the ground rhythmically, and all to
the 'playing' of a bugler. I have never heard, before or since, a bugle
played like that! The youth--I could picture him in my mind--blew from
his bugle strangely ardent, compelling notes. It was simple, monotonous
music, but there came from the bugler's own soul a magnificent courage
and buoyancy; and the trampling feet responded--responded to the light
springing notes, the high ardour and gay fearlessness of youth. There
was such hope, such joy in the call of duty! No thought of danger, no
thought of suffering! All hearts leapt to the sounds! And the bugler
passed and the trampling feet! I could hear the swift, high, passionate
notes die in the distance; and I knew that the flower of our youth was
marching to its doom."
The Warden got up from his chair, and walked away, and there was silence
in the room.
Then he came up to where May sat and looked down at her.
"The High Gods," she said, quietly quoting his own phrase, "wanted
them."
He moved away again. "I have no argument for my faith," he said. "The
question for us is no longer 'I must believe,' but 'Dare I believe?' The
old days of certainty have gone. Inquisitions, Solemn Leagues and
Covenants have gone--never to return. All the clamour of men who claim
'to know' has died down."
And as he gazed at her with eyes that demanded an answer she said
simply: "I am content with the silence of God."
He made no answer and leaned heavily on the back of his chair. A moment
later he began to walk again. "I don't think I _can_ believe that the
heroic sacrifice of youth, their bitter suffering, will be mixed up
indistinguishably with the cunning meanness of pleasure-seekers, with
the sordid humbug of money-makers--in one vast forgotten grave. No, I
can't believe that--because the world we know is a rational world."
May glanced round at him as he moved about. The great dimly-lit room was
full of shadows, and Middleton's face was dark, full of shadows too,
shadows of mental suffering. She looked back at her work and sighed.
"Even if we straighten the crooked ways of life, so that there are no
more starving children, no men and women broken with the struggle of
life: even if we are able, by self-restraint, by greater scientific
knowledge to rid the earth of those diseases that mean martyrdom to its
victims; even if hate is turned to love, and vice and moral misery are
banished: even if the Kingdom of Heaven does come upon this earth--even
then! That will not be a Kingdom of Heaven that is Eternal! This Earth
will, in time, die. This Earth will die, that we know; and with it must
vanish for ever even the memory of a million years of human effort.
Shall we be content with that? I fail to conceive it as rational, and
therefore I cling to the _hope_ of some sort of life beyond the
grave--Eternal Life. But," and here he spoke out emphatically, "I have
no argument for my belief."
He came and stood close beside her now, and looked down at her. "I have
no argument for my belief," he repeated.
"And you are content with the silence of God," he added. Then he spoke
very slowly: "I must be content."
If he had stretched out his hand to touch hers, it would not have meant
any more than did the prolonged gaze of his eyes.
The clock on the mantelpiece ticked--its voice alone striking into the
silence. It seemed to tick sometimes more loudly, sometimes more softly.
The Warden appeared to force himself away from his own thoughts. With
his hands still grasping the back of his chair, he raised his head and
stood upright. The tick of the clock fell upon his ear; a monotonous and
mechanical sound--indifferent to human life and yet weighted with
importance to human life; marking the moments as they passed; moments
never to be recalled; steps that are leading irretrievably the human
race to their far-off destiny.
As the Warden's eyes watched the hands of the clock, they pointed to
five minutes to eleven. A thought came to him.
"All the bells are silent now," he said, "except in the safe daylight."
May looked up at him.
"Even 'Tom' is silent. The Clusius is not tolled now."
He got up and walked along the room to the open window. There he held
the curtain well aside and looked back at her. Why it was, May did not
know, but it seemed imperative to her to come to him. She put her work
aside and came through into the broad embrasure of the bay. Then he let
the curtain fall and they stood together in the darkness. The Warden
pushed out the latticed frame wider into the dark night. The air was
scarcely stirring, it came in warm and damp against their faces.
The quadrangle below them was dimly visible. Eastwards the sky was heavy
with a great blank pale space stretching over the battlemented roof and
full of the light of a moon that had just risen, but overhead a heavy
cloud slowly moved westwards.
They both leaned out and breathed the night air.
"It will rain in a moment," said the Warden.
"In the old days," he said, "there would have been sounds coming from
these windows. There would have been men coming light-heartedly from
these staircases and crossing to one another. Now all is under military
rule: the poor remnant left of undergraduate life--poor mentally and
physically--this poor remnant counts for nothing. All that is best has
gone, gone voluntarily, eagerly, and the men who fill their places are
training for the Great Sacrifice. It's the most glorious and the most
terrible thing imaginable!"
May leaned down lower and the silence of the night seemed oppressive
when the Warden ceased speaking.
After a moment he said, "In the old days you would have heard some
far-off clock strike the hour, probably a thin, cracked voice, and then
it would have been followed by other voices. You would have heard them
jangle together, and then into their discordance you would have heard
the deep voice of 'Tom' breaking."
"But he is at his best," went on the Warden, "when he tolls the Clusius.
It is his right to toll it, and his alone. He speaks one hundred and one
times, slowly, solemnly and with authority, and then all the gates in
Oxford are closed."
Drops of rain fell lightly in at them, and May drew in her head.
"Oxford has become a city of memories to me," said the Warden, and he
put out his arm to draw in the window.
"That is only when you are sad," said May.
"Yes," said the Warden slowly, "it is only when I give way to gloom.
After all, this is a great time, it can be made a great time. If only
all men and women realised that it might be the beginning of the 'Second
Coming.' As it is, the chance may slip."
He pulled the window further in and secured it.
May pushed aside the curtain and went back into the glow and warmth of
the room.
She gathered up her knitting and thrust it into the bag.
"Are you going?" asked the Warden. He was standing now in the middle of
the room watching her.
"I'm going," said May.
"I've driven you away," he said, "by my dismal talk."
"Driven me away!" she repeated. "Oh no!" Her voice expressed a great
reproach, the reproach of one who has suffered too, and who has "dreamed
dreams." Surely he knew that she could understand!
"Forgive me!" he said, and held out his hand impulsively. At least it
seemed strangely impulsive in this self-contained man.
She put hers into it, withdrew it, and together they went to the door.
For the first time in her life May felt the sting of a strange new pain.
The open door led away from warmth and a world that was full and
satisfying--at least it would have led away from such a world--a world
new to her--only that she was saying "Good night" and not "Good-bye."
Later on she would have to say "Good-bye." How many days were there
before that--five whole days? She walked up the steps, and went into the
corridor. Louise was there, just coming towards her.
"Madame desires me to say good night," said Louise, giving May's face a
quick searching glance.
"I'll come and say good night to her," said May, "if it's not too late."
No, it was not too late. Louise led the way, marvelling at the callous
self-assurance of English people.
Louise opened her mistress's door, and though consumed with raging
curiosity, left Mrs. Dashwood to enter alone.
"Oh, May!" cried Lady Dashwood. She was moving about the room in a grey
dressing-gown, looking very restless, and with her hair down.
"You didn't come down again," said May; "you were tired?"
"I wasn't tired!" Here Lady Dashwood paused. "May, I have, by pure
accident, come upon a letter--from Belinda to Gwen. I don't know how it
came among my own letters, but there it was, opened. I don't know if I
opened it by mistake, but anyhow there it was opened; I began reading
the nauseous rubbish, and then realised that I was reading Belinda. Now
the question is, what to do with the letter? It contains advice. May,
Gwen is to secure the Warden! It seems odd to see it written down in
black and white."
Lady Dashwood stared hard at her niece--who stood before her, thoughtful
and silent.
"Shall I give it to Gwen--or what?" she asked.
"Well," began May, and then she stopped.
"Of course, I blame myself for being such a fool as to have taken in
Belinda," said Lady Dashwood (for the hundredth time). "But the question
now is--what to do with the letter? It isn't fit for a nice girl to
read; but, no doubt, she's read scores of letters like it. The girl is
being hawked round to see who will have her--and she knows it! She
probably isn't nice! Girls who are exhibited, or who exhibit themselves
on a tray ain't nice. Jim knows this; he knows it. Oh, May! as if he
didn't know it. You understand!"
May Dashwood stood looking straight into her aunt's face, revolving
thoughts in her own mind.
"Some people, May," said Lady Dashwood, "who want to be unkind and only
succeed in being stupid, say that I am a matchmaker. I _have_ always
conscientiously tried to be a matchmaker, but I have rarely succeeded. I
have been so happy with my dear old husband that I want other people to
be happy too, and I am always bringing young people together--who were
just made for each other. But they won't have it, May! I introduce a
sweet girl full of womanly sense and affection to some nice man, and he
won't have her at any price. He prefers some cheeky little brat who
after marriage treats him rudely and decorates herself for other men. I
introduce a really good man to a really nice girl and she won't have
him, she 'loves,' if you please, a man whom decent men would like to
kick, and she finds herself spending the rest of her life trying hard to
make her life bearable. I dare say your scientists would say--Nature
likes to keep things even, bad and good mixed together. Well, I'm
against Nature. My under-housemaid develops scarlet fever, and dear old
Nature wants her to pass it on to the other maids, and if possible to
the cook. Well, I circumvent Nature."
May Dashwood's face slowly smiled.
"But I did not bring Gwendolen Scott to this house--she was forced upon
me--and I was weak enough to give in. Now, I should very much like to
say something when I give the letter to Gwen. But I shall have to say
nothing. Yes, nothing," repeated Lady Dashwood, "except that I must tell
her that I have, by mistake, read the first few lines."
"Yes," said May Dashwood.
"After all, what else could I say?" exclaimed Lady Dashwood. "You can't
exactly tell a daughter that you think her mother is a shameless hussy,
even if you may think that she ought to know it."
"Poor Gwen and poor Lady Belinda!" said May Dashwood sighing, and moving
to go, and trying hard to feel real pity in her heart.
"No," said Lady Dashwood, raising her voice, "I don't say 'poor
Belinda.' I don't feel a bit sorry for the old reprobate, I feel more
angry with her. Don't you see yourself--now you know Jim," continued
Lady Dashwood, throwing out her words at her niece's retreating
figure--"don't you see that Jim deserves something better than Belinda
and Co.? Now, would you like to see him saddled for life with Gwendolen
Scott?"
May Dashwood did not reply immediately; she seemed to be much occupied
in walking very slowly to the door and then in slowly turning the handle
of the door. Surely Gwendolen and her mother were pitiable
objects--unsuccessful as they were?
"Now, would you?" demanded Lady Dashwood. "Would you?"
"I should trust him not to do that," said May, as she opened the door.
She looked back at the tall erect figure in the grey silk
dressing-gown. "Good night, dear aunt." And she went out. "You see, I am
running away, and I order you to go to bed. You are tired." She spoke
through the small open space she had left, and then she closed the door.
"Trust him! Oh, Lord!" exclaimed Lady Dashwood, in a loud voice.
But she was not altogether displeased with the word "trust" in May
Dashwood's mouth. "She seems pretty confident that Jim isn't going to
make a martyr of himself," she said to herself happily.
The door opened and Louise entered with an enigmatical look on her face.
Louise had been listening outside for the tempestuous sounds that in her
country would have issued from any two normal women under the same
circumstances.
But no such sounds had reached her attentive ears, and here was Lady
Dashwood moving about with a serene countenance. She was even smiling.
Oh, what a country, what people!