I
In the boarding-house, whence the Lairds had not yet removed, the old
lady who knitted, sat by the fireplace, and light from the setting
sun threw her shadow on the wall, moving spidery and grey, over the
yellowish distemper, in time to the tune of her needles. She was a very
old lady—the oldest lady in the world, Noel thought—and she knitted
without stopping, without breathing, so that the girl felt inclined to
scream. In the evening when George and Gratian were not in, Noel would
often sit watching the needles, brooding over her as yet undecided
future. And now and again the old lady would look up above her
spectacles; move the corners of her lips ever so slightly, and drop her
gaze again. She had pitted herself against Fate; so long as she knitted,
the war could not stop—such was the conclusion Noel had come to. This
old lady knitted the epic of acquiescence to the tune of her needles;
it was she who kept the war going such a thin old lady! 'If I were
to hold her elbows from behind,' the girl used to think, 'I believe
she'd die. I expect I ought to; then the war would stop. And if
the war stopped, there'd be love and life again.' Then the little
silvery tune would click itself once more into her brain, and stop her
thinking. In her lap this evening lay a letter from her father.
“MY DEAREST NOLLIE,
“I am glad to say I have my chaplaincy, and am to start for Egypt very
soon. I should have wished to go to France, but must take what I can
get, in view of my age, for they really don't want us who are getting
on, I fear. It is a great comfort to me to think that Gratian is with
you, and no doubt you will all soon be in a house where my little
grandson can join you. I have excellent accounts of him in a letter from
your aunt, just received: My child, you must never again think that my
resignation has been due to you. It is not so. You know, or perhaps you
don't, that ever since the war broke out, I have chafed over staying
at home, my heart has been with our boys out there, and sooner or later
it must have come to this, apart from anything else. Monsieur Lavendie
has been round in the evening, twice; he is a nice man, I like him very
much, in spite of our differences of view. He wanted to give me the
sketch he made of you in the Park, but what can I do with it now? And to
tell you the truth, I like it no better than the oil painting. It is
not a likeness, as I know you. I hope I didn't hurt his feelings, the
feelings of an artist are so very easily wounded. There is one thing I
must tell you. Leila has gone back to South Africa; she came round one
evening about ten days ago, to say goodbye. She was very brave, for
I fear it means a great wrench for her. I hope and pray she may find
comfort and tranquillity out there. And now, my dear, I want you to
promise me not to see Captain Fort. I know that he admires you. But,
apart from the question of his conduct in regard to Leila, he made the
saddest impression on me by coming to our house the very day after her
departure. There is something about that which makes me feel he cannot
be the sort of man in whom I could feel any confidence. I don't
suppose for a moment that he is in your thoughts, and yet before going
so far from you, I feel I must warn you. I should rejoice to see you
married to a good man; but, though I don't wish to think hardly of
anyone, I cannot believe Captain Fort is that.
“I shall come down to you before I start, which may be in quite a
short time now. My dear love to you and Gracie, and best wishes to
George.
“Your ever loving father,
“EDWARD PIERSON”
Across this letter lying on her knees, Noel gazed at the spidery
movement on the wall. Was it acquiescence that the old lady knitted, or
was it resistance—a challenge to death itself, a challenge dancing to
the tune of the needles like the grey ghost of human resistance to Fate!
She wouldn't give in, this oldest lady in the world, she meant to knit
till she fell into the grave. And so Leila had gone! It hurt her to know
that; and yet it pleased her. Acquiescence—resistance! Why did Daddy
always want to choose the way she should go? So gentle he was, yet he
always wanted to! And why did he always make her feel that she must go
the other way? The sunlight ceased to stream in, the old lady's shadow
faded off the wall, but the needles still sang their little tune. And
the girl said:
“Do you enjoy knitting, Mrs. Adam?”
The old lady looked at her above the spectacles.
“Enjoy, my dear? It passes the time.”
“But do you want the time to pass?”
There was no answer for a moment, and Noel thought: 'How dreadful of
me to have said that!'
“Eh?” said the old lady.
“I said: Isn't it very tiring?”
“Not when I don't think about it, my dear.”
“What do you think about?”
The old lady cackled gently.
“Oh—well!” she said.
And Noel thought: 'It must be dreadful to grow old, and pass the
time!'
She took up her father's letter, and bent it meditatively against her
chin. He wanted her to pass the time—not to live, not to enjoy! To
pass the time. What else had he been doing himself, all these years,
ever since she could remember, ever since her mother died, but just
passing the time? Passing the time because he did not believe in this
life; not living at all, just preparing for the life he did believe in.
Denying himself everything that was exciting and nice, so that when he
died he might pass pure and saintly to his other world. He could not
believe Captain Fort a good man, because he had not passed the time, and
resisted Leila; and Leila was gone! And now it was a sin for him to love
someone else; he must pass the time again. 'Daddy doesn't believe in
life,' she thought; 'it's monsieur's picture. Daddy's a saint;
but I don't want to be a saint, and pass the time. He doesn't
mind making people unhappy, because the more they're repressed, the
saintlier they'll be. But I can't bear to be unhappy, or to see
others unhappy. I wonder if I could bear to be unhappy to save someone
else—as Leila is? I admire her! Oh! I admire her! She's not doing it
because she thinks it good for her soul; only because she can't bear
making him unhappy. She must love him very much. Poor Leila! And she's
done it all by herself, of her own accord.' It was like what George
said of the soldiers; they didn't know why they were heroes, it was
not because they'd been told to be, or because they believed in a
future life. They just had to be, from inside somewhere, to save others.
'And they love life as much as I do,' she thought. 'What a beast
it makes one feel!' Those needles! Resistance—acquiescence? Both
perhaps. The oldest lady in the world, with her lips moving at the
corners, keeping things in, had lived her life, and knew it. How
dreadful to live on when you were of no more interest to anyone, but
must just “pass the time” and die. But how much more dreadful to
“pass the time” when you were strong, and life and love were yours
for the taking! 'I shan't answer Daddy,' she thought.
II
The maid, who one Saturday in July opened the door to Jimmy Fort, had
never heard the name of Laird, for she was but a unit in the ceaseless
procession which pass through the boarding-houses of places subject to
air-raids. Placing him in a sitting-room, she said she would find Miss
'Allow. There he waited, turning the leaves of an illustrated Journal,
wherein Society beauties; starving Servians, actresses with pretty
legs, prize dogs, sinking ships, Royalties, shells bursting, and padres
reading funeral services, testified to the catholicity of the public
taste, but did not assuage his nerves. What if their address were not
known here? Why, in his fear of putting things to the test, had he let
this month go by? An old lady was sitting by the hearth, knitting, the
click of whose needles blended with the buzzing of a large bee on the
window-pane. 'She may know,' he thought, 'she looks as if she'd
been here for ever.' And approaching her, he said:
“I can assure you those socks are very much appreciated, ma'am.”
The old lady bridled over her spectacles.
“It passes the time,” she said.
“Oh, more than that; it helps to win the war, ma'am.”
The old lady's lips moved at the corners; she did not answer.
'Deaf!' he thought.
“May I ask if you knew my friends, Doctor and Mrs. Laird, and Miss
Pierson?”
The old lady cackled gently.
“Oh, yes! A pretty young girl; as pretty as life. She used to sit with
me. Quite a pleasure to watch her; such large eyes she had.”
“Where have they gone? Can you tell me?”
“Oh, I don't know at all.”
It was a little cold douche on his heart. He longed to say: 'Stop
knitting a minute, please. It's my life, to know.' But the tune of
the needles answered: 'It's my life to knit.' And he turned away
to the window.
“She used to sit just there; quite still; quite still.”
Fort looked down at the window-seat. So, she used to sit just here,
quite still.
“What a dreadful war this is!” said the old lady. “Have you been
at the front?”
“Yes.”
“To think of the poor young girls who'll never have husbands! I'm
sure I think it's dreadful.”
“Yes,” said Fort; “it's dreadful—” And then a voice from the
doorway said:
“Did you want Doctor and Mrs. Laird, sir? East Bungalow their address
is; it's a little way out on the North Road. Anyone will tell you.”
With a sigh of relief Fort looked gratefully at the old lady who had
called Noel as pretty as life. “Good afternoon, ma'am.”
“Good afternoon.” The needles clicked, and little movements occurred
at the corners of her mouth. Fort went out. He could not find a vehicle,
and was a long time walking. The Bungalow was ugly, of yellow brick
pointed with red. It lay about two-thirds up between the main road and
cliffs, and had a rock-garden and a glaring, brand-new look, in the
afternoon sunlight. He opened the gate, uttering one of those prayers
which come so glibly from unbelievers when they want anything. A
baby's crying answered it, and he thought with ecstasy: 'Heaven, she
is here!' Passing the rock-garden he could see a lawn at the back
of the house and a perambulator out there under a holm-oak tree, and
Noel—surely Noel herself! Hardening his heart, he went forward. In a
lilac sunbonnet she was bending over the perambulator. He trod softly on
the grass, and was quite close before she heard him. He had prepared no
words, but just held out his hand. The baby, interested in the shadow
failing across its pram, ceased crying. Noel took his hand. Under the
sunbonnet, which hid her hair, she seemed older and paler, as if she
felt the heat. He had no feeling that she was glad to see him.
“How do you do? Have you seen Gratian; she ought to be in.”
“I didn't come to see her; I came to see you.”
Noel turned to the baby.
“Here he is.”
Fort stood at the end of the perambulator, and looked at that other
fellow's baby. In the shade of the hood, with the frilly clothes, it
seemed to him lying with its head downhill. It had scratched its snub
nose and bumpy forehead, and it stared up at its mother with blue eyes,
which seemed to have no underlids so fat were its cheeks.
“I wonder what they think about,” he said.
Noel put her finger into the baby's fist.
“They only think when they want some thing.”
“That's a deep saying: but his eyes are awfully interested in
you.”
Noel smiled; and very slowly the baby's curly mouth unclosed, and
discovered his toothlessness.
“He's a darling,” she said in a whisper.
'And so are you,' he thought, 'if only I dared say it!'
“Daddy is here,” she said suddenly, without looking up. “He's
sailing for Egypt the day after to-morrow. He doesn't like you.”
Fort's heart gave a jump. Why did she tell him that, unless—unless
she was just a little on his side?
“I expected that,” he said. “I'm a sinner, as you know.”
Noel looked up at him. “Sin!” she said, and bent again over her
baby. The word, the tone in which she said it, crouching over her baby,
gave him the thought: 'If it weren't for that little creature, I
shouldn't have a dog's chance.' He said, “I'll go and see your
father. Is he in?”
“I think so.”
“May I come to-morrow?”
“It's Sunday; and Daddy's last day.”
“Ah! Of course.” He did not dare look back, to see if her gaze was
following him, but he thought: 'Chance or no chance, I'm going to
fight for her tooth and nail.'
In a room darkened against the evening sun Pierson was sitting on a sofa
reading. The sight of that figure in khaki disconcerted Fort, who had
not realised that there would be this metamorphosis. The narrow face,
clean-shaven now, with its deep-set eyes and compressed lips, looked
more priestly than ever, in spite of this brown garb. He felt his hope
suddenly to be very forlorn indeed. And rushing at the fence, he began
abruptly:
“I've come to ask you, sir, for your permission to marry Noel, if
she will have me.”
He had thought Pierson's face gentle; it was not gentle now. “Did
you know I was here, then, Captain Fort?”
“I saw Noel in the garden. I've said nothing to her, of course. But
she told me you were starting to-morrow for Egypt, so I shall have no
other chance.”
“I am sorry you have come. It is not for me to judge, but I don't
think you will make Noel happy.”
“May I ask you why, sir?”
“Captain Fort, the world's judgment of these things is not mine; but
since you ask me. I will tell you frankly. My cousin Leila has a claim
on you. It is her you should ask to marry you.”
“I did ask her; she refused.”
“I know. She would not refuse you again if you went out to her.”
“I am not free to go out to her; besides, she would refuse. She knows
I don't love her, and never have.”
“Never have?”
“No.”
“Then why—”
“Because I'm a man, I suppose, and a fool”
“If it was simply, 'because you are a man' as you call it, it is
clear that no principle or faith governs you. And yet you ask me to
give you Noel; my poor Noel, who wants the love and protection not of a
'man' but of a good man. No, Captain Fort, no!”
Fort bit his lips. “I'm clearly not a good man in your sense of the
word; but I love her terribly, and I would protect her. I don't in the
least know whether she'll have me. I don't expect her to, naturally.
But I warn you that I mean to ask her, and to wait for her. I'm so
much in love that I can do nothing else.”
“The man who is truly in love does what is best for the one he
loves.” Fort bent his head; he felt as if he were at school again,
confronting his head-master. “That's true,” he said. “And I
shall never trade on her position. If she can't feel anything for me
now or in the future, I shan't trouble her, you may be sure of that.
But if by some wonderful chance she should, I know I can make her happy,
sir.”
“She is a child.”
“No, she's not a child,” said Fort stubbornly.
Pierson touched the lapel of his new tunic. “Captain Fort, I am going
far away from her, and leaving her without protection. I trust to your
chivalry not to ask her, till I come back.”
Fort threw back his head. “No, no, I won't accept that position.
With or without your presence the facts will be the same. Either she can
love me, or she can't. If she can, she'll be happier with me. If she
can't, there's an end of it.”
Pierson came slowly up to him. “In my view,” he said, “you are as
bound to Leila as if you were married to her.”
“You can't, expect me to take the priest's view, sir.”
Pierson's lips trembled.
“You call it a priest's view; I think it is only the view of a man
of honour.”
Fort reddened. “That's for my conscience,” he said stubbornly.
“I can't tell you, and I'm not going to, how things began. I was
a fool. But I did my best, and I know that Leila doesn't think
I'm bound. If she had, she would never have gone. When there's no
feeling—there never was real feeling on my side—and when there's
this terribly real feeling for Noel, which I never sought, which I tried
to keep down, which I ran away from—”
“Did you?”
“Yes. To go on with the other was foul. I should have thought you
might have seen that, sir; but I did go on with it. It was Leila who
made an end.”
“Leila behaved nobly, I think.”
“She was splendid; but that doesn't make me a brute.”.
Pierson turned away to the window, whence he must see Noel.
“It is repugnant to me,” he said. “Is there never to be any purity
in her life?”
“Is there never to be any life for her? At your rate, sir, there will
be none. I'm no worse than other men, and I love her more than they
could.”
For fully a minute Pierson stood silent, before he said: “Forgive me
if I've spoken harshly. I didn't mean to. I love her intensely; I
wish for nothing but her good. But all my life I have believed that for
a man there is only one woman—for a woman only one man.”
“Then, Sir,” Fort burst out, “you wish her—”
Pierson had put his hand up, as if to ward off a blow; and, angry though
he was, Fort stopped.
“We are all made of flesh and blood,” he continued coldly, “and it
seems to me that you think we aren't.”
“We have spirits too, Captain Fort.” The voice was suddenly so
gentle that Fort's anger evaporated.
“I have a great respect for you, sir; but a greater love for Noel, and
nothing in this world will prevent me trying to give my life to her.”
A smile quivered over Pierson's face. “If you try, then I can but
pray that you will fail.”
Fort did not answer, and went out.
He walked slowly away from the bungalow, with his head down, sore,
angry, and yet-relieved. He knew where he stood; nor did he feel that
he had been worsted—those strictures had not touched him. Convicted
of immorality, he remained conscious of private justifications, in a
way that human beings have. Only one little corner of memory, unseen
and uncriticised by his opponent, troubled him. He pardoned himself the
rest; the one thing he did not pardon was the fact that he had known
Noel before his liaison with Leila commenced; had even let Leila sweep
him away on, an evening when he had been in Noel's company. For that
he felt a real disgust with himself. And all the way back to the station
he kept thinking: 'How could I? I deserve to lose her! Still, I shall
try; but not now—not yet!' And, wearily enough, he took the train
back to town.
III
Both girls rose early that last day, and went with their father to
Communion. As Gratian had said to George: “It's nothing to me now,
but it will mean a lot to him out there, as a memory of us. So I must
go.” And he had answered: “Quite right, my dear. Let him have all he
can get of you both to-day. I'll keep out of the way, and be back the
last thing at night.” Their father's smile when he saw them waiting
for him went straight to both their hearts. It was a delicious day, and
the early freshness had not yet dried out of the air, when they were
walking home to breakfast. Each girl had slipped a hand under his arm.
'It's like Moses or was it Aaron?' Noel thought absurdly Memory
had complete hold of her. All the old days! Nursery hours on Sundays
after tea, stories out of the huge Bible bound in mother-o'pearl, with
photogravures of the Holy Land—palms, and hills, and goats, and
little Eastern figures, and funny boats on the Sea of Galilee, and
camels—always camels. The book would be on his knee, and they one on
each arm of his chair, waiting eagerly for the pages to be turned so
that a new picture came. And there would be the feel of his cheek,
prickly against theirs; and the old names with the old glamour—to
Gratian, Joshua, Daniel, Mordecai, Peter; to Noel Absalom because of his
hair, and Haman because she liked the sound, and Ruth because she was
pretty and John because he leaned on Jesus' breast. Neither of them
cared for Job or David, and Elijah and Elisha they detested because they
hated the name Eliza. And later days by firelight in the drawing-room,
roasting chestnuts just before evening church, and telling ghost
stories, and trying to make Daddy eat his share. And hours beside him
at the piano, each eager for her special hymns—for Gratian, “Onward,
Christian Soldiers,” “Lead, Kindly Light,” and “O God Our
Help”; for Noel, “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” the one with “The
Hosts of Midian” in it, and “For Those in Peril on the Sea.”
And carols! Ah! And Choristers! Noel had loved one deeply—the word
“chorister” was so enchanting; and because of his whiteness, and
hair which had no grease on it, but stood up all bright; she had never
spoken to him—a far worship, like that for a star. And always, always
Daddy had been gentle; sometimes angry, but always gentle; and they
sometimes not at all! And mixed up with it all, the dogs they had had,
and the cats they had had, and the cockatoo, and the governesses, and
their red cloaks, and the curates, and the pantomimes, and “Peter
Pan,” and “Alice in Wonderland”—Daddy sitting between them, so
that one could snuggle up. And later, the school-days, the hockey,
the prizes, the holidays, the rush into his arms; and the great and
wonderful yearly exodus to far places, fishing and bathing; walks and
drives; rides and climbs, always with him. And concerts and Shakespeare
plays in the Christmas and Easter holidays; and the walk home through
the streets—all lighted in those days—one on each side of him. And
this was the end! They waited on him at breakfast: they kept stealing
glances at him, photographing him in their minds. Gratian got her camera
and did actually photograph him in the morning sunlight with Noel,
without Noel, with the baby; against all regulations for the defence of
the realm. It was Noel who suggested: “Daddy, let's take lunch
out and go for all day on the cliffs, us three, and forget there's a
war.”
So easy to say, so difficult to do, with the boom of the guns travelling
to their ears along the grass, mingled with the buzz of insects. Yet
that hum of summer, the innumerable voices of tiny lives, gossamer
things all as alive as they, and as important to their frail selves; and
the white clouds, few and so slow-moving, and the remote strange purity
which clings to the chalky downs, all this white and green and blue of
land and sea had its peace, which crept into the spirits of those three
alone with Nature, this once more, the last time for—who could say how
long? They talked, by tacit agreement, of nothing but what had happened
before the war began, while the flock of the blown dandelions drifted
past. Pierson sat cross-legged on the grass, without his cap, suffering
a little still from the stiffness of his unwonted garments. And the
girls lay one on each side of him, half critical, and half admiring.
Noel could not bear his collar.
“If you had a soft collar you'd be lovely, Daddy. Perhaps out there
they'll let you take it off. It must be fearfully hot in Egypt. Oh!
I wish I were going. I wish I were going everywhere in the world.
Some day!” Presently he read to them, Murray's “Hippolytus” of
Euripides. And now and then Gratian and he discussed a passage. But Noel
lay silent, looking at the sky. Whenever his voice ceased, there was the
song of the larks, and very faint, the distant mutter of the guns.
They stayed up there till past six, and it was time to go and have tea
before Evening Service. Those hours in the baking sun had drawn virtue
out of them; they were silent and melancholy all the evening. Noel
was the first to go up to her bedroom. She went without saying good
night—she knew her father would come to her room that last evening.
George had not yet come in; and Gratian was left alone with Pierson
in the drawing-room, round whose single lamp, in spite of close-drawn
curtains, moths were circling: She moved over to him on the sofa.
“Dad, promise me not to worry about Nollie; we'll take care of
her.”
“She can only take care of herself, Gracie, and will she? Did you know
that Captain Fort was here yesterday?”
“She told me.”
“What is her feeling about him?”
“I don't think she knows. Nollie dreams along, and then suddenly
rushes.”
“I wish she were safe from that man.”
“But, Dad, why? George likes him and so do I.”
A big grey moth was fluttering against the lamp. Pierson got up and
caught it in the curve of his palm. “Poor thing! You're like my
Nollie; so soft, and dreamy, so feckless, so reckless.” And going to
the curtains, he thrust his hand through, and released the moth.
“Dad!” said Gratian suddenly, “we can only find out for ourselves,
even if we do singe our wings in doing it. We've been reading
James's 'Pragmatism.' George says the only chapter that's
important is missing—the one on ethics, to show that what we do is not
wrong till it's proved wrong by the result. I suppose he was afraid to
deliver that lecture.”
Pierson's face wore the smile which always came on it when he had to
deal with George, the smile which said: “Ah, George, that's very
clever; but I know.”
“My dear,” he said, “that doctrine is the most dangerous in the
world. I am surprised at George.”
“I don't think George is in danger, Dad.”
“George is a man of wide experience and strong judgment and character;
but think how fatal it would be for Nollie, my poor Nollie, whom a
little gust can blow into the candle.”
“All the same,” said Gratian stubbornly, “I don't think anyone
can be good or worth anything unless they judge for themselves and take
risks.”
Pierson went close to her; his face was quivering.
“Don't let us differ on this last night; I must go up to Nollie for
a minute, and then to bed. I shan't see you to-morrow; you mustn't
get up; I can bear parting better like this. And my train goes at eight.
God bless you, Gracie; give George my love. I know, I have always known
that he's a good man, though we do fight so. Good-bye, my darling.”
He went out with his cheeks wet from Gratian's tears, and stood in
the porch a minute to recover his composure. The shadow of the house
stretched velvet and blunt over the rock-garden. A night-jar was
spinning; the churring sound affected him oddly. The last English
night-bird he would hear. England! What a night-to say good-bye! 'My
country!' he thought; 'my beautiful country!' The dew was lying
thick and silvery already on the little patch of grass-the last dew,
the last scent of an English night. The call of a bugle floated out.
“England!” he prayed; “God be about you!” A little sound
answered from across the grass, like an old man's cough, and the
scrape and rattle of a chain. A face emerged at the edge of the
house's shadow; bearded and horned like that of Pan, it seemed to
stare at him. And he saw the dim grey form of the garden goat, heard it
scuttle round the stake to which it was tethered, as though alarmed at
this visitor to its' domain.
He went up the half-flight of stairs to Noel's narrow little room,
next the nursery. No voice answered his tap. It was dark, but he could
see her at the window, leaning far out, with her chin on her hands.
“Nollie!”
She answered without turning: “Such a lovely night, Daddy. Come and
look! I'd like to set the goat free, only he'd eat the rock plants.
But it is his night, isn't it? He ought to be running and skipping in
it: it's such a shame to tie things up. Did you never, feel wild in
your heart, Daddy?”
“Always, I think, Nollie; too wild. It's been hard to tame
oneself.”
Noel slipped her hand through his arm. “Let's go and take the goat
and skip together on the hills. If only we had a penny whistle! Did you
hear the bugle? The bugle and the goat!”
Pierson pressed the hand against him.
“Nollie, be good while I'm away. You know what I don't want. I
told you in my letter.” He looked at her cheek, and dared say no more.
Her face had its “fey” look again.
“Don't you feel,” she said suddenly, “on a night like this, all
the things, all the things—the stars have lives, Daddy, and the moon
has a big life, and the shadows have, and the moths and the birds and
the goats and the trees, and the flowers, and all of us—escaped? Oh!
Daddy, why is there a war? And why are people so bound and so unhappy?
Don't tell me it's God—don't!”
Pierson could not answer, for there came into his mind the Greek song he
had been reading aloud that afternoon—
“O for a deep and dewy Spring, With runlets cold to draw and drink,
And a great meadow blossoming, Long-grassed, and poplars in a ring, To
rest me by the brink. O take me to the mountain, O, Past the great pines
and through the wood, Up where the lean hounds softly go, A-whine for
wild things' blood, And madly flies the dappled roe, O God, to shout
and speed them there; An arrow by my chestnut hair Drawn tight and one
keen glimmering spear Ah! if I could!”
All that in life had been to him unknown, of venture and wild savour;
all the emotion he had stifled; the swift Pan he had denied; the sharp
fruits, the burning suns, the dark pools, the unearthly moonlight, which
were not of God—all came with the breath of that old song, and the
look on the girl's face. And he covered his eyes.
Noel's hand tugged at his arm. “Isn't beauty terribly alive,”
she murmured, “like a lovely person? it makes you ache to kiss it.”
His lips felt parched. “There is a beauty beyond all that,” he said
stubbornly.
“Where?”
“Holiness, duty, faith. O Nollie, my love!” But Noel's hand
tightened on his arm.
“Shall I tell you what I should like?” she whispered. “To
take God's hand and show Him things. I'm certain He's not seen
everything.”
A shudder went through Pierson, one of those queer sudden shivers, which
come from a strange note in a voice, or a new sharp scent or sight.
“My dear, what things you say!”
“But He hasn't, and it's time He did. We'd creep, and peep, and
see it all for once, as He can't in His churches. Daddy, oh! Daddy! I
can't bear it any more; to think of them being killed on a night like
this; killed and killed so that they never see it all again—never see
it—never see it!” She sank down, and covered her face with her arms.
“I can't, I can't! Oh! take it all away, the cruelty! Why does
it come—why the stars and the flowers, if God doesn't care any more
than that?”
Horribly affected he stood bending over her, stroking her head. Then the
habit of a hundred death-beds helped him. “Come, Nollie! This life is
but a minute. We must all die.”
“But not they—not so young!” She clung to his knees, and looked
up. “Daddy, I don't want you to go; promise me to come back!”
The childishness of those words brought back his balance.
“My dear sweetheart, of course! Come, Nollie, get up. The sun's been
too much for you.”
Noel got up, and put her hands on her father's shoulders. “Forgive
me for all my badness, and all my badness to come, especially all my
badness to come!”
Pierson smiled. “I shall always forgive you, Nollie; but there won't
be—there mustn't be any badness to come. I pray God to keep you, and
make you like your mother.”
“Mother never had a devil, like you and me.”
He was silent from surprise. How did this child know the devil of wild
feeling he had fought against year after year; until with the many years
he had felt it weakening within him! She whispered on: “I don't hate
my devil.
“Why should I?—it's part of me. Every day when the sun sets,
I'll think of you, Daddy; and you might do the same—that'll keep
me good. I shan't come to the station tomorrow, I should only cry. And
I shan't say good-bye now. It's unlucky.”
She flung her arms round him; and half smothered by that fervent
embrace, he kissed her cheeks and hair. Freed of each other at last, he
stood for a moment looking at her by the moonlight.
“There never was anyone more loving than you; Nollie!” he said
quietly. “Remember my letter. And good night, my love!” Then, afraid
to stay another second, he went quickly out of the dark little room....
George Laird, returning half an hour later, heard a voice saying softly:
“George, George!”
Looking up, he saw a little white blur at the window, and Noel's face
just visible.
“George, let the goat loose, just for to-night, to please me.”
Something in that voice, and in the gesture of her stretched-out arm
moved George in a queer way, although, as Pierson had once said, he had
no music in his soul. He loosed the goat.
IV 1
In the weeks which succeeded Pierson's departure, Gratian and George
often discussed Noel's conduct and position by the light of the
Pragmatic theory. George held a suitably scientific view. Just as he
would point out to his wife—in the physical world, creatures who
diverged from the normal had to justify their divergence in competition
with their environments, or else go under, so in the ethical world it
was all a question of whether Nollie could make good her vagary. If she
could, and grew in strength of character thereby, it was ipso facto all
right, her vagary would be proved an advantage, and the world enriched.
If not, the world by her failure to make good would be impoverished, and
her vagary proved wrong. The orthodox and academies—he insisted—were
always forgetting the adaptability of living organisms; how every action
which was out of the ordinary, unconsciously modified all the other
actions together with the outlook, and philosophy of the doer. “Of
course Nollie was crazy,” he said, “but when she did what she
did, she at once began to think differently about life and morals. The
deepest instinct we all have is the instinct that we must do what we
must, and think that what we've done is really all right; in fact
the—instinct of self-preservation. We're all fighting animals; and
we feel in our bones that if we admit we're beaten—we are beaten;
but that every fight we win, especially against odds, hardens those
bones. But personally I don't think she can make good on her own.”
Gratian, whose Pragmatism was not yet fully baked, responded doubtfully:
“No, I don't think she can. And if she could I'm not sure. But
isn't Pragmatism a perfectly beastly word, George? It has no sense of
humour in it at all.”
“It is a bit thick, and in the hands of the young, deuced likely to
become Prigmatism; but not with Nollie.”
They watched the victim of their discussions with real anxiety. The
knowledge that she would never be more sheltered than she was with them,
at all events until she married, gravely impeded the formation of any
judgment as to whether or no she could make good. Now and again
there would come to Gratian who after all knew her sister better than
George—the disquieting thought that whatever conclusion Noel led them
to form, she would almost certainly force them to abandon sooner or
later.
Three days after her father's departure Noel had declared that she
wanted to work on the land. This George had promptly vetoed.
“You aren't strong enough yet, my dear: Wait till the harvest
begins. Then you can go and help on the farm here. If you can stand that
without damage, we'll think about it.”
But the weather was wet and harvest late, and Noel had nothing much to
do but attend to her baby, already well attended to by Nurse, and dream
and brood, and now and then cook an omelette or do some housework for
the sake of a gnawing conscience. Since Gratian and George were away in
hospital all day, she was very much alone. Several times in the evenings
Gratian tried to come at the core of her thoughts, Twice she flew the
kite of Leila. The first time Noel only answered: “Yes, she's a
brick.” The second time, she said: “I don't want to think about
her.”
But, hardening her heart, Gratian went on: “Don't you think it's
queer we've never heard from Captain Fort since he came down?”
In her calmest voice Noel answered: “Why should we, after being told
that he wasn't liked?”
“Who told him that?”
“I told him, that Daddy didn't; but I expect Daddy said much worse
things.” She gave a little laugh, then softly added: “Daddy's
wonderful, isn't he?”
“How?”
“The way he drives one to do the other thing. If he hadn't opposed
my marriage to Cyril, you know, that wouldn't have happened, it just
made all the difference. It stirred me up so fearfully.” Gratian
stared at her, astonished that she could see herself so clearly. Towards
the end of August she had a letter from Fort.
“DEAR MRS. LAIRD,
“You know all about things, of course, except the one thing which to
me is all important. I can't go on without knowing whether I have a
chance with your sister. It is against your father's expressed wish
that she should have anything to do with me, but I told him that I could
not and would not promise not to ask her. I get my holiday at the end of
this month, and am coming down to put it to the touch. It means more to
me than you can possibly imagine.
“I am, dear Mrs. Laird,
“Your very faithful servant,
“JAMES FORT.”
She discussed the letter with George, whose advice was: “Answer it
politely, but say nothing; and nothing to Nollie. I think it would be a
very good thing. Of course it's a bit of a make-shift—twice her age;
but he's a genuine man, if not exactly brilliant.”
Gratian answered almost sullenly: “I've always wanted the very best
for Nollie.”
George screwed up his steel-coloured eyes, as he might have looked at
one on whom he had to operate. “Quite so,” he said. “But you must
remember, Gracie, that out of the swan she was, Nollie has made herself
into a lame duck. Fifty per cent at least is off her value, socially. We
must look at things as they are.”
“Father is dead against it.”
George smiled, on the point of saying: 'That makes me feel it must be
a good thing!' But he subdued the impulse.
“I agree that we're bound by his absence not to further it actively.
Still Nollie knows his wishes, and it's up to her and no one else.
After all, she's no longer a child.”
His advice was followed. But to write that polite letter, which said
nothing, cost Gratian a sleepless night, and two or three hours'
penmanship. She was very conscientious. Knowledge of this impending
visit increased the anxiety with which she watched her sister, but the
only inkling she obtained of Noel's state of mind was when the girl
showed her a letter she had received from Thirza, asking her to come
back to Kestrel. A postscript, in Uncle Bob's handwriting, added these
words:
“We're getting quite fossilised down here; Eve's gone and left us
again. We miss you and the youngster awfully. Come along down, Nollie
there's a dear!”
“They're darlings,” Noel said, “but I shan't go. I'm too
restless, ever since Daddy went; you don't know how restless. This
rain simply makes me want to die.”
2
The weather improved next day, and at the end of that week harvest
began. By what seemed to Noel a stroke of luck the farmer's binder was
broken; he could not get it repaired, and wanted all the human binders
he could get. That first day in the fields blistered her hands, burnt
her face and neck, made every nerve and bone in her body ache; but was
the happiest day she had spent for weeks, the happiest perhaps since
Cyril Morland left her, over a year ago. She had a bath and went to bed
the moment she got in.
Lying there nibbling chocolate and smoking a cigarette, she luxuriated
in the weariness which had stilled her dreadful restlessness. Watching
the smoke of her cigarette curl up against the sunset glow which filled
her window, she mused: If only she could be tired out like this every
day! She would be all right then, would lose the feeling of not knowing
what she wanted, of being in a sort o of large box, with the lid slammed
down, roaming round it like a dazed and homesick bee in an overturned
tumbler; the feeling of being only half alive, of having a wing maimed
so that she could only fly a little way, and must then drop.
She slept like a top that night. But the next day's work was real
torture, and the third not much better. By the end of the week, however,
she was no longer stiff.
Saturday was cloudless; a perfect day. The field she was working in lay
on a slope. It was the last field to be cut, and the best wheat yet,
with a glorious burnt shade in its gold and the ears blunt and full. She
had got used now to the feel of the great sheaves in her arms, and the
binding wisps drawn through her hand till she held them level, below the
ears, ready for the twist. There was no new sensation in it now;
just steady, rather dreamy work, to keep her place in the row, to the
swish-swish of the cutter and the call of the driver to his horses at
the turns; with continual little pauses, to straighten and rest her back
a moment, and shake her head free from the flies, or suck her finger,
sore from the constant pushing of the straw ends under. So the hours
went on, rather hot and wearisome, yet with a feeling of something good
being done, of a job getting surely to its end. And gradually the centre
patch narrowed, and the sun slowly slanted down.
When they stopped for tea, instead of running home as usual, she drank
it cold out of a flask she had brought, ate a bun and some chocolate,
and lay down on her back against the hedge. She always avoided that
group of her fellow workers round the tea-cans which the farmer's wife
brought out. To avoid people, if she could, had become habitual to
her now. They must know about her, or would soon if she gave them the
chance. She had never lost consciousness of her ring-finger, expecting
every eye to fall on it as a matter of course. Lying on her face, she
puffed her cigarette into the grass, and watched a beetle, till one of
the sheep-dogs, scouting for scraps, came up, and she fed him with her
second bun. Having finished the bun, he tried to eat the beetle, and,
when she rescued it, convinced that she had nothing more to give him,
sneezed at her, and went away. Pressing the end of her cigarette out
against the bank, she turned over. Already the driver was perched on his
tiny seat, and his companion, whose business it was to free the falling
corn, was getting up alongside. Swish-swish! It had begun again. She
rose, stretched herself, and went back to her place in the row. The
field would be finished to-night; she would have a lovely rest-all
Sunday I Towards seven o'clock a narrow strip, not twenty yards broad,
alone was left. This last half hour was what Noel dreaded. To-day it was
worse, for the farmer had no cartridges left, and the rabbits were dealt
with by hullabaloo and sticks and chasing dogs. Rabbits were vermin, of
course, and ate the crops, and must be killed; besides, they were good
food, and fetched two shillings apiece; all this she knew but to see
the poor frightened things stealing out, pounced on, turned, shouted
at, chased, rolled over by great swift dogs, fallen on by the boys and
killed and carried with their limp grey bodies upside down, so dead
and soft and helpless, always made her feel quite sick. She stood very
still, trying not to see or hear, and in the corn opposite to her a
rabbit stole along, crouched, and peeped. 'Oh!' she thought, 'come
out here, bunny. I'll let you away—can't you see I will? It's
your only chance. Come out!' But the rabbit crouched, and gazed, with
its little cowed head poked forward, and its ears laid flat; it seemed
trying to understand whether this still thing in front of it was the
same as those others. With the thought, 'Of course it won't while I
look at it,' Noel turned her head away. Out of the corner of her eye
she could see a man standing a few yards off. The rabbit bolted out. Now
the man would shout and turn it. But he did not, and the rabbit scuttled
past him and away to the hedge. She heard a shout from the end of the
row, saw a dog galloping. Too late! Hurrah! And clasping her hands, she
looked at the man. It was Fort! With the queerest feeling—amazement,
pleasure, the thrill of conspiracy, she saw him coming up to her.
“I did want that rabbit to get off,” she sighed out; “I've been
watching it. Thank you!”
He looked at her. “My goodness!” was all he said.
Noel's hands flew up to her cheeks. “Yes, I know; is my nose very
red?”
“No; you're as lovely as Ruth, if she was lovely.”
Swish-swish! The cutter came by; Noel started forward to her place in
the row; but catching her arm, he said: “No, let me do this little
bit. I haven't had a day in the fields since the war began. Talk to me
while I'm binding.”
She stood watching him. He made a different, stronger twist from hers,
and took larger sheaves, so that she felt a sort of jealousy.
“I didn't know you knew about this sort of thing.”
“Oh, Lord, yes! I had a farm once out West. Nothing like field-work,
to make you feel good. I've been watching you; you bind jolly well.”
Noel gave a sigh of pleasure.
“Where have you come from?” she asked.
“Straight from the station. I'm on my holiday.” He looked up at
her, and they both fell silent.
Swish-swish! The cutter was coming again. Noel went to the beginning
of her portion of the falling corn, he to the end of it. They worked
towards each other, and met before the cutter was on them a third time.
“Will you come in to supper?”
“I'd love to.”
“Then let's go now, please. I don't want to see any more rabbits
killed.”
They spoke very little on the way to the bungalow, but she felt his eyes
on her all the time. She left him with George and Gratian who had just
come in, and went up for her bath.
Supper had been laid out in the verandah, and it was nearly dark before
they had finished. In rhyme with the failing of the light Noel became
more and more silent. When they went in, she ran up to her baby. She
did not go down again, but as on the night before her father went
away, stood at her window, leaning out. A dark night, no moon; in the
starlight she could only just see the dim garden, where no goat was
grazing. Now that her first excitement had worn off, this sudden
reappearance of Fort filled her with nervous melancholy: She knew
perfectly well what he had come for, she had always known. She had no
certain knowledge of her own mind; but she knew that all these weeks she
had been between his influence and her father's, listening to them,
as it were, pleading with her. And, curiously, the pleading of each,
instead of drawing her towards the pleader, had seemed dragging her away
from him, driving her into the arms of the other. To the protection of
one or the other she felt she must go; and it humiliated her to think
that in all the world there was no other place for her. The wildness of
that one night in the old Abbey seemed to have power to govern all her
life to come. Why should that one night, that one act, have this uncanny
power to drive her this way or that, to those arms or these? Must she,
because of it, always need protection? Standing there in the dark it was
almost as if they had come up behind her, with their pleadings; and a
shiver ran down her back. She longed to turn on them, and cry out: “Go
away; oh; go away! I don't want either of you; I just want to be left
alone!” Then something, a moth perhaps, touched her neck. She gasped
and shook herself. How silly!
She heard the back door round the corner of the house opening; a man's
low voice down in the dark said:
“Who's the young lady that comes out in the fields?”
Another voice—one of the maids—answered:
“The Missis's sister.”
“They say she's got a baby.”
“Never you mind what she's got.”
Noel heard the man's laugh. It seemed to her the most odious laugh
she had ever heard. She thought swiftly and absurdly: 'I'll get away
from all this.' The window was only a few feet up. She got out on to
the ledge, let herself down, and dropped. There was a flower-bed below,
quite soft, with a scent of geranium-leaves and earth. She brushed
herself, and went tiptoeing across the gravel and the little front lawn,
to the gate. The house was quite dark, quite silent. She walked on, down
the road. 'Jolly!' she thought. 'Night after night we sleep,
and never see the nights: sleep until we're called, and never see
anything. If they want to catch me they'll have to run.' And she
began running down the road in her evening frock and shoes, with nothing
on her head. She stopped after going perhaps three hundred yards, by the
edge of the wood. It was splendidly dark in there, and she groped
her way from trunk to trunk, with a delicious, half-scared sense of
adventure and novelty. She stopped at last by a thin trunk whose bark
glimmered faintly. She felt it with her cheek, quite smooth—a
birch tree; and, with her arms round it, she stood perfectly still.
Wonderfully, magically silent, fresh and sweet-scented and dark! The
little tree trembled suddenly within her arms, and she heard the low
distant rumble, to which she had grown so accustomed—the guns, always
at work, killing—killing men and killing trees, little trees perhaps
like this within her arms, little trembling trees! Out there, in this
dark night, there would not be a single unscarred tree like this smooth
quivering thing, no fields of corn, not even a bush or a blade of grass,
no leaves to rustle and smell sweet, not a bird, no little soft-footed
night beasts, except the rats; and she shuddered, thinking of the
Belgian soldier-painter. Holding the tree tight, she squeezed its smooth
body against her. A rush of the same helpless, hopeless revolt and
sorrow overtook her, which had wrung from her that passionate little
outburst to her father, the night before he went away. Killed, torn, and
bruised; burned, and killed, like Cyril! All the young things, like this
little tree.
Rumble! Rumble! Quiver! Quiver! And all else so still, so sweet and
still, and starry, up there through the leaves.... 'I can't bear
it!' she thought. She pressed her lips, which the sun had warmed all
day, against the satiny smooth bark. But the little tree stood within
her arms insentient, quivering only to the long rumbles. With each of
those dull mutterings, life and love were going out, like the flames of
candles on a Christmas-tree, blown, one by one. To her eyes, accustomed
by now to the darkness in there, the wood seemed slowly to be gathering
a sort of life, as though it were a great thing watching her; a great
thing with hundreds of limbs and eyes, and the power of breathing. The
little tree, which had seemed so individual and friendly, ceased to be a
comfort and became a part of the whole living wood, absorbed in itself,
and coldly watching her, this intruder of the mischievous breed, the
fatal breed which loosed those rumblings on the earth. Noel unlocked her
arms, and recoiled. A bough scraped her neck, some leaves flew against
her eyes; she stepped aside, tripped over a root, and fell. A bough
had hit her too, and she lay a little dazed, quivering at such dark
unfriendliness. She held her hands up to her face for the mere pleasure
of seeing something a little less dark; it was childish, and absurd, but
she was frightened. The wood seemed to have so many eyes, so many arms,
and all unfriendly; it seemed waiting to give her other blows, other
falls, and to guard her within its darkness until—! She got up, moved
a few steps, and stood still, she had forgotten from where she had come
in. And afraid of moving deeper into the unfriendly wood, she turned
slowly round, trying to tell which way to go. It was all just one dark
watching thing, of limbs on the ground and in the air. 'Any way,'
she thought; 'any way of course will take me out!' And she groped
forward, keeping her hands up to guard her face. It was silly, but she
could not help the sinking, scattered feeling which comes to one bushed,
or lost in a fog. If the wood had not been so dark, so,—alive! And for
a second she had the senseless, terrifying thought of a child: 'What
if I never get out!' Then she laughed at it, and stood still again,
listening. There was no sound to guide her, no sound at all except that
faint dull rumble, which seemed to come from every side, now. And the
trees watched her. 'Ugh!' she thought; 'I hate this wood!' She
saw it now, its snaky branches, its darkness, and great forms, as an
abode of giants and witches. She groped and scrambled on again, tripped
once more, and fell, hitting her forehead against a trunk. The blow
dazed and sobered her. 'It's idiotic,' she thought; 'I'm a
baby! I'll Just walk very slowly till I reach the edge. I know it
isn't a large wood!' She turned deliberately to face each direction;
solemnly selected that from which the muttering of the guns seemed to
come, and started again, moving very slowly with her hands stretched
out. Something rustled in the undergrowth, quite close; she saw a
pair of green eyes shining. Her heart jumped into her mouth. The thing
sprang—there was a swish of ferns and twigs, and silence. Noel clasped
her breast. A poaching cat! And again she moved forward. But she had
lost direction. 'I'm going round and round,' she thought. 'They
always do.' And the sinking scattered feeling of the “bushed”
clutched at her again. 'Shall I call?' she thought. 'I must be
near the road. But it's so babyish.' She moved on again. Her foot
struck something soft. A voice muttered a thick oath; a hand seized
her ankle. She leaped, and dragged and wrenched it free; and, utterly
unnerved, she screamed, and ran forward blindly.
V
No one could have so convinced a feeling as Jimmy Fort that he would be
a 'bit of a makeshift' for Noel. He had spent the weeks after his
interview with her father obsessed by her image, often saying to himself
“It won't do. It's playing it too low down to try and get that
child, when I know that, but for her trouble, I shouldn't have a
chance.” He had never had much opinion of his looks, but now he seemed
to himself absurdly old and dried-up in this desert of a London.
He loathed the Office job to which they had put him, and the whole
atmosphere of officialdom. Another year of it, and he would shrivel like
an old apple! He began to look at himself anxiously, taking stock of his
physical assets now that he had this dream of young beauty. He would
be forty next month, and she was nineteen! But there would be times
too when he would feel that, with her, he could be as much of a
“three-year-old” as the youngster she had loved. Having little hope
of winning her, he took her “past” but lightly. Was it not that past
which gave him what chance he had? On two things he was determined: He
would not trade on her past. And if by any chance she took him, he would
never show her that he remembered that she had one.
After writing to Gratian he had spent the week before his holiday began,
in an attempt to renew the youthfulness of his appearance, which made
him feel older, leaner, bonier and browner than ever. He got up early,
rode in the rain, took Turkish baths, and did all manner of exercises;
neither smoked nor drank, and went to bed early, exactly as if he had
been going to ride a steeplechase. On the afternoon, when at last he
left on that terrific pilgrimage, he gazed at his face with a sort of
despair, it was so lean, and leather-coloured, and he counted almost a
dozen grey hairs.
When he reached the bungalow, and was told that she was working in the
corn-fields, he had for the first time a feeling that Fate was on
his side. Such a meeting would be easier than any other! He had been
watching her for several minutes before she saw him, with his heart
beating more violently than it had ever beaten in the trenches; and
that new feeling of hope stayed with him—all through the greeting,
throughout supper, and even after she had left them and gone upstairs.
Then, with the suddenness of a blind drawn down, it vanished, and he
sat on, trying to talk, and slowly getting more and more silent and
restless.
“Nollie gets so tired, working,” Gratian said: He knew she meant it
kindly but that she should say it at all was ominous. He got up at
last, having lost hope of seeing Noel again, conscious too that he had
answered the last three questions at random.
In the porch George said: “You'll come in to lunch tomorrow, won't
you?”
“Oh, thanks, I'm afraid it'll bore you all.”
“Not a bit. Nollie won't be so tired.”
Again—so well meant. They were very kind. He looked up from the gate,
trying to make out which her window might be; but all was dark. A little
way down the road he stopped to light a cigarette; and, leaning against
a gate, drew the smoke of it deep into his lungs, trying to assuage the
ache in his heart. So it was hopeless! She had taken the first, the very
first chance, to get away from him! She knew that he loved her, could
not help knowing, for he had never been able to keep it out of his eyes
and voice. If she had felt ever so little for him, she would not have
avoided him this first evening. 'I'll go back to that desert,' he
thought; 'I'm not going to whine and crawl. I'll go back, and bite
on it; one must have some pride. Oh, why the hell am I crocked-up like
this? If only I could get out to France again!' And then Noel's
figure bent over the falling corn formed before him. 'I'll have one
more try,' he thought; 'one more—tomorrow somewhere, I'll get to
know for certain. And if I get what Leila's got I shall deserve it, I
suppose. Poor Leila! Where is she? Back at High Constantia?' What was
that? A cry—of terror—in that wood! Crossing to the edge, he called
“Coo-ee!” and stood peering into its darkness. He heard the sound
of bushes being brushed aside, and whistled. A figure came bursting out,
almost into his arms.
“Hallo!” he said; “what's up?”
A voice gasped: “Oh! It's—it's nothing!”
He saw Noel. She had swayed back, and stood about a yard away. He could
dimly see her covering her face with her arms. Feeling instinctively
that she wanted to hide her fright, he said quietly:
“What luck! I was just passing. It's awfully dark.”
“I—I got lost; and a man—caught my foot, in there!”
Moved beyond control by the little gulps and gasps of her breathing, he
stepped forward and put his hands on her shoulders. He held her lightly,
without speaking, terrified lest he should wound her pride.
“I-I got in there,” she gasped, “and the trees—and I stumbled
over a roan asleep, and he—”
“Yes, Yes, I know,” he murmured, as if to a child. She had dropped
her arms now, and he could see her face, with eyes unnaturally dilated,
and lips quivering. Then moved again beyond control, he drew her so
close that he could feel the throbbing of her heart, and put his lips
to her forehead all wet with heat. She closed her eyes, gave a little
choke, and buried her face against his coat.
“There, there, my darling!” he kept on saying. “There, there,
my darling!” He could feel the snuggling of her cheek against his
shoulder. He had got her—had got her! He was somehow certain that she
would not draw back now. And in the wonder and ecstasy of that thought,
all the world above her head, the stars in their courses, the wood
which had frightened her, seemed miracles of beauty and fitness. By such
fortune as had never come to man, he had got her! And he murmured over
and over again:
“I love you!” She was resting perfectly quiet against him, while her
heart ceased gradually to beat so fast. He could feel her cheek rubbing
against his coat of Harris tweed. Suddenly she sniffed at it, and
whispered:
“It smells good.”
VI
When summer sun has burned all Egypt, the white man looks eagerly each
day for evening, whose rose-coloured veil melts opalescent into the dun
drift, of the hills, and iridescent above, into the slowly deepening
blue. Pierson stood gazing at the mystery of the desert from under the
little group of palms and bougainvillea which formed the garden of the
hospital. Even-song was in full voice: From the far wing a gramophone
was grinding out a music-hall ditty; two aeroplanes, wheeling exactly
like the buzzards of the desert, were letting drip the faint whir of
their flight; metallic voices drifted from the Arab village; the wheels
of the water-wells creaked; and every now and then a dry rustle was
stirred from the palm-leaves by puffs of desert wind. On either hand
an old road ran out, whose line could be marked by the little old
watch-towers of another age. For how many hundred years had human
life passed along it to East and West; the brown men and their camels,
threading that immemorial track over the desert, which ever filled him
with wonder, so still it was, so wide, so desolate, and every evening so
beautiful! He sometimes felt that he could sit for ever looking at it;
as though its cruel mysterious loveliness were—home; and yet he never
looked at it without a spasm of homesickness.
So far his new work had brought him no nearer to the hearts of men. Or
at least he did not feel it had. Both at the regimental base, and now in
this hospital—an intermediate stage—waiting for the draft with
which he would be going into Palestine, all had been very nice to him,
friendly, and as it were indulgent; so might schoolboys have treated
some well-intentioned dreamy master, or business men a harmless
idealistic inventor who came visiting their offices. He had even the
feeling that they were glad to have him about, just as they were glad to
have their mascots and their regimental colours; but of heart-to-heart
simple comradeship—it seemed they neither wanted it of him nor
expected him to give it, so that he had a feeling that he would be
forward and impertinent to offer it. Moreover, he no longer knew how.
He was very lonely. 'When I come face to face with death,' he would
think, 'it will be different. Death makes us all brothers. I may be of
real use to them then.'
They brought him a letter while he stood there listening to that
even-song, gazing at the old desert road.
“DARLING DAD,
“I do hope this will reach you before you move on to Palestine. You
said in your last—at the end of September, so I hope you'll just get
it. There is one great piece of news, which I'm afraid will hurt and
trouble you; Nollie is married to Jimmy Fort. They were married down
here this afternoon, and have just gone up to Town. They have to find
a house of course. She has been very restless, lonely, and unhappy ever
since you went, and I'm sure it is really for the best: She is quite
another creature, and simply devoted, headlong. It's just like Nollie.
She says she didn't know what she wanted, up to the last minute. But
now she seems as if she could never want anything else.
“Dad dear, Nollie could never have made good by herself. It isn't
her nature, and it's much better like this, I feel sure, and so does
George. Of course it isn't ideal—and one wanted that for her; but
she did break her wing, and he is so awfully good and devoted to her,
though you didn't believe it, and perhaps won't, even now. The
great thing is to feel her happy again, and know she's safe. Nollie is
capable of great devotion; only she must be anchored. She was drifting
all about; and one doesn't know what she might have done, in one of
her moods. I do hope you won't grieve about it. She's dreadfully
anxious about how you'll feel. I know it will be wretched for you, so
far off; but do try and believe it's for the best.... She's out of
danger; and she was really in a horrible position. It's so good for
the baby, too, and only fair to him. I do think one must take things as
they are, Dad dear. It was impossible to mend Nollie's wing. If she
were a fighter, and gloried in it, or if she were the sort who would
'take the veil'—but she isn't either. So it is all right, Dad.
She's writing to you herself. I'm sure Leila didn't want Jimmy
Fort to be unhappy because he couldn't love her; or she would never
have gone away. George sends you his love; we are both very well. And
Nollie is looking splendid still, after her harvest work. All, all my
love, Dad dear. Is there anything we can get, and send you? Do take care
of your blessed self, and don't grieve about Nollie.
“GRATIAN.”
A half-sheet of paper fluttered down; he picked it up from among the
parched fibre of dead palm-leaves.
“DADDY DARLING,
“I've done it. Forgive me—I'm so happy.
“Your NOLLIE.”
The desert shimmered, the palm-leaves rustled, and Pierson stood trying
to master the emotion roused in him by those two letters. He felt no
anger, not even vexation; he felt no sorrow, but a loneliness so utter
and complete that he did not know how to bear it. It seemed as if
some last link with life had' snapped. 'My girls are happy,'
he thought. 'If I am not—what does it matter? If my faith and my
convictions mean nothing to them—why should they follow? I must and
will not feel lonely. I ought to have the sense of God present, to feel
His hand in mine. If I cannot, what use am I—what use to the poor
fellows in there, what use in all the world?'
An old native on a donkey went by, piping a Soudanese melody on a little
wooden Arab flute. Pierson turned back into the hospital humming it. A
nurse met him there.
“The poor boy at the end of A ward is sinking fast, sir; I expect
he'd like to see you.”
He went into A ward, and walked down between the beds to the west window
end, where two screens had been put, to block off the cot. Another
nurse, who was sitting beside it, rose at once.
“He's quite conscious,” she whispered; “he can still speak a
little. He's such a dear.” A tear rolled down her cheek, and she
passed out behind the screens. Pierson looked down at the boy; perhaps
he was twenty, but the unshaven down on his cheeks was soft and almost
colourless. His eyes were closed. He breathed regularly, and did not
seem in pain; but there was about him that which told he was going;
something resigned, already of the grave. The window was wide open,
covered by mosquito-netting, and a tiny line of sunlight, slanting
through across the foot of the cot, crept slowly backwards over the
sheets and the boy's body, shortening as it crept. In the grey
whiteness of the walls; the bed, the boy's face, just that pale yellow
bar of sunlight, and one splash of red and blue from a little flag on
the wall glowed out. At this cooler hour, the ward behind the screens
was almost empty, and few sounds broke the stillness; but from without
came that intermittent rustle of dry palm-leaves. Pierson waited in
silence, watching the sun sink. If the boy might pass like this, it
would be God's mercy. Then he saw the boy's eyes open, wonderfully
clear eyes of the lighted grey which has dark rims; his lips moved, and
Pierson bent down to hear.
“I'm goin' West, zurr.” The whisper had a little soft burr; the
lips quivered; a pucker as of a child formed on his face, and passed.
Through Pierson's mind there flashed the thought: 'O God! Let me be
some help to him!'
“To God, my dear son!” he said.
A flicker of humour, of ironic question, passed over the boy's lips.
Terribly moved, Pierson knelt down, and began softly, fervently praying.
His whispering mingled with the rustle of the palm-leaves, while the bar
of sunlight crept up the body. In the boy's smile had been the
whole of stoic doubt, of stoic acquiescence. It had met him with an
unconscious challenge; had seemed to know so much. Pierson took his
hand, which lay outside the sheet. The boy's lips moved, as though
in thanks; he drew a long feeble breath, as if to suck in the thread
of sunlight; and his eyes closed. Pierson bent over the hand. When he
looked up the boy was dead. He kissed his forehead and went quietly out.
The sun had set, and he walked away from the hospital to a hillock
beyond the track on the desert's edge, and stood looking at the
afterglow. The sun and the boy—together they had gone West, into that
wide glowing nothingness.
The muezzin call to sunset prayer in the Arab village came to him clear
and sharp, while he sat there, unutterably lonely. Why had that smile
so moved him? Other death smiles had been like this evening smile on
the desert hills—a glowing peace, a promise of heaven. But the
boy's smile had said: 'Waste no breath on me—you cannot help.
Who knows—who knows? I have no hope, no faith; but I am adventuring.
Good-bye!' Poor boy! He had braved all things, and moved out
uncertain, yet undaunted! Was that, then, the uttermost truth, was faith
a smaller thing? But from that strange notion he recoiled with horror.
'In faith I have lived, in faith I will die!' he thought, 'God
helping me!' And the breeze, ruffling the desert sand, blew the grains
against the palms of his hands, outstretched above the warm earth.