He is to go too, of course, but mother seems quite philosophic about it.
I wonder if when people grow older they lose that sort of sick, gnawing
fear that attacks you when you think of someone you care for very much
going into danger.
If you do I hope I grow old very quickly, because at the present moment
I feel dreadful.
To-morrow Cheneston goes--and I mustn't show him I care the least little
bit. I've got to keep the flag wagging.
I suppose everyone will turn out to see the battery off. I know a lot
of the men's wives came over in the old paddle boat last night to say
good-bye. Poor souls!--their eyes were red, and some of them had little
kiddies in their arms; but they had the right to grieve. I haven't any.
I think having the right to break your heart makes the breaking an
easier affair.
I'm sorry about father, but I'm not as sorry as I ought to be. I have
always felt uneasy when he was around, like Pomp and Circumstance, his
wire-haired fox-terriers, on the alert to move out of the way quickly
and hide if necessary.
I don't think he realises the dreadful effect his red-faced shouting has
on people--it's like being scolded by a lion.
The atmosphere of the house is almost as if a raid were just over when
he is gone.
The Gilpins had announced their intention of seeing the battery off, and
they were calling for us in their motor.
I dread that little station at six o'clock in the morning, and all the
men, and the crowd of women beyond the barrier, and the mess band
shouting "The Long, Long Trail," and the chilly greyness; it sort of
nibbles your heart before ever the good-byes are started.
Cheneston has been up to say good-bye to the Gilpins.
He is whistling outside for me to go down. Oh! I wish I were wonderful
like Grace, and I could make him care, ever such a little bit, before he
went away!
_Later_.
The moors, and the stars, and the leaves of the aspens shivering in the
moonlight like spangles on a dancer's dress, and the scent of the
heather, and of gorse, and the tingling, exhilarating pungency of the
unseen sea--could anything hurt more?
And me, longing to belong to the night--to capture just a scrap of its
mystic, thrilling beauty--walking beside the one man in the world an
unromantic, bunchy little thing with a snub nose.
He was very pale and constrained. I suppose it was his good-byes with
Grace. I kept on wondering what they had said to each other, wishing I
knew!
"Let's sit down, kid," he said abruptly. "I've a lot to say."
We sat down.
We seemed to have the whole, beautiful, wonderful world to
ourselves--only it was an empty old eggshell of a thing, because he
didn't care.
"Pam," he said, "I want to thank you for being a fine little pal to me.
I--I must have seemed a pretty rotten sort of swine often."
Now, as I write him down and the things he says, he doesn't cut a very
gallant figure, and yet he is. He's a _big_ man--his eyes, his laugh,
his voice, the funny way he says things. He makes all other men seem
little and very young.
"Oh no!" I said. I shut my eyes because I could concentrate on getting
carelessness into my voice, and it all hurt so horribly.
He seems little and ordinary--I can pop the atmosphere on paper--but he
wasn't; he was _big_, and splendid, and very, very far away from me. I
seemed to look at him through glass and hear him through space. He
isn't the type that could share himself with two women--I expect I got
that feeling because he'd given everything to Grace.
"Pam," he said, "I'm so afraid--it's tortured me! You had a rotten dull
life before I came. Will--will it seem very dreadful going back?"
"I always knew I should have to," I said steadily.
"Yes," he said, "I know!" I had never heard his voice like that.
"Pam--be honest! I didn't know how absolutely splendid you were! I
thought you were just like other women!"