That Easter we went away for a week. Walter was so tired, I was
anxious about him. He had extra work at the University, for several
of the lecturers had gone to the War, the young unmarried ones,
and he was working at his book on inscriptions as well, in the
evenings chiefly. He would go straight upstairs to the study
after dinner and work till late.
‘I may not have time to finish it,’ was all he said when I urged
him not to. ‘I must work while I can.’
We went up to the Wall. The weather was bad, and Walter could
not leave the War behind him; he seemed obsessed by it; he could
talk of nothing else all the time.
I tried to cheer him up, to tease him a little, and make fun
and play as we used to at first; he had liked me to before, but
he did not care for it now. He smiled rather absently, and turned
back to his book; when he spoke it was only of the advance in
Gallipoli.
I felt that it was my fault that I could not cheer him up. I
could not feel gay myself; I could not make spontaneous fun,
and so it was no good, and I worried about my baby, left for
the first time. I kept imagining disasters that were not probable
at all. One night I woke up in a fright, and thought that the
nurse might have left the tap of the gas fire half on, and the
gas be escaping; and another time, I thought that a cat might
have jumped into the cot, and the nurse not noticed it. I was
jumpy and nervy, I knew it, and so no use to Walter. I thought
about Hugo and Guy in France, and George in Gallipoli; and that
made it worse.
We sat one day on the hill-side beyond the Wall, where we had
often sat before, and looked out to the North. We could see the
place when we had walked together, that first day when we had
met at the camp and I had gone down with Walter, into the barbarians’
country. It seemed a long time ago. I remembered how exciting
it had been, and how I had felt that I had begun to know Walter,
and understand him. I knew him much better now, but did I understand
him? I slipped my hand through his arm and laid my cheek against
his.
‘Dear,’ I said, ‘what has happened to us both? Why are we so
dull and sad?’
Walter looked round at me slowly.
‘We are tired, I think,’ he said. ‘That is all and we can’t rest;
nobody can rest just now.’
I stroked his hand, I remember; I felt very sorry for Walter;
I felt that, perhaps, I had not thought of him enough, in thinking
of Eleanor so much. He looked so tired and unhappy now.
‘It would be easier for you if you could fight,’ I said.
He flushed and looked away.
‘I know,’ he said shortly, ‘it would, but I can’t.’