In October Walter volunteered under the Derby scheme. He told
me before he went out that he should not be taken.
‘I know they will not pass me,’ he said. ‘I know I am a crock’;
but his voice was excited, and his eyes very bright. I knew that
he hoped, in spite of what he said, that he might be taken.
All that afternoon while he was out at the Recruiting Office
I sat indoors with Eleanor and tried to sew. It was a wet afternoon,
and I could not face the heavy perambulator walk, pushing up
hill to the Heath through the mud and rain.
I sat in the nursery with her, and she played on the floor. She
had a cart on wheels that she pushed up and down, the wheels
squeaked; I remembered that I had meant to oil them, but the
oilcan was downstairs in the kitchen. I was too tired to go down
and fetch it, and come back up all the stairs.
Eleanor made a great deal of noise; she upset chairs, and banged
on the floor with bricks; she unwound reels of cotton, with which
I was trying to sew; then she upset a bowl of flowers, and I
had to go down to the bathroom and fetch a towel; and she screamed
and screamed, though I had not scolded her at all. Her shrill,
piping little voice pierced through my head like needles. I felt
that I must scream or hit her, if she would not be quiet.
Then I thought:
‘How horrible that I should feel like this about my baby! I should
not have believed, a year ago, that I could feel like this.’
At six o’clock, Walter came in.
I stood up and waited. I heard the front door slam, and then
I heard him moving about in the hall. He opened the drawing-room
door and looked in, and then I heard him coming up the stairs.
He opened the nursery door and stood still in the door way; and
I stood still too, and looked at him.
There was an odd confused expression on his face that I could
not make out. I did not know if he was glad or sorry; relieved
or disappointed. He came in and threw a bunch of papers on the
table in front of me.
‘C3!’ he said, with a laugh. ‘We need not have bothered!’ and
it seemed to me as though my heart had stopped beating, and now
suddenly it began with a rush.
And I said:
‘Oh, Walter, are you sorry?’
He sat down in the chair beside him, and faced me across the
table.
He said:
‘Sorry? I don’t know; nobody likes to be C3, I suppose. Thank
you for nothing—that is about all——’