I heard the news from Mollie, in a letter. The letter came at
midday, by an unusual post, and I thought:
‘A letter from Mollie. How nice to hear from her!’
And I took it upstairs with me to read. Eleanor was asleep in
her pram.
I sat down on my bed, and opened the letter. I thought of Mollie
and how much I should like to see her.
‘George was killed on Wednesday,’ she wrote. ‘Shot through the
head, leading an attack. He was killed instantaneously, and probably
did not know that he was hit. I have had a telegram, that is
all, from the War Office. It will be a long time before I can
hear any more; three weeks at least, the letters take from there.
‘I can’t believe he is dead. It seems so strange, that one knew
nothing about it on Wednesday, that one had no dream, no premonition
nor anything. Oh, Helen, I wrote to him yesterday, and he was
dead already——I should be glad, I know, that he was killed at
once. It would be worse, much worse, if he were wounded and missing,
as it might well have been; I keep telling myself that. I have
written to Hugo at Ypres, to tell him of it. He will be badly
cut up, I am afraid. He loved George very dearly; but he is bound
to know soon; and to Guy too. I wish for Hugo’s sake, they were
together.’
I sat a long time with the letter in my hand. I had not expected
this, I had not somehow envisaged it at all. It seemed to me
impossible, and not to be borne.
‘George dead! George killed!’ I repeated the words over and over
to myself, and they had no meaning; and then I thought:
‘I shall never see George any more; never as long as I live;
no one will see him any more.’
And then I thought:
‘I was unkind to George.’
I thought of George as I had last seen him, on the doorstep at
Campden Hill Square. How he had come out with us, to say good-bye,
and how he had smiled, that wide delightful smile, and yet he
had looked sad; and how I had wondered what was the matter, and
whether he had known the War would come.
And then I had not written to him when he joined the Army. I
had written to Hugo, and to Guy, but not to him. I had meant
to, of course. I had kept on meaning to, and putting it off,
and then it had been too late.
I had written since, of course; I had written twice, and sent
him a parcel of food; but that was not enough in a year and a
half, I had meant to write oftener; he had said he enjoyed getting
letters; I had meant to write regularly, but I was always bad
at writing letters, and little things had got in the way.
Eleanor was asleep in the garden in her perambulator. I left
her and went out; up the road, towards the Heath.
The road seemed full of soldiers, blue wounded soldiers. All
roads were full of them at this time and when I came nearer I
saw that they were blind. I dreaded the blinded soldiers; I hated
to see them, for I had an idea, somehow, I don’t know why, that
Hugo might be blinded. I passed the blinded soldiers, and got
beyond them to the Heath. The trees were coming out; light green
buds on the branches; and there were crocuses in the grass.
The sun came down through the branches, and shone on the crocuses.
It was a fine day, and warm for March. I sat on a seat, and thought
about George, and I thought:
‘It is all very well for the flowers, and for the buds on the
trees; they come again after the winter; they are born again.
There will be other boys growing up, and other men, but never
George again. If the world goes on for millions of years, there
will never be anyone who is what he was.’
And a sense of wild anger and indignation possessed me. I felt:
‘This is wrong and wicked and a horrible mistake, this War that
has killed George. What is it worth? What is it for? What can
it ever achieve that will make up for him?’
And I felt:
‘It must be stopped. I have been asleep and woken up. I can’t
let this War go on that has killed George.’
‘George killed! George _dead_!’ I repeated the words again. I felt
as though the world had begun to reel, as though the foundations
of my life had begun to crumble.
‘What next?
Guy too and Hugo . . . .’ The encroaching reality of the War
struck through my last defences. I felt that I understood what
it was, for the first time.
A clock in a church struck one, and I went home again. Eleanor
would be waking up; she would be crying for me. I must hurry;
I would be late, and all the way home I was thinking:
‘What can I do? I must do something to stop this War.’
Eleanor was awake and screaming. I went to her and got her up
from her perambulator, and washed her, and gave her her dinner;
and after dinner, I dressed her to go out, and put her back in
the perambulator, and pushed her out on to the Heath. I had no
time to think any more, for she kept talking to me in her insistent
baby way, that in my heart I loved, but to-day, I wanted to be
quiet. I wanted to get away somewhere and think. I felt excited,
elated, somehow, as though I had discovered a truth of immense
importance; something that was the key to all our trouble.
‘The War must be stopped. We must stop it now.’
The words kept repeating themselves through my head all the afternoon,
and I felt that in a moment, if only I could get away by myself
and be quiet, I should know how this could be done.
When Eleanor was in bed I could be quiet, and think about it.
It would not be long now till she was in bed.
And then when I got her into bed, Walter came home.
He was unusually early, more than an hour before his time. He
had such a headache, he said, he could not work any longer, and
so he had come home. I was up in our bedroom when he came in,
tucking Eleanor up. I sang to her always when she was in bed.
She did not understand very much what I sang, so I sang all sorts
of songs, and to-night I was singing the Agnus Dei that Guy and
Cousin Delia used to sing. It seemed to fit in with what I felt
to-night; the sins of the world; our sins; and the hope that
help was at hand.
Walter came in heavily, and sat down on the bed.
‘Daddy came,’ said Eleanor, and popped up her head.
I looked round at Walter, surprised to see him there so soon.
And then he told me about his headache. I could not take in what
he said; it seemed unimportant and trivial; little things about
some one a long way off.