How was it that I had not seen myself like this before?
I looked at myself every morning, of course, when I did my hair,
but I had not really looked for months, even when I dressed to
go out with Guy. Was I getting old? I was nearly thirty now,
was that really old?
I had seen myself so often in the same looking-glass before,
an oval looking-glass it was, in a dark lacquered frame. I had
sat so often at this same table with Mollie, and George, and
Guy, and Hugo. Would they all be changed when I saw them again?
If I did see any of them—George I would never see.
I tried to remember his face as he had last sat there, in that
little restaurant, at that same table; but I could not remember
any particular time as the last.
He at least had not faded nor tarnished:
‘They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man,
The Lads who will die in their glory and never be old.’
I repeated the lines to myself, and they made me happy, with
their familiar beauty. I remembered the first time that I had
read them, lying on the sofa in the drawing-room, at Campden
Hill Square. A big, deep sofa with a green Morris chintz.
I had had a bad cold; it was winter and the fire was burning
in the grate. I had watched the light flickering on the ceiling
as I lay on my back, and repeated the lines with wonder and delight
to myself. All this came back to me.
I had thought them so true, so full of meaning; and how little
I had really understood.
Now I was oppressed and overpowered by the dread of old age,
of deterioration, and change, and loss. It was gone already,
the wonder of youth, and light, and life; it was slipping through
my fingers before I had had time to realize and enjoy it. This
was not life, this daily drudgery, this struggle to keep going,
to get through, to exist. I was marking time, we were all marking
time, waiting and waiting for the strain to relax, for the War
to end; and meantime our youth was going.
Before in the old days we had been waiting, too, but that had
been different. We had been waiting then for something to begin,
to happen, this was waiting for something to end, to stop happening.
The waitress brought my tea. The toast was spread with a very
rank margarine. The cake tasted of cocoa butter, and I remembered
what delicious bread and butter they used to give us here.
I sat still for a long time after my tea, looking out at the
familiar view; the trees, the wide road, and the river. Then
I paid my bill and walked up the street to my bus.