‘Yes, I hope I shall, next time.’
We walked on slowly, towards the house. The children were unusually
quiet, staring with round eyes at Hugo.
We talked of Guy; Hugo had seen him at Amiens, and of Mollie,
still nursing in Salonika. We did not talk of George. Then we
reached the door of the garden and went in.
I pushed the door open and we went inside. The garden with its
uncut grass looked sordid and forlorn. I was sorry Hugo should
come to it like that.
I opened the door of the house with my latchkey, and lifted the
children out. Eleanor ran tumbling up the steps and across the
hall, Rachel I had to carry. I set her on a chair in the hall
and came back for the perambulator.
Hugo helped me to lift it up the steps, and past the umbrella
stand.
He hung up his hat and coat, and shut the door. I watched him
as though it was a dream. It seemed so strange to see him there.
I took him downstairs to the dining-room where tea was being
laid.
‘We have shut the drawing-room up,’ I said, ‘because of the coal,’
and I wished I need not have him in that room where the ugly
sideboard was. It looked so dull that room, and so crowded up
now we used it altogether, and I wanted to have Hugo in a beautiful
room.
I left him there while I went upstairs with the children. Their
undressing and preparing for tea seemed to take longer than usual
that day.
When I came downstairs, Mrs. Sebright was there. I had quite
forgotten that she was coming to tea.
Mrs. Sebright asked Hugo about his journey, about the length
of his leave, about his billets in France. Hugo answered her
questions quietly, smiling very faintly his hesitating smile.
Mrs. Sebright talked about submarine warfare; she asked him if
he knew what the latest inventions for catching submarines were;
Hugo did not know.
Mrs. Sebright seemed to find no difficulty in talking to Hugo.
She asked him things that I could not have asked.
I could not talk to him at all while she was there. I sat and
watched him while he talked to her. I felt the precious moments
slipping away, precious, irrevocable moments, and wondered what
it was that had happened to him.
‘Is it just the War?’ I wondered. ‘Is that what it is?’
I felt a passionate longing to talk to him of the War, of my
soul and his, to help him and be helped.
Tea was over, and cleared away. We drew our chairs up to the
fire. Nobody spoke much. Eleanor and Rachel played with wooden
bricks on the floor behind us. Hugo helped them to build a little
while, then he stood up to go. I went with him up the stairs
into the hall.