At first she can hardly have seemed credible to Archie, momentarily
expecting the end. In the middle of death and destruction, suddenly
this vivid beauty. And not an academic, ideal beauty demanding
worship of brain or senses, but a practical travel-stained young
woman holding rescue in her hands. His feelings can't have been very
clear. When hope of life suddenly dawns, men don't bother much with
the outlying emotions. Moreover, Archie was busy getting his wounded
men, as gently as the ground would allow, into the box-car. But he
must have been conscious of a great wonder, wonder at this eleventh
hour salvation, wonder at her beauty and courage.
It was not till afterwards, in his bunk at the dressing station, when
his broken ribs had been strapped, that he settled into the steady
devotion which was to be his guide and his torment in days to come.
From the start he was a humble lover, asking little, diffident of his
fortune. Whether the fortune was good or ill, no outsider can say:
but on that night of battle, at first sight, Archie was loved by
Norah. It was the old story of Ares and Aphrodite entangled in the
net, but a net spread by artificers, more cunning even than
Hephæstus--Romance and Pity.
Archie, seeing the fight out, and standing by his men wounded and
dead, his clothes torn by the explosion, his face discoloured with
dust, smoke and blood, his eyes ravaged with sleeplessness and pain,
seemed to Norah a figure heroically proportioned in its tenacity,
devotion and isolation. And while her spirit paid tribute to the
hero, her heart ached to mother the poor, tired boy.
Archie's broken rib and some hitch in clearing the wounded from the
dressing station to the base, gave scope to this aspiration and the
sick-bed completed what the battlefield had begun. To such purpose,
that, as soon as Archie's bones and Norah's duties allowed, they were
married.
Every marriage is said to be pre-ordained by the female, and baited
for the male with the illusion of choice. Whether this is always
true, I have no doubt that here Norah took the lead. Of course
Archie would have sold his soul for her, but where would he find the
decision to tell her so? She must have helped him out, her love
translating his silences into mute eloquence, his caution into noble
modesty, his reticence into silent strength. She was young enough to
demand perfection in the object of her affections, and deep enough in
love to find it. Obstacles and conventions only acted as spurs to
her hot blood. Her natural bent was to put all her money on one
horse and that for a win, never a place. In this the war lent her
reason, urging her to pluck the day ere night fell, to take and give
what life offered before death laid his claim. It needs, I think, an
old head and a cold heart to condemn these war marriages.
Archie, whose Scottish nature appreciated the unfavourable side of
everything, no doubt saw each of the hundred reasons against the
marriage. He may have realised their difference of temper, foreseen
the parental disapproval of the solid Scots lawyer and the
impecunious English peer, calculated money difficulties, guessed that
Norah was in love with an aspect of him, which peace time--should he
survive the war--would never call into being.
But can any man, even a Scot, let this weigh when he is fast in love
with an incredible apparition, who has saved his life and lets him
see that his love is not unacceptable? To my mind, Archie deserves
neither blame nor pity--beauty and guts mayn't be a pass into the
Kingdom of Heaven, but they carry a girl a long way towards Holy
Matrimony.
Judge it as you may, the marriage took place not many weeks after
their meeting in that Carpathian valley, as soon in fact as Norah had
got home and Archie had been released from his London hospital.
In spite of the quietness of the wedding, our modern Argus got hold
of the story and billed them as 'Red Cross Romance: Peer's Daughter
Rescues Artillery Lieutenant.'
The Peer let it be felt that he regretted the rescue; while the
father of the lieutenant indicated that if he went his own way, he
must pay it.
This lack of enthusiasm emphasised the romantic nature of the union,
and the happiness of the young couple was only interrupted by the end
of Archie's sick leave, and his return to Flanders.
From then life began to thrust them apart, as surely as a tree-root
forces asunder two stones in a wall. Not that these two stones can
ever have been very truly laid. Archie's reserved devotion can never
have satisfied Norah's capacity for passion. She asked for the wine
of life and got its breakfast food. But while that Carpathian
picture was not effaced, she would see no flaws in her hero. Nor,
during his long absences at the front, and his short visits on leave,
did she perceive the difference between the man and the picture. She
longed passionately for his return and loved him dearly when he came.
But apart from his brief periods of leave, the first hours of which
were always wasted in a sort of strangerhood, they had no life in
common to buttress up Romance and to let picture tone into fact.
Norah did not lack humour, and had war allowed, daily companionship
would have built up affection for the man to supplement and in time
supplant adoration of the hero. The daily letters which passed
between the flat in Baker Street and the dug-out in
Flanders--Archie's rather formal chronicles and Norah's passionate
little notes--could not take the place of the personal intercourse
which war denied them.
I know it is the thought of meeting the object of their passion daily
at breakfast that heads off many a Benedict and Beatrice. But it is
only by submitting to the humanising influence of small daily
contacts that love will provide a working basis for marriage.
Without this humanising, love does not develop but starves."
"I didn't know you were married, Ross," I interrupted.
"I'm not," he replied, and went on with his story.
"Norah's environment did not help her to keep in touch with her
husband. In his absence she was absorbed into the circle of her
family, by none of whom was Archie known or appreciated. A different
atmosphere was created in which Archie drew no breath. New points of
view and standards of life presented themselves to her young eyes.
This was her first taste of London, and a strange world lay at her
feet. No wonder her head was a little dizzied. She drove an
ambulance by day, and by night she danced. Her beauty, vivacity and
birth made her acceptable to that set which won the war by going to
charity matinées. She did not like it, but found its glitter
stimulating. At the houses of her relations she met celebrated,
handsome, and amusing men. And, in truth, though the comparison
never presented itself, they were a good deal better company than
poor, silent Archie.
After three years of this the war ended, and Archie came home. He
was far too devoted to Norah to ask her to alter her way of life, and
while his gratuity lasted, he took her to dinners, theatres, races,
dances, night clubs; all that hostesses, restaurateurs and
impresarios pass off on us for 'pleasure.'
I don't suppose Archie showed at his best in these surroundings. He
had scant small talk, and probably an indifferent tailor.
During these weeks, disillusionment first reared its head. For both
their sakes I hope the process was gradual, but I think passion would
desert Norah's quick heart as capriciously as it visited it.
Archie must have looked forward to the time when his gratuity would
be exhausted and the two-pences for the merry-go-round would no
longer be forthcoming. Then they would have to retire to Edinburgh
and live on their small income, while Archie made his way at the
Scottish Bar, like his fathers before him. Unfortunately, his nature
was to keep his views to himself. He did not disclose them until one
evening at supper at Giro's. The disclosure was disastrous.
They had dined, a trifle noisily, at the mansion of a South African
Jew, whose acquaintance Norah had made during the war when only
aliens could procure luxuries. I had known their host before he
became respectable--too well, indeed, to be dropped--and had also
been invited.
The war had left me lame, and Norah, in whom modish hardness hid a
compassionate heart, insisted on picking me up in her taxi. She was
looking, I thought, very adorable. Her frock was made of some sort
of shot silk, very bright. It fitted her straight little figure
closely down to her waist, spreading out below in scalloped flounces.
The suggestion was a fin-de-siècle shepherdess, strayed from Arcady
to Park Lane.
Over her shoulders hung a cloak lined with green brocade. Its
upright collar of monkey fur framed with spikes the piquancy of her
face. Her high cheekbones were rouged, her wide mouth drooped a
little at the corners.
Archie made a good background. He was slight and dark. Typically,
he wore a dinner jacket instead of the tail-coat that the rest of the
party would sport. His hair was close-cropped and grew high on his
forehead. His face was clean shaven and rather weather-beaten, with
a well formed nose and an obstinate chin. His supra-orbital sinus,
as the anatomists call the bar of the eyebrows, was pronounced and
his grey eyes seemed sunken beneath it. He looked uncommonly wiry,
giving an impression of 'no waste'--no spare flesh, no spare words,
no spare emotions. Condemning emotion he substituted Reason, thereby
coming more of a mucker than the ordinary irrational man. His
anxiety to be reasonable gave him an irresolute air. He was still
balancing questions which years before ordinary men had settled by
instinct, prejudice or indifference.
After dinner we went to the last act of the last revue, though why
the discomfort of a box should be sought for conversation that could
perfectly well be held at home, I never know. When the theatre was
over, and the party had broken up, I heard Norah tell Archie she was
too tired to go home and wanted supper.
Apparently the supper was not a success. Archie ordered champagne.
Norah tasted it, and made a face.
'My dear,' she said, 'the stuff's undrinkable. Do order something a
little less like what they give you in church!'
Archie, in whose opinion wine began and ended with port, said
nothing, and beckoned the wine waiter.
Unfortunately, he betrayed his thoughts by a slight shrug. Norah,
who was tired and nervy, saw it.
'All right, I won't have it then. I suppose you think we can't
afford it.' Archie shook his head. Much of his conversation was by
sign. When you asked him a question, he paused before answering. A
stranger would think he had not heard, and would repeat his question;
but Archie was only thinking over his reply--a habit which may make
valuable contribution to thought, but does not help small talk.
Sometimes it would be your penultimate remark which he answered,
having duly considered the question during the intermediate talk.
No, Archie was not a conversationalist. But now Norah felt the need
of opening her heart.
'I wish _you'd_ drink a bit more fizz, Archie. It might binge you up
a bit. You sat all through dinner looking as bored as sin, and you
didn't smile once at the play or even at Tony Moorhouse.'
That gilded youth, after a conscientious patronage of the magnate's
cellar, had subjected the revue artistes to a flow of not very witty
interruption. The party had shrieked with laughter, and Archie had
flattered himself that he, too, had gone through the motions of being
amused.
'I'm sorry,' he protested, 'I was thinking----'
'My poor boy, you don't go to the play to think. What on earth were
you thinking about?'
Now, one of Archie's habits which more than any other unfitted him
for polite society was his tendency to tell the truth. So now he
blurted out, 'I was thinking you'd miss all this in Edinburgh.'
Norah's delicate eyebrows rose, and her lips tightened.
'What's that about Edinburgh, Archie?'
'Well, some day we must settle down to work.'
'But, my poor friend, why Edinburgh? what's wrong with East Ham?'
'You know. Family connection, and all that. Solicitors. I wouldn't
have a chance at the London Bar; now, at Edinburgh, in five years----'
'Yes, darling, go on----'
'In five or six years I ought to be clearing at least five hundred a
year.'
'Say it again slowly, Archie.... You don't seriously mean to shut me
up for five or six years in Edinburgh to earn five hundred a year!
Why, I'd sooner be bricked into a convent wall!'
'Edinburgh's not a bad place; we'd know lots of people there.'
'The same applies to hell, dear.' And so the argument went on,
Archie more and more obstinate, and Norah more outrageous. Archie
was determined that his only safe prospect was the Bar and the
Scottish Bar at that. The Bar might be slow, but, for him, it was
sure, and success was only a question of time. Norah urged him to
chance his arm at something quicker, more lucrative, and in London.
She quoted the successful among her friends whom post-war poverty had
driven to work.
'Look at Bobby Anstruther. His garage is making three thousand a
year, hiring out defunct Daimlers. You have to book one days ahead.'
'He'll be bust in a year when every one's spent their money.'
Well, look at young Peter Carey, making thousands on the Stock
Exchange. And what about that Rhodesian man we met at dinner
to-night? He said there were pots of money to be made in mealies in
Africa. He said any fool could grow them.'
'Not in London?'
'No, darling. But if I can't be in London, I'd rather be in Jericho
or Tierra del Fuego than in a blasted provincial town. Listen,
Archie,' and she went on to repeat what the South African had told
her, how the Chartered Company were giving tracts of 3000 acres in
Northern Rhodesia to approved ex-officers, free for the asking,
provided they occupied and worked them.
Archie shook his head. 'I might be able to make farming pay,' he
said, 'I was brought up on a farm. But it's a hard life, and, in
spite of your friend, it's slow money. You'd like it worse than
Edinburgh and the Bar.'
'If you mention Edinburgh or the Bar again, I'll tell the head waiter
that I don't know who you are, and you've accosted me.'
Then with one of her sudden changes of moods:
'Archie, I'm sorry. I'm being a beast to you to-night. I don't mean
to be, dear, but I'm tired, and Edinburgh ... say you forgive me,
darling, and I won't say another word about it.'
But Norah had got her toes in and her husband's opposition to the
African plan only made her dig them in deeper. Though Archie was as
obstinate as they make them, his will was weakened by his anxiety to
please his wife. Like most men, he was attracted by the idea of an
outdoor life; but that northern pre-vision of the disadvantages of
any agreeable course, held him back, and by birth and breeding he was
mistrustful of anything new and unproven. Moreover, he did not
believe that Norah would like the life.
She herself had no doubts. Her restless, adventurous hands grasped
at anything fresh and strange. Of all the siren lands that had lured
her girlhood, Africa's voice had rung the clearest. Women and the
lower animals do not reason. Pictures present themselves before
their minds, and they choose as the pictures entice or repel.
So as she re-read the travels of the great adventurers, she saw a
sunlit vision of palms and orchids, savages as noble as princes, and
as faithful as dogs, wild beasts to be hunted at pleasure, lands of
mystery to be explored at will, fortunes to be won in the intervals
as a diver gathers pearls. And at the end a triumphant return to the
luxury of home with spoils that would lay London at her feet.
Her final storming of Archie's opposition was characteristic. She
had driven him to his last line of defence--a plea of insufficient
capital. Had Archie ever understood women, he would have known the
danger of setting up one concrete objection. She put on her furs and
an hour later returned with a handful of banknotes.
'Where did this come from?' he asked.
'My pearls,' was the reply.
"That is the way they always defeat us," said Ross.