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diff --git a/79073-0.txt b/79073-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..05e4ab2 --- /dev/null +++ b/79073-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9518 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79073 *** + + + + + THE + LAST SEPTEMBER + + by + ELIZABETH BOWEN + + CONSTABLE & CO LTD + LONDON + + + PUBLISHED BY + _Constable & Company Limited_ + _London W.C. 2_ + + BOMBAY + CALCUTTA MADRAS + LEIPZIG + _Oxford University Press_ + + TORONTO + _The Macmillan Company_ + + _First published 1929_ + + Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London + + + TO + JOAN GRACE REED + + + “Ils ont les chagrins qu’ont les + vierges et les paresseux....” + + _Le Temps Retrouvé._ + + + + + CONTENTS + + + THE ARRIVAL OF MR. AND MRS. MONTMORENCY 1 + + THE VISIT OF MISS NORTON 103 + + THE DEPARTURE OF GERALD 211 + + + + + THE ARRIVAL OF MR. AND MRS. MONTMORENCY + + + I + +ABOUT six o’clock the sound of a motor, collected out of the wide +country and narrowed under the trees of the avenue, brought the +household out in excitement on to the steps. Up among the beeches, a +thin iron gate twanged; the car slid out from a net of shadow, down +the slope to the house. Behind the flashing windscreen Mr. and Mrs. +Montmorency produced--arms waving and a wild escape to the wind of her +mauve motor-veil--an agitation of greeting. They were long-promised +visitors. They exclaimed, Sir Richard and Lady Naylor exclaimed +and signalled: no one spoke yet. It was a moment of happiness, of +perfection. + +In those days, girls wore crisp white skirts and transparent blouses +clotted with white flowers; ribbons, threaded through with a view +to appearance, appeared over their shoulders. So that Lois stood at +the top of the steps looking cool and fresh; she knew how fresh she +must look, like other young girls, and clasping her elbows tightly +behind her back, tried hard to conceal her embarrassment. The dogs +came pattering out from the hall and stood beside her; above, the +vast façade of the house stared coldly over its mounting lawns. She +wished she could freeze the moment and keep it always. But as the car +approached, as it stopped, she stooped down and patted one of the dogs. + +As the car drew up the Montmorencys unwound from their rugs. They stood +shaking hands and laughing in the yellow theatrical sunshine. They had +motored over from Carlow. Two toppling waves of excitement crashed and +mingled; for moments everybody was inaudible. Mrs. Montmorency looked +up the steps. “And this is the niece!” she exclaimed with delight. +“Aren’t we dusty!” she added, as Lois said nothing. “Aren’t we too +terribly dusty!” And a tired look came down at the back of her eyes at +the thought of how dusty she was. + +“She’s left school now,” said Sir Richard proudly. + +“I don’t think I should have known you,” said Mr. Montmorency, who had +not seen Lois since she was ten and evidently preferred children. + +“Oh, _I_ think she’s the image of Laura--” + +“--But we have tea waiting. Are you really sure, now, you’ve had tea?” + +“Danielstown’s looking lovely, lovely. One sees more from the upper +avenue--didn’t you clear some trees?” + +“The wind had three of the ashes--you came quite safe? No trouble? +Nobody at the cross-roads? Nobody stopped you?” + +“And are you sure now about tea?” continued Lady Naylor. “After all +that--look, it’s coming up now. No, Francie, don’t be ridiculous; come +in now, both of you.” + +They swept in; their exclamations, constricted suddenly, filling the +hall. There was so much to say after twelve years: they all seemed +powerless. Lois hesitated, went in after them and, as nobody noticed, +came out again. The car with the luggage turned and went round to the +back, deeply scoring the gravel. She yawned and looked out over the +sweep to the lawn beyond, where little tufts of shadow pricked like +reeds from water out of the flat gold light. Beyond the sunk fence, six +Kerry cows followed each other across with wading steps and stood under +a lime tree. All the way up the house the windows were open; light came +diagonally from window to window through corner rooms. Two stories up, +she could have heard a curtain rustle, but the mansion piled itself up +in silence over the Montmorencys’ voices. + +She yawned with reaction. It was simply the Montmorencys who had come; +whom all day one had been expecting. Yet she had been unable to read, +had scattered unfinished letters over her table, done the flowers +atrociously. Sweet-peas had spun and quivered between her fingers from +their very importance.... “I apologize for the mauve sweet-peas,” +she would have liked to be able to say to Mr. Montmorency. “I don’t +care for mauve myself. I can’t think why I ever picked them; there +were plenty of others. But, as a matter of fact, I was nervous.” +And--“Nervous?” she would wish Mr. Montmorency to ask her searchingly, +“why?” But she had her reserves, even in imagination; she would never +tell him. + +But she had seen at once that Mr. Montmorency, who must be really so +subtle, would not take the trouble to understand her. + +Her cousin Laurence had gone upstairs with a book when he heard the +motor. Now she could hear him knocking out his pipe on a window sill. +He leaned out further and asked, pointing down, in a cautious whisper: +“Are they all in?” + +She signalled a warning, nodding. + +“What are you doing?” he said. + +“I don’t know. What are you doing?” + +“Nothing particular.” + +“I thought I’d take the dogs down the beech walk.” + +“Why?” + +“Oh, I just thought ...” + +“Come up and tell me about the Montmorencys.” + +She signalled another warning: the Montmorencys were in the hall. To +avoid the hall she had to go right round to a side door and up the back +stairs. These smelt of scrubbed wood, limewash, and the ducks already +roasting for the Montmorencys’ dinner. Pushing open a door at the top +she let a gust of this through with her. + +“Duck,” said Laurence, sniffing gratefully. It still surprised her that +Laurence, who looked ethereal, should spend so much time when he was +not being intellectual in talking and apparently thinking about food. +She supposed that this was because he had, as he had once said, no +emotional life. “I live,” he used to say, “from meal to meal.” When she +said, “Why?” he put up his hands and his eyebrows and made a gesture. +When he did this in front of Gerald she felt uncomfortable. Soldiers +did not talk about food, they ate it. They ate, in fact, rather more +than Laurence, but always with a deprecating, absent look. + +Laurence had been reading in the ante-room, in one of the circle of not +very comfortable shell-shaped chairs that no one took seriously. His +room was a floor higher; it had not seemed worth while to go up. He had +brought the wrong book and dared not go down for another; otherwise +he would not have felt in need of her conversation. Personally, she +liked the ante-room, though it wasn’t the ideal place to read or talk. +Four rooms opened off it; at any moment a door might be opened, or +blow open, sending a draught down one’s neck. People passed through it +continually, so that one kept having to look up and smile. Yet Lois +always seemed to be talking there, standing with a knee on a chair +because it was not worth while to sit down, and her life was very +much complicated by not knowing how much of what she said had been +overheard, or by whom, or how far it would go. + +The high windows were curtainless; tasselled fringes frayed the light +at the top. The white sills, the shutters folded back in their frames +were blistered, as though the house had spent a day in the tropics. +Exhausted by sunshine, the backs of the crimson chairs were a thin +light orange; a smell of camphor and animals drawn from skins on the +floor by the glare of morning still hung like dust on the evening +chill. Going through to her room at nights Lois often tripped with her +toe in the jaws of a tiger; a false step at any time sent some great +claw skidding over the polish. Pale regimental groups, reunions a +generation ago of the family or the neighbourhood gave out from the +walls a vague depression. There were two locked bookcases of which the +keys had been lost, and a troop of ebony elephants brought back from +India by some one she did not remember paraded along the tops of the +bookcases. + +“Whow--whow--whow!” said Laurence, imitating her panting. “Why do you +hurry like that?” + +“I suppose it’s a habit,” said Lois, confused. + +“What did you want?” + +“Well, I came to tell you about the Montmorencys.” + +“Oh, all right; go on. Where are they?” + +“Having more tea; Aunt Myra made them.... Well, they arrived, as you +probably heard, and it was all rather devastating. There was a good +deal of emotion. And she would do nothing but say she was dusty, and of +course she _was_ dusty, so there was nothing for me to say.” + +“So what did you say?” + +“And he said he would never have known me.” + +“Honest, bluff sort of chap?” + +“Oh _no_,” said Lois and flushed, for really Laurence was too +insulting. She laughed and glanced at her finger-nails--the only part +of one’s person, she had observed, of which it was possible to be +conscious socially. “Haven’t you met him?” + +“I think I did once. I think I thought he was rather fatuous. But I was +very young at the time--I mayn’t have met him at all.” + +“Isn’t it extraordinary,” said Lois confidentially, “the way one’s +nails grow--I mean, when one comes to think: yards and yards of +inexhaustible nail coming out of one. As a matter of fact,” she added, +“I once rather had illusions about Mr. Montmorency--since I was ten. +He came to stay with my mother and me when we were at Leamington. +After dinner--I was allowed to sit up--Mother walked out of the house +and left us. We were trying chickens at that time and I dare say she +went out to shut them up and then simply stayed in the garden. Mr. +Montmorency and I talked for some time, then he got solemn and went to +sleep all in a moment. I sat and watched him in absolute fascination. +You know the way men go to sleep after dinner? Well, that wasn’t at all +the way he did.... Then my mother came, very much refreshed at having +been away from us, and said I was a rather bad hostess, and woke Mr. +Montmorency up. I have thought since, anyone might have said she was a +rather bad hostess. But everything she did seemed so natural.” + +“Oh, she was lovely,” said Laurence, indifferent. + +“So you see he is really not bluff, or he wouldn’t have gone to sleep +in that perfectly simple, exposed way. He was melancholy and exhausted +and wise, which I did appreciate as a child, when most visitors were so +noisy at one.” + +“Extraordinary,” said Laurence, looking out of the window. + +Laurence was comfortable to talk to because of his indifference to +every shade of her personality. With him, she felt committed by speech +itself to a display of such unfathomable silliness that she might +just as well come out--and did--with assertions surprising even to +herself. When he yawned, took a book up, said he was hungry or simply +went away, she was not discountenanced. It was those tender, those +receptive listeners to whom one felt afterwards sold and committed. It +is true that when first she had met Laurence again she had wished to +impress him as an intellectual girl. But an evening of signal failure +when he had told her she should read less and more thoroughly and, on +the whole he thought, talk less, had involved a certain re-arrangement +of attitude. She had reattained confidence, expanding under his +disapproval. + +“It doesn’t occur to you,” he said with an air of sinister triumph, +“that the Montmorencys may have come up the front stairs while you came +up the back stairs and be both in their room, listening?” + +Unthinkable, but the very sound of the thing was a shock. Crimson, she +ran to the door of the spare room: struggling with unreason, knocked +defiantly, rattled the handle. She went in, finally, with a sense of +impertinence, for the new arrivals were spiritually in possession. + +The Blue Room was of course empty; with no one to listen. The trunks +had been carried up and set down, unstrapped, at the foot of the wide +bed. The room smelt of bleaching cretonnes and ten days’ emptiness; +curtains in a draught from the door made a pale movement. Lois had +put a vase of geraniums on the dressing-table; now she admired their +cubes in delicate balance, spraying against the light. And there was +the festival air of those candles, virgin, with long white wicks. Two +arm-chairs faced round intently into the empty grate with its paper +fan--in them Mr. and Mrs. Montmorency would sit, perhaps, to discuss +the experiences of the day. More probably, they would talk in bed. One +of the things Lois chiefly wanted to know about marriage was--how long +it took one, sleeping with the same person every night, to outlive +the temptation to talk well into the morning? There would be nothing +illicit about nocturnal talking, as there had been at school; no +one would be entitled to open a door sharply with: “Now go to sleep +now, you two; that’s enough for to-night,” as had so often happened +during her visits to friends. Would conversation, in the absence of +these prohibitions, cease to interest? Lois had heard of couples who +disturbed each other by breathing and preferred to occupy different +rooms: no allowance was made for such couples at Danielstown. The Blue +Room dressing-room furniture was marble-topped to allow for spills or +breakages of a gentleman’s bottles, and there was a virile boot-rack +for every possible kind of boot. Lois, doubtfully, had put moss roses +on Mr. Montmorency’s table. + +“Didn’t it occur to you,” said Laurence, “that they couldn’t possibly +have gone through without my seeing them?” + +Lois came out and shut the door of the spare room. “But panic,” she +said, “is beyond one. Things like that are so awful. I shall never +forget discussing a Miss Elliot--a very musical woman--with Livvy or +some one, out here, and, my dear, _she_ was in there the whole time and +being English and honourable began to rattle her chest of drawers. I +could hardly look at her straight for the rest of the visit. However, +she also covered herself with confusion, because she put all her +vases of flowers outside her door at night, and Brigid fell over them +bringing the morning tea. Aunt Myra was terribly irritated and talked +about nursing-homes.” + +“I shouldn’t expect there will be anything so very hygienic about Mrs. +Montmorency.” + +“Damn,” said Lois, looking disproportionately worried and moving off +towards her own room suddenly. “I have got letters to finish.” Speaking +of Brigid had reminded her that there were letters on regimental +note-paper lying about all over her room and that Brigid, who took +an interest, would be likely to see them when she came up with the +hot water. Not that they mattered really, but at the thought of some +letters people wrote her she did feel rather a fool. + +Laurence had pale blue, rather prominent eyes that moved slowly, though +the rest of his movements were jerky. Looking up at her now with a not +unaware kind of blandness, he said: “Do tell me, what do you write +about?” + +“Life in general.” + +“You amaze me--now if I did write letters no one would read them if +they were not intelligent. You must have the golden touch.” + +“Naturally one is expected to be amusing.” + +“And how many subalterns do you write to?” + +This was disconcerting, also, she felt strongly, irrelevant. If these +young men wrote to her, they were unimportant; besides, she only +answered every third letter. These young men, concrete, blocking her +mental view by their extreme closeness, moved shadowless in a kind +of social glare numbing to the imagination. Whereas Mr. Montmorency +came out distinct from the rather rare gloom with which she invested +her childhood; her feeling for him provided agreeable matter for +introspection. However much he might loom and darken up to the +close-up view, he would never be out of focus. + +“How many?” said Laurence again, picking up his book but still looking +at her inexorably. The unkindest thing he had called her friend Livvy +Thompson was--a rather probable channel for the life-force; and really +when he asked questions of this kind she did not know what he must +think. + +But it was reticence as to a lack rather than as to a superabundance +that produced her embarrassment. + +“Three--no, two,” she said coldly, “because one of them is a captain.” + +Going into her room she shut the door. Laurence got up and walked round +the ante-room. For the hundredth time he looked disparagingly along the +backs of the books in the locked bookcases. Then he heard his aunt and +Mrs. Montmorency beginning to come upstairs. + + + + + II + + +THE Naylors and the Montmorencys had always known each other; it was +an affair of generations. Hugo had stayed at Danielstown as a boy +for months together, and knew the place as well as his own house, he +told Francie, and certainly liked it better. He had expressed this +preference, which had come as a shock to her, when they were first +engaged. She was pained as by an expression of irreligion. She consoled +herself, and rehabilitated him secretly, by remembering he had had a +stepfather and could never have known the meaning of family life--she +had a delicate woman’s strong feeling for “naturalness.” She intended +to make up to him for the deficiencies of his childhood, but, almost +immediately after their marriage, Hugo sold Rockriver. Now she would +always blame herself for not having dissuaded him, but he had been so +set at the time on an idea of going to Canada and she so foolishly +anxious to compensate him for what she was not by going there with him +and thriving. So when the idea of Canada failed, they had no house, and +she, after all, no vocation. As for Hugo, he had expected little of +life. + +Francie had heard all her life of the Naylors of Danielstown, her +cousins and theirs had married; but Ireland is large and she had not +met them till she came to Danielstown on a bridal visit. Then, of +course, they had known each other always; there had been no beginning. +She knew she had never in all her life been so happy as on that first +visit; time, loose-textured, had had a shining undertone, happiness +glittered between the moments. She had had, too, very strongly a sense +of return, of having been awaited. Rooms, doorways had framed a kind of +expectancy of her; some trees in the distance, the stairs, a part of +the garden seemed always to have been lying secretly at the back of her +mind. + +It was, also, on that first and only other visit, that she had +made friends with Myra--that in itself was memorable. Myra was +“interesting,” cultivated, sketched beautifully, knew about books and +music. She had been to Germany, Italy, everywhere that one visits +acquisitively. It had been a bond to discover that Francie and Myra +must have been in Germany at the same time, the summer of ’92, though +without meeting. Myra was the same age as Francie--they had been +presented the same year, though not at the same Drawing-room--and +thought of Hugo as quite a boy: she could not help showing it. +Sometimes, guessing what she had shown, she would laugh and say +something clever and quite irrelevant to cover the awkwardness. For +Hugo was ten years younger than both of them, Francie’s husband. + +Francie and Myra had had long remarkable talks about almost everything, +confidential if not alarmingly intimate--walking, driving, on the +seat by the caroline allspice tree, and at the head of the stairs at +night--while their candle-flames stooped from their vehemence. + +When at the end of that visit the Montmorencys left Danielstown this +had seemed to Francie more of a pause than a break in the continuity. +“Next spring,” they all four promised each other, shaking hands and +kissing at the foot of the steps--it was then autumn, the bronze trees +were sifted through by the wind and shivered along the outlines--“Next +summer, Hugo,” Myra exclaimed, “_at latest!_” and the last view they +had of her was as standing bright and imperative. Only as they drove +away did the trees run, watery, into the sky and Francie’s lids prick: +she slipped her hand into Hugo’s under the rug. And, pressing it, he +had alone to continue the business of turning, yearning and waving back +till a bend in the avenue. + +She had felt, perhaps, a chilly breath from the future. Between their +smart turning out, with a roll of carriage wheels, through the gates +with their clipped laurels, and their swerving in with a grind of +motor brakes twelve years afterwards, nothing large was to intervene. +Their life, through which they went forward uncertainly, without the +compulsion of tragedy, was a net of small complications. There was +the drag of his indecisions, the fine snapping now and then of her +minor relinquishments. Her health, his temperament, their varying +poverty--they were delayed, deflected. She was ordered abroad for +successive winters, to places he could not expect to endure. He came +and went without her; going for consolation, of course, to Danielstown. +The Naylors sent her out wails, injunctions and declarations. They +would never, _never_ be happy till she was with them also. + +So at last Hugo and Francie returned together. And to-day +something--that break in the trees on the avenue, something +unremembered about the face of the house, some intensification of the +silence surrounding it, or perhaps simply Lois’ figure standing there +on the steps--made the place different. + +Lady Naylor and Mrs. Montmorency now went upstairs together. +Francie looked down at the top step to see if the marks were still +there--becoming much excited in the course of an argument about Robert +Hugh Benson she had waved her candle and scattered a rain of hot +grease. But there was a new stair-carpet. Myra looked down also, but in +surprise; she did not remember. She had argued with so many people in +twelve years--nowadays she argued about Galsworthy. + +“I shouldn’t be surprised,” she said, lowering her voice as they +approached the ante-room, “if we found Laurence up here--my nephew. He +is with us a good deal, between Oxford. Though I expect it is dull for +him. He is not out of doors very much; he is very intellectual. Though, +of course, he plays tennis.” + +Francie was much relieved, on entering the ante-room, to find that +Laurence had gone. “It’s so nice,” she said, “the way you have the +house full of young people.” She turned to the right instinctively, to +her old door. + +“No, this way, Francie, the Blue Room. The rooks on that side of the +house disturbed so many people; we’ve changed the rooms round and put +Lois in there; she prefers them.” + +As they came into the Blue Room, Francie saw their two faces reflected +in the tall dressing-table glass, the door swinging behind. “Myra’s +aged!” she thought with a shock. Her own face never seemed to have +changed at all. + +She said: “You look wonderful, you know. I couldn’t think when I was +ever to see you again, or Richard either.” + +Myra kissed her--a compact, sudden pursing and placing of the lips. It +was as though they were meeting again only now. The door swung to with +a rush. “It’s been too bad, too bad--not even as if you had been in +Canada!” + +The linen of Myra’s sleeve was cool to the touch of the dusty Francie. +Myra wore a grey linen dress with embroidered panels, a lace scarf +twice round the throat and a green hat dipping in front and trimmed +with clover. Her bright grey eyes, with very black, urgent pupils, +continued in a deep crease at each outside corner. High on the curve +of her cheeks, like petals, bright mauve-pink colour became, within +kissing distance, a net of fine delicate veins. Her eyebrows, drawn in +a pointed arch, suggested tragic surprise till one saw the arch never +flattened, the face beneath never changed from its placid eagerness, +its happy dissatisfaction. “_Has_ she aged?” Francie thought, glancing +closely and shyly again as they parted. Yes, she felt something set now +in Myra; she was happier, harder. + +Myra receded now that the kiss was over. There was life to go on with, +the duty of love and pleasure fully discharged. She moved round the +Blue Room, nodded out of a window to some one distant coming out from +some trees--she could never learn how one vanishes in the dark of a +house. She glanced intently along the books in the book-trough. “Lois +has not changed the books!” she exclaimed. “You know how I like them +to be appropriate. Here’s a technical book on rubber a man left behind +last summer--it looks ridiculous. She’s a girl who never forgets the +same thing twice; always something different....” + +“She looks sweet, I think. And surely the image of Laura?” + +“She’s not so much like Laura in character. There’s a good deal, I +sometimes think, of poor Walter.” + +“Wasn’t it terribly sad about Walter?” + +“To tell you the truth, it was what we always expected,” said Lady +Naylor. + +When Francie was left alone she went to the window and shook the dust +out of her motor veil. Then--she was so very tired from motoring, +everything seemed to rush past--she sat down on the sofa and put her +hands over her eyes. Her mind lay back in the silence, but there was +a kind of sentinel in her waiting for Hugo. She did not know what she +should say if he noticed the drive from Carlow really had been too much +for her. She had said beforehand she was afraid it might be too much, +and he had said: nonsense, that she was fit for anything nowadays. +Flattered by this, she gave in. She was so tired--just for these +few moments when she let herself go--she could not bear to realize +Danielstown. Her thoughts ached. When she looked out, there were some +intolerable trees and a strip of gold field hot on the skyline. + +When she heard steps coming she fled to the washstand. Her skin was +dry, her hair felt laden and limp, it was so dusty. But that was the +fine, the phenomenal weather for which, in this country, one could not +be thankful enough. When Hugo came through from his dressing-room she +was washing her hands--they turned in the water like gentle porpoises +in a slaver of violet soap. + +“Well,” he said, looking round the room. + +“Well, Hugo ... isn’t it lovely?” + +“Richard’s in great form--I thought I’d never get up at all to you.... +Not tired?” + +“Indeed, no.... Doesn’t it all seem the same as ever?” + +“I tell you one thing: Myra’s ageing. Didn’t you notice?” + +“Oh,” said Francie vaguely. She stooped her face to the basin, the +rain-water comforted, creeping into the pores. “_Oh!_” She dried her +face in damask, among stiff roses. “But then, we all are.” + +“She’s got into a terrible habit of shutting doors.” + +“Times have been worse down here. Yes, I thought, you know, she had +rather a strained look. What does Richard think of the situation?... +Oh, and had you any idea that Lois was so grown up? I had imagined her +quite a schoolgirl. She’s so pretty, such a ... a frank little face.” + +“She’s self-conscious,” said Hugo, “but I dare say most girls of that +age are.... I should lie down now for a bit, it will freshen you +up--though you don’t need it. Then would you like me to brush your +hair?” + +Francie got her dressing-gown out of a trunk and lay down on the sofa. +She had just relaxed there when Hugo said that the sofa did not look +comfortable and she had better lie on the bed. He made a valley for +her head between the two pillows--he did not believe it rested anybody +to lie with their head high--and she lay down on the bed with her head +in the valley. “Oh, but I don’t think I ought to lie on this lovely +quilt,” she soon protested. + +“They’re not fussy here,” returned Hugo; “do lie and be still.” + +So she lay and watched him begin to unpack her two boxes, carry +dresses over his arms and lay them along the shelves of the +“gentleman’s wardrobe.” She wondered: whatever would Richard and Myra +think?--“Uxorious” they would be bound to declare; Richard who could +hardly handle a jug without dropping it, and Myra who would not have +him otherwise. + +“What a disgusting noise,” said Hugo, pausing and listening. + +“Somebody playing a gramophone--” + +They might well say she had taken the brilliant young man he’d once +been and taught him to watch her, to nurse her and shake out her +dresses. And she knew she could, now, never explain to Myra what +she had failed to explain twelve years ago--when there had been +so much less to explain and to justify--how Hugo was too much for +her altogether. How she had tried, but had not been able, to keep +him--first from marrying her, then from giving up Canada, leaving his +friends when she had to go to the south of France, or from brushing her +hair in the evenings. + +“Hugo, you might leave that blue dress out; I think I’ll wear it.... +_When_ was it you were in love with Laura?” + +“When I was twenty-two--I was in a sort of way. She was lovely +then--though indeed she was always lovely. But she was never happy at +all, even here. She never knew what she wanted--she was very vital.” + +He hesitated over two pairs of evening shoes. “Leave the bronze ones +out,” she suggested. “They go with the blue.” She lay with her eyes +shut a moment, then asked, “But why wouldn’t she marry you?” + +Francie’s delicacy, her absences from him, her long queer relapses into +silence gave her the right to ask curious things, as from a death-bed. +Hugo, wandering at the end of the bed, looked at her feet thoughtfully. + +“She wanted her mind made up,” he said at last, “and I couldn’t do +that--why should I? I had enough to do with my own mind. And she was +Richard’s own sister--talk and talk and you’d never know where you had +her. And if she thought you had her, she’d start a crying-fit. Then she +went up North and met Farquar, and I imagine that that was all fixed +up before she knew where she was or had time to get out of it. After +that of course she really _had_ got something to be unhappy about. Yet +I don’t believe things ever really mattered to Laura. Nothing got close +to her: she was very remote.” + +“I wonder if Lois is remote?” + +“What I think I felt about Laura,” pursued Hugo, interested, “was, +she was never real in the way I wanted. Nobody was before you, as you +know.... If you get up now, I can brush your hair.” + +“It is very dusty,” said Mrs. Montmorency. + +She had met Laura in England and been very shy of her. Laura was +a success in England, and so quite brilliant--she was too Irish +altogether for her own country. Lois had been at school as usual +and did not come home because Laura had forgotten which day the +Montmorencys were coming. Six months afterwards, without giving anyone +notice of her intention, Laura had died. + +“It still seems odd,” remarked Mrs. Montmorency, “that I shouldn’t have +met Lois.” Seating herself in front of the glass she took out the pins +one by one, then shook down her hair round her face--bright bronze +threads went in and out, crisply, over the light-grey waves--she ran +it through with her finger-tips, shaking her head ruefully. But the +dust seemed to have gone, perhaps because she was happier, less tired; +or perhaps she had left a drift of it between the two pillows. Her +husband, selecting a brush, knocked over the vase of geraniums. “The +darlings!” she cried out, mopping with her kimono-sleeve. + +“Confusion,” said Hugo, shaking water out of the brush, “on all who put +vases on dressing-tables!” + + + + + III + + +LOIS, dressed for dinner, was tidying her writing-table; two stamped +letters, her handiwork, leaned on the clock. She shook out her pink +suède blotter and started to sort its contents, but had to re-read +everything. Gerald, who had written about a tournament, concluded: “You +have the loveliest soft eyes.” She was perplexed, thought: “But what +can I do?” and snapped the letter, with others, under a rubber band. +Then she pulled out a drawer called “general” and swept the rest into +it. She had a waste-paper basket, but only for envelopes. Strokes of +the gong, brass bubbles, came bouncing up from the hall. She ran to the +glass, changed a necklace, had an apprehensive interchange with her own +reflection. What of the night? + +Mrs. Montmorency and Laurence were in the drawing-room. They looked +anxious, nothing showed the trend of the conversation. The pale room +rose to a height only mirrors followed above the level of occupation; +this disproportionate zone of emptiness dwarfed at all times figures +and furniture. The distant ceiling imposed on consciousness its blank +white oblong, and a pellucid silence, distilled from a hundred and +fifty years of conversation, waited beneath the ceiling. Into this +silence, voices went up in stately attenuation. Now there were no +voices; Mrs. Montmorency and Laurence sat looking away from each other. + +As Lois came in Laurence slapped his pockets over and saying something +about a pipe left the room quickly, leaving Lois in the grip of a +_tête-à-tête_. Mrs. Montmorency, seated in a window, held by a corner +a copy of the _Spectator_, that had slipped down against the silk of +her dress, as though she must be sure to retain this constant refuge +from conversation. Vague presence, barely a silhouette, the west light +sifting into her fluffy hair and lace wrappings so that she half +melted, she gave so little answer to one’s inquiry that one did not +know how to approach. So Lois stood staring, full in the light. + +“Oh, you do look sweet!” exclaimed the visitor. “Black is so striking. +No, you are not like Laura--I don’t know who you’re like.” + +“Aunt Myra isn’t sure about black for girls,” said Lois, sweeping +forward for admiration the folds of her dress. “But a white slip +lightens it.” + +“And I expect you are having a wonderful time now you’re grown up?” + +“Oh, well ...” said Lois. She went across to the fireplace and rose +on her tiptoes, leaning her shoulders against the marble. She tried +not to look conscious. She still felt a distinct pride at having grown +up at all; it seemed an achievement, like marriage or fame. Having a +wonderful time, she knew, meant being attractive to a number of young +men. If she said, “Yes, I do,” it implied “Yes, I am, very--” and she +was not certain. She was not certain, either, how much she enjoyed +herself. “Well, yes, I do,” she said finally. + +“Tell me,” continued Mrs. Montmorency, “wasn’t that your cousin +Laurence?” + +“As a matter of fact I am Uncle Richard’s niece and he Aunt Myra’s +nephew.” + +“And isn’t he very intellectual?” + +“I suppose he is, really.” + +“I’m afraid,” said Mrs. Montmorency, “I had no idea how to talk to him. +I suppose _you_’d never find that difficult. I expect now, Lois, you’re +very modern.” + +“Oh, well, not really,” said Lois, pleased. Mrs. Montmorency’s +expression, condensing now from her outline, was of such affection and +interest that Lois was moved to go on: “You could talk to him really +about almost anything except about politics. He isn’t allowed any here +because the ones he brings over from Oxford are all wrong.” + +“_Wrong?_” cried the visitor with a startled flush, putting up a hand +to her face as though to press back the mounting colour. “Wrong--which +way? How do you mean, ‘wrong’?” + +“Inconvenient.” + +“Oh,” said Mrs. Montmorency. And upon a recurrence of the puzzled +silence that had been the note of Lois’ entrance, Sir Richard came +in. Sir Richard was very much worried by visitors who came down early +for dinner: evidently he had not expected this of Francie. “Oh!” he +exclaimed reproachfully, “this is too bad; I had no idea you were down. +Myra’s been delayed--you know yourself how it happens.” + +“Indeed, yes,” said Francie warmly. She would never have been in time +herself if she had had a home of her own. Only the little blanks and +rifts in her life accounted for her punctuality. + +Sir Richard, touching his tie vaguely, wandered about the room, +displacing with some irritation the little tables that seemed to spring +up in his path, in the pent-up silence of a powerful talker not yet in +gear. + +“Very fine weather,” he said at last, “warm at nights--or would you +like me to shut that window?” He was bothered; he could not remember +how well he had once known Francie, or decide at just what degree +of intimacy he was expected to pick her up again. “Lois has grown +up, hasn’t she?” he continued, pointing out his niece with an air of +inspiration. “She seems to me to have grown up very fast. Now how long +is it since you saw her over in England?” + +“But I never did see her.” + +“That was extraordinary,” said Sir Richard, looking from one to the +other. “Didn’t you meet poor Laura?” + +“I did, but Lois was out.” + +“That was too bad.” Sir Richard’s bother increased, with a suspicion of +something somewhere. He observed rather flatly: “Then it can hardly be +such a surprise to you that she’s grown up.” + +“Not in the same way.” + +“We can all sit out on the steps to-night,” said Lois, determined to +check the couple in their career of inanity. She went across to a +window and folded her arms on the sill. + +The screen of trees that reached like an arm from behind the +house--embracing the lawns, banks and terraces in mild ascent--had +darkened, deepening into a forest. Like splintered darkness, branches +pierced the faltering dusk of leaves. Evening drenched the trees; the +beeches were soundless cataracts. Behind the trees, pressing in from +the open and empty country like an invasion, the orange bright sky +crept and smouldered. Firs, bearing up to pierce, melted against the +brightness. Somewhere, there was a sunset in which the mountains lay +like glass. + +Dark had so gained the trees that Lois, turning back from the window, +was surprised at how light the room was. Day, still coming in from the +fields by the south windows, was stored in the mirrors, in the sheen +of the wall-paper, so that the room still shone. Mr. Montmorency had +come in and was standing where she had stood, his shoulders against the +mantelpiece. + +“We can sit out on the steps to-night, can’t we?” persisted Lois. And +because no one answered or cared and a conversation went on without +her, she felt profoundly lonely, suspecting once more for herself a +particular doom of exclusion. Something of the trees in their intimacy +of shadow was shared by the husband and wife and their host in the +tree-shadowed room. She thought of love with its gift of importance. “I +must break in on all this,” she thought as she looked round the room. + +“Do you still go to sleep after dinner?” she asked Mr. Montmorency. + +“It’s a thing that I never have done,” he said, annoyed. + +“But it’s what I chiefly remember about you.” + +“I’m afraid,” he said, tolerant, “you are mixing me up with some one +else.” + +“Listen, Richard,” said Francie; “are you sure we will not be shot at +if we sit out late on the steps?” + +Sir Richard laughed and they all shared his amusement. “We never have +yet, not even with soldiers here and Lois dancing with officers up and +down the avenue. You’re getting very English, Francie! Isn’t Francie +getting very English? Do you think maybe we ought to put sandbags +behind the shutters when we shut up at nights?” + +“No, but Richard, seriously--” began Francie then, as they all +stared, laughed and had to give up and go on laughing. Now in County +Carlow they had said things were bad round here, that she made a grave +mistake in coming at all. But then, as Richard would certainly say, +that was County Carlow all over. + +Lady Naylor came in arm-in-arm with Laurence and said they were all +very punctual. “The gong’s only gone three minutes, also I could be +certain I never heard any of you go down. But I was delayed, as I told +Richard to tell you. Shall we go in?” + +“Francie wants to know,” said Sir Richard, offering Francie his arm, +“if we haven’t got a machine-gun?” + +“Ah, you’re too bad!” + +“_Do_ you dance on the avenue?” said Mr. Montmorency to Lois. + +“Only once, for a bet. I and a man called Mr. Lesworth danced to the +white gate, and the man that we had the bet with walked after us +carrying the gramophone. But naturally, I don’t as a rule.” + +“It would come hard on your shoes, I expect,” said Mr. Montmorency +distantly. + +“And the men we know can’t get over here in the evening, now.” + +“Still, I expect you have a very gay time,” said Mr. Montmorency, and +turned away. + +In the dining-room, the little party sat down under the crowd of +portraits. Under that constant interchange from the high-up faces +staring across--now fading each to a wedge of fawn-colour, and each +looking out from a square of darkness tunnelled into the wall--Sir +Richard and Lady Naylor, their nephew, niece and old friends had a +thin, over-bright look, seemed on the air of the room unconvincingly +painted, startled, transitory. Spaced out accurately round the enormous +table--whereon, in what was left of the light, damask birds and roses +had an unearthly shimmer--each so enisled and distant that a remark +at random, falling short of a neighbour, seemed a cry of appeal, the +six, in spite of an emphasis of speech and gesture they unconsciously +heightened, dwindled personally. While above, the immutable figures, +shedding on to the wash of dusk smiles, frowns, every vestige of +personality, kept only attitude--an outmoded modestness, a quirk or a +flare, hand slipped under a ruffle or spread airily over the cleft of +a bosom--cancelled time, negatived personality and made of the lower +cheerfulness, dining and talking, the faintest exterior friction. + +In Laurence’s plate of clear soup six peas floated. Six accurate +spoonfuls, each with a pea in it, finished the soup. He glanced right +in his aunt’s direction, left in Mrs. Montmorency’s: both were talking. +Mr. Montmorency, listening to Lady Naylor, seemed to be looking across +at Laurence, but he sat with his back to the light so that Laurence, +short-sighted, could not be sure--he preferred uncertainty. + +Lady Naylor spoke of the way things were, with her pointed spoon poised +over her plate. She noticed the others were waiting, and with a last +bright emphatic look in Hugo’s direction bent to finish her soup. He +said at once to Laurence: “And what do _you_ think of things?” + +“Things? Over here?” + +“Yes--yes.” + +“Seem to be closing in,” said Laurence, crumbling his bread detachedly; +“rolling up rather.” + +“Ah!” nodded Mr. Montmorency, in significant comprehension. + +“Ssh!” exclaimed Lady Naylor, running out a hand at both of them over +the cloth. She frowned, with a glance at the parlourmaid. “Now you +mustn’t make Laurence exaggerate. All young men from Oxford exaggerate. +All Laurence’s friends exaggerate: I have met them.” + +“If you have noticed it,” said her nephew, “it is probably so.” + +Lois, on his other side, leant eagerly to Mr. Montmorency. “If you are +interested, would you care to come and dig for guns in the plantation? +Or if I dig, will you come as a witness? Three of the men on the place +here swear there are guns buried in the lower plantation. Michael +Keelan swears he was going through there, late, and saw men digging. I +asked him, ‘What were they like?’ and he said, ‘The way they would be,’ +and I said, why didn’t he ask them what they were doing, and he said, +‘Sure, why would I; didn’t I see them digging, and they with spades?’ +So it appears he fled back the way he had come.” + +“--Ah, that’s nonsense now!” Sir Richard exploded. “Michael would see +anything: he is known to have seen a ghost. I will not have the men +talking, and at all accounts I won’t have them listened to.” + +“All the same,” pursued Lois, “I feel that one ought to dig. If there +is nothing there I can confound Michael for the good of his soul, and +if there should be guns, Uncle Richard, just think of finding them! And +surely we ought to know.” + +“And why would we want to know? You’ll have the place full of soldiers, +trampling the young trees. There’s been enough damage in that +plantation with the people coming to sight-see: all Michael’s friends. +Now I won’t have digging at all: do you understand?” said Sir Richard, +flushed. + +Francie felt torn in herself, dividedly sympathetic. “I expect one +can’t be too careful.... The poor young little trees ... and besides,” +she added to Lois, “one might blow oneself up.” + +“This country,” continued Sir Richard, “is altogether too full of +soldiers, with nothing to do but dance and poke old women out of their +beds to look for guns. It’s unsettling the people, naturally. The fact +is, the Army’s got into the habit of fighting and doesn’t know what +else to do with itself, and also the Army isn’t at all what it used +to be. I was held up yesterday for I wouldn’t like to say how long, +driving over to Ballyhinch, by a thing like a coffee-pot backing in and +out of a gate, with a little brute of a fellow bobbing in and out at +me from under a lid at the top. I kept my temper, but I couldn’t help +telling him _I_ didn’t know what the country was coming to--and just +when we’d got the horses accustomed to motors. ‘You’ll do no good,’ I +told him, ‘in this unfortunate country by running about in a thing like +a coffee-pot.’ And those patrols in lorries run you into a ditch as +soon as look at you. They tell me there’s a great deal of socialism now +in the British Army.” + +“Well, it’s difficult for them all,” said his wife, pacific, “and +they’re doing their best, I think. The ones who come over here seem +quite pleasant.” + +“What regiment have you now at Clonmore?” + +“The 1st Rutlands.” + +“And there are some Field Gunners and Garrison Gunners too,” added +Lois. “Most people seem to prefer the Garrison Gunners.” + +“The Garrison Gunners dance better,” said Laurence to Mrs. Montmorency. +“It would be the greatest pity if we were to become a republic and all +these lovely troops were taken away.” + +“Fool,” said Lois across the flowers. Mr. Montmorency looked at her in +surprise. + +Lady Naylor continued: “From all the talk, you might think almost +anything was going to happen, but we never listen. I have made +it a rule not to talk, either. In fact, if you want rumours, we +must send you over to Castle Trent. And I’m afraid also the Careys +are incorrigible.... Oh yes, Hugo, it’s all very well to talk of +disintegration; of course there is a great deal of disintegration in +England and on the Continent. But one does wonder sometimes whether +there’s really much there to disintegrate.... I dare say there may +have been.... And if you talk to the people they’ll tell you the +whole thing’s nonsense: and after all what is a country if it isn’t +the people? For instance, I had a long conversation this morning with +Mrs. Pat Gegan, who came down about the apples--you remember her, +Hugo, don’t you, she always asks after you: she was really delighted +to hear you were coming back--‘It is the way the young ones do be a +bit wild,’ she said, and I really agreed with her. She said young +people were always the same, and wasn’t it the great pity. She is a +most interesting woman: she thinks a great deal. But then our people +do think. Now have you ever noticed the English? I remember a year ago +when I was staying with Anna Partridge in Bedfordshire--she is always +so full of doing things in the village, little meetings and so on. +Well, I went to one of her meetings, and really--those village women +sitting round in hats and so obviously despising her! And not a move +on their faces. I said to her afterwards: ‘I do think you’re splendid, +Anna, the way you throw yourself into things--but really what you can +do with people with so little brain--’ She seemed quite annoyed +and said that at least they were loyal. I said they hadn’t got any +alternative, and if they had an alternative I didn’t suppose they’d +see it. She said they had hearts of gold if they didn’t wear them on +their sleeves, and I said I thought it was a pity they didn’t--it would +have brightened them up a bit. She said that at least one knew where +one was with them, and I said I wouldn’t live among people who weren’t +human. Then I thought it seemed a shame to unsettle her, if she really +likes living in England.... Oh, and I said to Mrs. Gegan this morning: +‘Some of your friends would like us to go, you know,’ and she got so +indignant she nearly wept. And the Trents were telling me-- Oh, Hugo, +the Trents are coming over to tennis to-morrow, specially for you and +Francie. And the Thompsons are coming, and I believe the Hartigans. The +Hartigan girls are still all there, you’ll be surprised to hear. Nobody +seems to marry them--and oh, a Colonel and Mrs. Boatley are coming, and +three or four of the Rutlands--” + +“Five,” said Lois. + +“--Anyhow, several Rutlands. Every one’s so delighted to hear that you +and Francie are back.” + +“The Trents,” said Lois to Mr. Montmorency, with indignation, “swear +that you and they are related. But you are not, surely? It is a perfect +obsession of theirs.” + +When he said he supposed that he was, through an aunt’s marriage, +she became pensive. It seemed odd that even the Trents should have a +closer claim than she had. Though it was she who had been humming with +agitation the whole morning. The sweet-peas in the urn before them bore +evidence to her agitation: they all slanted to the west like a falling +haystack. It was true she now hoped nothing more of him, but he still +was in shadow, faintly, from the kindly monolith of her childhood. +What he might have been, what he persisted in being, met in her mind +with a jar, with a grate of disparity. The face she had watched +sleeping--wiped clear of complexity, quiet but so communicative in +stillness that, watching, she seemed to have shared in some kind of +suspense, stayed--like the bright blur from looking too long at a +lamp--over the face now turned to her, intelligent, dulled, with its +sub-acid smile. She was likely to think of him now as a limitation, +Mrs. Montmorency’s limitation; something about Mrs. Montmorency that +was a pity. The Trents could have him. + +“I expect,” she said slightingly, “you are related to every one.” + +“The longer one lives in this country,” he all too agreeably said, “the +more likely that seems.” + +Yet she had been certain she felt him looking at her while she argued +with Uncle Richard about the guns. Seeking a likeness, perhaps. It was +this consciousness that had lent her particular fervour--though she was +interested in the guns. Though when she turned round his profile was +turned away--in, it seemed, the most scornful repudiation. + +He had, as a matter of fact, been looking at her, but without intention +and with a purely surface observation of detail. When she turned +away, light from behind her ran a finger round the curve of her jaw. +When she turned his way, light took the uncertain, dinted cheek-line +where, under the eyes, flesh was patted on delicately over the rise of +the bone. Her eyes, long and soft-coloured, had the intense brimming +wandering look of a puppy’s; in repose her lips met doubtfully, in +a never-determined line, so that she never seemed to have quite +finished speaking. Her face was long, her nose modelled down from the +bridge then finished off softly and bluntly as by an upward flick +of the sculptor’s thumb. Her chin had emphasis, seemed ready for +determination. He supposed that unformed, anxious to make an effect, +she would marry early. + +“Danielstown can’t have been so exciting when you were here before,” +said Lois to Mrs. Montmorency. + +But Mrs. Montmorency, in an absence of mind amounting to exaltation, +had soared over the company. She could perform at any moment, +discomfitingly, these acts of levitation. She was staring into one of +the portraits. + + + + + IV + + +LOIS was sent upstairs for the shawls; it appeared that a touch of dew +on the bare skin might be fatal to Lady Naylor or Mrs. Montmorency. +On the stairs, her feet found their evening echoes; she dawdled, +listening. When she came down everybody was on the steps--at the top, +on the wide stone plateau--the parlourmaid looking for somewhere to put +the coffee tray. Mrs. Montmorency sat in the long chair; her husband +was tucking a carriage rug round her knees. “If you do that,” Lois +could not help saying, “she won’t be able to walk about, which is the +best part of sitting out.” + +No one took any notice: Mr. Montmorency went on tucking. + +“Haven’t you got a wrap for yourself?” said Lady Naylor. Lois took a +cushion and sat on the top step with her arms crossed, stroking her +elbows. “I shouldn’t sit there,” her aunt continued; “at this time of +night stone will strike up through anything.” + +“If you don’t get rheumatism now,” added Francie, “you will be storing +up rheumatism.” + +“It will be my rheumatism,” said Lois as gently as possible, but added +inwardly: “After you’re both dead.” A thought that fifty years hence +she might well, if she wished, be sitting here on the steps,--with +or without rheumatism--having penetrated thirty years deeper ahead +into Time than they could, gave her a feeling of mysteriousness and +destination. And she was fitted for this by being twice as complex as +their generation--for she must be: double as many people having gone to +the making of her. + +Laurence, looking resentfully round for somewhere to sit--she had taken +the only cushion--said: “I suppose you think ants cannot run up your +legs if you cannot see them?” + +Mr. Montmorency surprised her by offering a cigarette. He had a theory, +he said, that ants did not like cigarette smoke. The air was so quiet +now, the flame ran up his match without a tremble. “The ants are +asleep,” she said, “they disappear into the cracks of the steps. They +don’t bite, either; but the idea is horrid.” + +“Don’t you want a chair?” When she said she didn’t, he settled back in +his own. Creaks ran through the wicker, discussing him, then all was +quiet. He was not due to leave the ship in which they were all rushing +out into Time till ten years after the others, though it was to the +others that he belonged. Turning half round, she watched light breathe +at the tips of the cigarettes; it seemed as though everybody were +waiting. Night now held the trees with a toneless finality. The sky +shone, whiter than glass, fainting down to the fretted leaf-line, but +was being steadily drained by the dark below, to which the grey of the +lawns, like smoke, as steadily mounted. The house was highest of all +with toppling immanence, like a cliff. + +“I don’t think,” said Francie, “I remember anything so--so quiet as +evenings here.” + +“Trees,” said Laurence, shifting his pipe. His shirt-front was high +above them, he stood by the door with his foot on the scraper. + +“This time to-morrow,” said Lady Naylor, “we shall want to be +quiet--after the tennis party.” She let out a sigh that hung in the +silence, like breath in cold air. + +“Oh yes, the party! The tennis party ...” + +“Francie, did I tell you who were coming?” + +“You told her,” said Laurence. “I heard you.” + +“It is the people who don’t play tennis who make it so tiring.” + +Something about the way, the resigned way, Francie’s hands lay out on +the rug gave her the look of an invalid. “It is a good thing,” said +Sir Richard, “you two never went out to Canada. I never liked the idea +myself; I was very much against it at the time, if you remember.” + +“I was divided about it myself,” said Hugo. “It seemed worth trying, +and yet there was so much against it. I don’t know that I should have +done very much good--I wonder.” + +They wondered with him, with degrees of indifference. Lois stroked her +dress--the feel of the stuff was like cobwebs, sticky and damp. There +must be dew falling. + +“Oh!” cried Francie. “_Listen!_” + +She had so given herself to the silence that the birth of sound, after +which the others were still straining, had shocked her nerves like a +blow. They looked, from the steps, over a bay of fields, between the +plantations, that gave on a sea of space. Far east, beyond the demesne: +a motor, straining cautiously out of the silence. A grind, an anguish +of sound as it took the hill. + +“Patrols,” said Laurence. + +Hugo reached out and pressed a hand on to Francie’s rug. “Patrols,” he +told her, translating the information. + +Sir Richard explained severely: “Out every night--not always in this +direction.” + +“They’re early; it’s half-past nine. Now I wonder ...” + +The sound paused, for a moment a pale light showed up the sky in +darkness. Then behind the screen of trees at the skyline, demesne +boundary, the sound moved shakily, stoopingly, like some one running +and crouching behind a hedge. The jarring echoed down the spines of the +listeners. They heard with a sense of complicity. + +“A furtive lorry is a sinister thing.” + +“Laurence, it isn’t furtive!” said. Lady Naylor. “Can’t you be +ordinary? If it wouldn’t be taken in some absurd kind of way as a +demonstration, I should ask the poor fellows in to have coffee.” + +“They’re careful enough,” said Hugo impatiently. It seemed that the +lorry took pleasure in crawling with such a menace along the boundary, +marking the scope of peace of this silly island, undermining solitude. +In the still night sound had a breathlessness, as of intention. + +“The roads are so rough,” said Lois: she could see the wary load +lurching into the hedges. “I wonder now,” she added, “who is with the +patrol to-night?” + +“Some one you know?” cried Francie. But Sir Richard, who did not like +his friends to be distracted from him by lorries any more than by +introspection or headaches or the observation of nature, bore this down +with one of his major chords: + +“The lower tennis court, Hugo”--waving sideways into the darkness--“is +not what it used to be. Some cattle got on to it after the rain and +destroyed it. It’s had rolling enough to level a mountain, but it won’t +be the same for a long time. D’you remember the fours we had on that +court that summer--wasn’t it nineteen-six--you and I and O’Donnell and +poor John Trent?” + +“I do. Now was it James O’Donnell or Peter that went to Ceylon?” + +“That was a great summer; I never remember a summer like it. We had the +hay in by the end of June.” + +The lorry ground off east towards Ballyhinch; silence sifting down +on its tracks like sand. Their world was clear of it and a pressure +lightened. Once more they could have heard a leaf turn in the trees +or a bird shifting along a branch. But they found it was now very +dark. Francie shivered, and Lady Naylor, rising formally, said she +thought they should go in. “Poor John Trent,” she added, gathering up +her cushions, “never got over that trouble he had with the Sheehans +over the Madder fishing. It went into court, you know, and of course +he lost. We always told him to keep it out of court. He was very +obstinate.” + +“He was indeed,” said Sir Richard. “He made an enemy of Sheehan and +it’s not a good thing to have made an enemy. Though of course he’s +dead nowadays, so it may not matter.” + +“It may to the Archie Trents.... Laurence, help Uncle Richard in with +the long chair, and remember to bring in your own chair afterwards.” + +“I never had a chair.” + +“Oh, they haven’t lighted the lamp in the hall. That is too bad! I am +lost without Sarah--do you remember Sarah, Francie? She died, you know.” + +Lois, sitting still among rising, passing and vaguely searching +figures, cried: “But it’s only just beginning! You’re missing the whole +point. I shall walk up the avenue.” + +Francie went in, groping; trailing her rug. The three men, carrying +wicker chairs, converged at the door: the chairs jostled. They all +put them down and apologized. Lois repeated: “_I_ shall walk up the +avenue.” But having arranged an order of procedure they all passed on +into the house, creaking and bumping. She walked down the steps alone: +she had wanted to be alone, but to be regretted. + +“Mind you don’t get locked out!” her uncle shouted after her. The glass +doors shut with a rattle. + +Lois walked alone up the avenue, where she had danced with Gerald. +She thought what a happy night that had been, and how foolish Mr. +Montmorency now thought them. He had seemed annoyed at her being young +when he wasn’t. She could not hope to explain that her youth seemed +to her also rather theatrical and that she was only young in that way +because people expected it. She had never refused a rôle. She could +not forgo that intensification, that kindling of her personality at +being considered very happy and reckless, even if she were not. She +could not hope to assure him she was not enjoying anything he had +missed, that she was now unconvinced and anxious but intended to be +quite certain, by the time she was his age, that she had once been +happy. For to explain this--were explanation possible to so courteous, +ironical and unfriendly a listener--would, she felt, be disloyal to +herself, to Gerald, to an illusion both were called upon to maintain. + +Just by the lime, in that dancing night, she had missed a step and +sagged on his arm, which tightened. His hand slid up between her +shoulders; then, as she steadied back to the rhythm, down again. They +had set out laughing, noisy and conscious, but soon had to save their +breath. Gerald’s cheek, within an inch of her own, was too near to see. +All the way up, he had not missed a step; he was most dependable. And +remembering how the family had just now gone into the house--so flatly, +so unregrettingly, slamming the glass doors--she felt _that_ was what +she now wanted most--his eagerness and constancy. She felt, like a +steady look from him, the perfectness of their being together. + +“Oh, I do want you!” + +But he was very musical, he conducted a jazz band they had at the +barracks: while reaching out in her thoughts she remembered, the band +would be practising now. She was disappointed. To a line of tune the +thought flung her, she danced on the avenue. + +A shrubbery path was solid with darkness, she pressed down it. Laurels +breathed coldly and close: on her bare arms the tips of leaves +were timid and dank, like tongues of dead animals. Her fear of the +shrubberies tugged at its chain, fear behind reason, fear before her +birth; fear like the earliest germ of her life that had stirred in +Laura. She went forward eagerly, daring a snap of the chain, singing; +a hand to the thump of her heart, dramatic with terror. She thought of +herself as forcing a pass. In her life--deprived as she saw it--there +was no occasion for courage, which like an unused muscle slackened and +slept. + +High up a bird shrieked and stumbled down through dark, tearing the +leaves. Silence healed, but kept a scar of horror. The shuttered-in +drawing-room, the family sealed in lamplight, secure and bright like +flowers in a paper-weight--were desirable, worth much of this to +regain. Fear curled back from the carpet-border.... Now, on the path: +grey patches worse than the dark: they slipped up her dress knee-high. +The laurels deserted her groping arm. She had come to the holly, where +two paths crossed. + +First, she did not hear footsteps coming, and as she began to notice +the displaced darkness thought what she dreaded was coming, was there +within her--she was indeed clairvoyant, exposed to horror and going to +see a ghost. Then steps, hard on the smooth earth; branches slipping +against a trench-coat. The trench-coat rustled across the path ahead, +to the swing of a steady walker. She stood by the holly immovable, +blotted out in her black, and there passed within reach of her hand, +with the rise and fall of a stride, a resolute profile, powerful as a +thought. In gratitude for its fleshliness, she felt prompted to make +some contact: not to be known seemed like a doom: extinction. + +“It’s a fine night,” she would have liked to observe; or, to engage his +sympathies: “Up Dublin!” or even--since it was in her uncle’s demesne +she was straining under a holly--boldly--“What do you want?” + +It must be because of Ireland he was in such a hurry; down from the +mountains, making a short cut through their demesne. Here was something +else that she could not share. She could not conceive of her country +emotionally: it was a way of living, an abstract of several landscapes, +or an oblique frayed island, moored at the north but with an air of +being detached and washed out west from the British coast. + +Quite still, she let him go past in contemptuous unawareness. His +intentions burnt on the dark an almost visible trail; he might well +have been a murderer he seemed so inspired. The crowd of trees, +straining up from the passive disputed earth, each sucking up and +exhaling the country’s essence--swallowed him finally. She thought: +“Has he come for the guns?” A man in a trench-coat had passed without +seeing her: that was what it amounted to. + +She ran back to tell, in excitement. Below, the house waited; vast on +its west side, with thin yellow lines round the downstairs shutters. +It had that excluded, sad, irrelevant look outsides of houses take in +the dark. Inside, they would all be drawing up closer to one another, +tricked by the half-revelation of lamplight. “Compassed about,” +thought Lois, “by so great a cloud of witnesses....” Chairs standing +round dejectedly; upstairs, the confidently waiting beds; mirrors +vacant and startling; books read and forgotten, contributing no more to +life; dinner-table certain of its regular compulsion; the procession of +elephants that throughout uncertain years had not broken file. + +But as Lois went up the steps breathlessly, her adventure began to +diminish. It held ground for a moment as she saw the rug dropped in the +hall by Mrs. Montmorency sprawl like a body across the polish. Then +confidence disappeared, in a waver of shadow, among the furniture. +Conceivably, she had just surprised life at a significant angle in the +shrubbery. But it was impossible to speak of this. At a touch from +Aunt Myra adventure became literary, to Uncle Richard it suggested an +inconvenience; a glance from Mr. Montmorency or Laurence would make her +encounter sterile. + +But what seemed most probable was that they would not listen.... She +lighted her candle and went up to bed--uncivilly, without saying good +night to anyone. Her Uncle Richard, she afterwards heard, was obliged +to sit up till twelve o’clock. He had not been told she was in, so did +not think it right to lock up the house. + + + + + V + + +GERALD walked across the lawn to the lower tennis court, swinging +his racquet. Once he put up a hand and touched the back of his head, +but with assurance: it was perfectly smooth and round. His flannels +were gold-white in the sun; he almost shone. He smiled everywhere. It +was nonsense for him to pretend he did not care for parties; he went +everywhere, he liked to go out every day. + +Everybody was sitting or standing about where the green slatted seats +were, at the edge of the shade. No one was playing yet; there were +two courts and eighteen players; they were discussing who was to play +first, their voices sharp with renunciation. Lois was nowhere; Laurence +sat on the ground smoking and taking no part in the argument. Lady +Naylor talked eagerly to a number of guests who, holding up parasols +very straight in the unusual sunshine and wearing an air of vague +happiness, were waiting for play to begin before settling down to +conversation. Livvy Thompson was organizing: as Lois’ friend she felt +this devolved upon her in Lois’ absence; also, she liked organizing. +“You and you,” she said shrilly, stabbing the air within an inch of +each player’s chest with a sharp forefinger, “and why not _you_ and +_you?_” But before she had ever finished arranging the second four, +the first would become involved again. + +“Oh, Mr. Lesworth,” cried Lady Naylor, and waited for him to approach, +“if you really are coming out, would you bring some more rugs for some +more of the people to sit on?” + +He turned and went back to the house. It seemed very odd about +Lois--now where could she be? + +Livvy Thompson looked after him anxiously. Had not Mr. Armstrong come +also? During this temporary absence of her attention two fours arranged +themselves and walked hurriedly out to take possession of the courts. + +The hall, very dark after sunshine, was full of wraps and racquet +presses; shoes had wandered away from each other under the chairs. +The rest of Gerald’s party--they had all driven out from Clonmore in +a hired motor--were still there, waiting for Mrs. Vermont. Captain +Vermont and David Armstrong stood holding her things while she powdered +her nose with difficulty before an antique mirror. + +“Aren’t women awful?” she cried gaily, as Gerald rejoined them. She +knew the subalterns hated going about without her. “My dears, I do +wish I knew if we really were asked. Lois is so--I mean, well, you +know--vague, isn’t she?” + +“Well, they wouldn’t mind, anyhow,” said David, and tried not to sound +proprietary. + +“Aren’t they hospitable!” Betty Vermont was not disappointed in Ireland +after all. She had never before been to so many large houses with so +small a sense of her smallness. Of course, they were all very shabby +and not artistic at all. Mrs. Vermont used to say she longed to be +turned loose in any one of them with a paint-pot--white--and a few +hundred yards of some really nice cretonne from Barker’s. + +“Half Ireland is here,” said David, looking out at the crowd of cars on +the gravel-sweep. “I doubt if we get any tennis.” + +“Ah, well, David, there’s plenty of that at the club. Now, Gerald, +don’t stand there glaring! You _do_ disapprove of powder, you unkind +wretch!” + +“Rather not,” said Gerald, beaming. But all the same he did like girls +to have natural complexions--he was perfectly certain Lois’s was. He +was carrying all the rugs he could find slung over his shoulder and +looked, she informed him, just like a Bedouin. This was not a thing she +could have said to every man, because really the East had become so +very suggestive. But he was the dearest boy, so absolutely nice-minded. +They all went out. + +“There seem to be many more people here than I thought we’d asked,” +Lady Naylor was saying to Mrs. Carey of Mount Isabel. “Lois asks +people she meets at the Clonmore club, and then forgets. I have been +rather wondering about the raspberries; I’ve sent her out to the +garden to see about getting in some more. Colonel and Mrs. Boatley +are coming--she was a Vere Scott, a Fermanagh Vere Scott.... Why is +it that the Hartigans never will talk to men? I never think they give +themselves a chance, do you? Oh, Mr. Lesworth, how kind to think of +bringing the rugs out! And now there doesn’t seem anyone left to sit on +them.... Look, would you break up that party of girls on the bank; I +don’t think they seem to be sitting on anything, and anyhow they look +dull and would like to talk. And I am sure they’d be glad if you’d +smoke--the midges are terrible. Who is that girl in pale blue who’s +just coming out?” + +“Mrs. Vermont. She--er--I think Miss Farquar--” + +“Oh, well, never mind; it’s a pleasant surprise.” She went over to Mrs. +Vermont with enthusiasm. “I’m so glad you could come; it’s delightful.” + +Gerald looked round everybody again, carefully. Then he respectfully +displaced the Miss Hartigans, spread out a rug on the bank and sat down +between them. He was at a disadvantage, he could not remember if he +had ever been introduced to them, whereas they were perfectly certain +he had been. They were pleased at his coming, though on the other hand +they were suffering so terribly from the midges that what they wanted +most at the moment was to scratch their legs peacefully. + +“I call this a frightfully good party,” said Gerald, breezily. + +“Yes, it’s most enjoyable,” agreed Norah Hartigan. + +“I don’t think there’s anything like these tennis parties you have in +Ireland.” + +“We have never been to tennis parties in England,” replied Doreen. + +“Oh, you must certainly come over.” + +“I dare say we should feel strange,” said Norah and her sister agreed +with her. Gerald smiled from one to the other so encouragingly that +they told him how a sister of theirs, who was not here to-day, had +once stayed for quite a long time near London, and had been taken by +an aunt, who was rather what they would call a London Society sort of +person, to a very fashionable party--in South Kensington it had been. +But their sister had not cared for the party, she thought the English +unnatural and said it was extraordinary how their voices sounded when +they were all shut up in the one room. “But excuse me,” concluded the +elder Miss Hartigan, turning away because she was afraid the talk was +becoming personal and scratching her ankle as discreetly as possible, +“we should not say this to you.” + +“It was splendid of you to forget I was English. Well, we shall all be +leaving you soon, I dare say; all we jolly old army of occupation.” + +“Oh, one wouldn’t like to call you _that_,” said Miss Hartigan, +deprecatingly. + +“--As soon as we’ve lost this jolly old war.” + +“Oh, but one wouldn’t call it a _war_.” + +“If anyone would, we could clean these beggars out in a week.” + +“We think it would be a great pity to have a war,” said the Hartigans +firmly. “There’s been enough unpleasantness already, hasn’t there?... +And it would be a shame for you all to go,” added Doreen warmly, but +not too warmly because they were all men. In fact, it was all rather +embarrassing, they fixed their eyes on the players firmly and wished +that the set would finish. They thought how daring it was of Mr. +Lesworth to come so far to a party at all, and only hoped he would not +be shot on the way home; though they couldn’t help thinking how, if he +should be, they would both feel so interesting afterwards. “Poor young +fellow,” they thought with particular tenderness because he was so +good-looking, and neither of them, with this tenderness in their eyes, +dared to look at him. + +Livvy was walking along the top of the bank with David Armstrong. She +smiled, with a small tooth over her lower lip; the tip of her nose +quivered downward with feminine sensibility. “It is really a long time +since I have seen you, Mr. Armstrong.” + +David was the nicest of all the subalterns; so agreeable. “Why, yes,” +he agreed, “I suppose it really must be.” He glanced at the brim of her +hat and added: “It has certainly seemed an awful long time to me.” + +“Oh, you mustn’t say that,” cried Livvy; she blushed to the chin and +laughed. + +“_I_ don’t see why I shouldn’t,” said David, alarmed but gratified. + +“Well, I mean, you oughtn’t to say it _like_ that!” + +“But I can’t help saying what I mean.” His manliness increased with +confusion. “I suppose I am that kind of fellow.” + +“You _are_ awful!” Livvy laughed so much from the shock of David’s +behaviour that people sitting along the foot of the bank looked up +expectantly. She would not share him, she hurried him off at an +angle and then continued: “Why were you not at the Mount Isabel +bicycle gymkhana? I understood you to say that you would be. It was +the greatest pity you couldn’t be there, it was a grand gymkhana, +and they had a putting competition too. And they had sentries armed +in the avenue and made twenty-four pounds for the hospital. And the +priest’s niece from Kilnagowan fell off and cut her lip; she bled too +dreadfully, but Doreen Hartigan has her V.A.D. certificate. And two +hundred people sat down to tea--how was it now that you couldn’t be +there?” + +“On duty,” said David, and took on a mystic and obstinate look. “I was +up with some of the men and an N.C.O. in those mountains the other side +of the Madder.” + +Livvy felt in her spine, running down it from under her waistband, a +sharp little thrill. She felt all the soldiers’ woman, and said in a +glow: “Well, I call that too awfully dangerous.” He told her: “It’s +what we are here for.” They glanced at each other, then both were +embarrassed--and showed it--at what they had seen. She stooped, and her +hat was an elegant mushroom. From David’s complexion blushes cleared +slowly away--the last having never quite vanished into his hair before +another came after it up from his well-fitting collar. + +“I can’t think what Lois can be doing.” She peered through gaps in the +shrubbery towards the gate of the garden. This concern for her friend +she put up and twirled like a parasol between them. She sighed: the +expansion of her thin little frame, the rise and fall of her two little +points of bosom were clearly visible under her white silk jersey. Her +panama hat turned down and light tufts of hair came out in fluttering +commas against her cheekbones. From under the brim her eyes looked, +slanting slightly up at the corners, with a veiled preoccupied kind of +inquisitiveness. She was inquisitive as to so many things her friend +Lois hoped one might not have to bother about. David watched her watch +the shrubbery for her friend and thought, with a shock, that this +really did seem a girl he was to be in love with. He had the fatalism +of a recurrent sufferer. + +“It will be too bad,” continued Livvy, “if she doesn’t come soon. +You would think she might be picking those raspberries herself. You +see, all the people she asked from Clonmore have come and were not +expected. If she doesn’t come soon I must go--yes, indeed I must, +Mr. Armstrong--and see about the two next fours. You see, her cousin +Laurence is no good for that, he is so intellectual, and Lady Naylor +doesn’t much notice the tennis so long as the party goes off all right. +But it seems too bad she shouldn’t see Mr. Lesworth. I expect Mr. +Lesworth often speaks to you of her, doesn’t he, Mr. Armstrong?” + +“Er--I don’t remember, really.” + +“I think it’s wonderful to see a man so much in love. I must say I +often wonder what love feels like. I always seem to feel so natural +about the men I know. But I suppose that’s because I am so young--or +perhaps I was born platonic. Do you believe in platonics, Mr. +Armstrong?” + +“Plato? Jolly old Grecian--what?” + +“No, but listen--do you?” + +“Well, what I think,” said David, looking carefully at his racquet +and turning it over and over--“of course it is awfully difficult to +express, but I think the right kind of girl and the right kind of +fellow can be almost anything to each other, if you know what I mean?” + +“_I_ think,” said Livvy, “you put it rather wonderfully.” She suddenly +waved her racquet. “Ah--there’s Lois!” + +Lois came down the shrubbery path from the garden startled, as if at +her own great speed, flushed and visibly breathless. A pink unbuttoned +cardigan slipped away at the shoulders, she had a hand in both the +pockets to keep it on. Her hat flapped back, it rose above her face +in surprise, like a wave. Behind her the bushes stirred in an almost +visible backwash. Over the laurels, cropped knee-high at the back of +the tennis court, her body rose and dipped with her long steps. + +“Ah, here she is!” exclaimed several people, and all looked up the +bank uncritically and kindly. The dark air of the shrubbery glittered +with midges; she jerked her hands from her pockets and waved her way +through. Chinks of sunlight darted up her like mice and hesitated away +like butterflies. She had been looking down at the party, deployed in +all its promise, with greed and eagerness as at a box of chocolates; +eyes like a thumb and finger hovering to selection. Now, engaged by its +look, she became all profile; her step flattened, she would have liked +to crawl. She was, as Mr. Montmorency had noticed, very self-conscious. + +The Hartigans said to Gerald: “Here comes Lois; isn’t she very +sweet-looking!” They smiled at each other across him. + +He said “Rather!” pocketing their tribute gratefully, with simplicity, +as a small boy pockets a tip. His directness baffled them, they were +shocked--but he thought how nice they were. In his world affections +were rare and square--four-square--occurring like houses in a +landscape, unrelated and positive, though with sometimes a large bright +looming--as of the sunned west face of Danielstown over the tennis +courts. He did not conceive of love as a nervous interchange but as +something absolute, out of the scope of thought, beyond himself, matter +for a confident outward rather than anxious inward looking. He had +sought and was satisfied with a few--he thought final--repositories +for his emotions: his mother, country, dog, school, a friend or two, +now--crowningly--Lois. Of these he asked only that they should be +quiet and positive, not impinged upon, not breaking boundaries from +their generous allotment. His life was a succession of practical +adjustments, into which the factor of personality did not enter at +all. His reserve--to which one was apt to accord a too sensitive +reverence--was an affair of convenience rather than protection. Pressed +for a statement, he could have said, “I love her,” to the Hartigans, +Mrs. Carey, anyone there, without uneasiness, without a sense of the +words’ vibrations or alarm at a loud impact on something hollow. So he +looked up the bank at Lois, while the Hartigans watched him. + +Mr. Montmorency sat on the ground with his knees apart, holding his +ankles limply. His grey flannel coat-collar was turned up over his +white shirt, as though a strong wind were blowing. He was being talked +to by ladies who sat above him on high green chairs, and though he +looked up to answer, it was never higher than their knees. He had more +than ever his waxen blinking look, as though exposed unnaturally to the +sunshine. His nostrils contracted slightly, as though the smell drawn +up from the roots of the grass in a perpetual hot shimmer were more +offensive than he cared to explain. He was to play in the next set, +and Laurence looked forward to a melancholy exhibition of departed +proficiency. A wiry tenseness and setting of teeth there would be, +Laurence anticipated, then balls going straight and cleanly into the +net. He would be the magnificent player of ten years ago, with little +painful grunts as point after point was given away. Laurence guessed +that Mr. Montmorency hated parties and conversation as much as he +himself did, but being less adept at evasion or honouring less fiercely +the virginity of his intelligence, could not escape from talking and +being talked to. + +Laurence achieved this escape by sitting always with a social alert +expression between two groups, when one tried to claim him he could +affect to be engaged by the other. + +A net had been carefully stretched behind the seats to prevent balls +going through to the shrubbery. But it was full of rents, and these +the balls, driven with force from the further back line, discovered +unerringly. To meet these deficiencies children up from the lodge were +on duty in the shrubbery; they stared and rambled, pushing among the +laurels. They got their teas, an excellent view of the party and a +halfpenny for every ball they recovered. Those who did not find any +balls and seemed disappointed were given halfpennies also. So why, as +Lady Naylor said, bother? She hated to see her guests go round the net, +smearing their nice white flannels. + +But now, as three balls in succession fled through the leaves, she +broke off a conversation and cried: This was too much! Would some kind +person--she looked at Laurence--go round and help? He rose, reluctant: +simultaneously Mr. Montmorency went gratefully round the net at the +other end. He was followed by an anxious little boy called Hercules, +the only child among the guests and gravely _de trop_. They all three +met in the middle. + +Laurence said--beating the bushes vaguely--“Imagine, sir, a small +resurrection day, an intimate thing-y one, when the woods should +give up their tennis balls and the bundles of hay their needles: the +beaches all their engagement rings and the rivers their cigarette +cases and some watches. The sea’s too general, an affair of furniture +and large boilers, it could wait with the graves for the big day.... +Yes, Hercules, that is a tennis ball, but it is pre-war. Put it back +in the rabbit hole for the children to find; it is worth a halfpenny +to them.... Last term I dropped a cigarette case into the Cher, from +the bridge at Parson’s Pleasure. It was a gold one, left over from +an uncle, flat and thin and curved, for a not excessive smoker. It +was from the days when they wore opera cloaks and mashed, and killed +ladies. It was very period, very virginal; I called it Henry James; I +loved it. I want to see it rush up out of the Cher, very pale, with +eyeballs, like in the Tate Gallery. It wants a woman to be interested +in a day like that, to organize; perhaps the Virgin Mary? Don’t you +think, sir?” + +Mr. Montmorency, startled at this address, replied: “I have never been +to the Tate Gallery.” + +“Talking of being virginal, do you ever notice this country? Doesn’t +sex seem irrelevant?” + +“There certainly are a great many unmarried women,” said Mr. +Montmorency, looking doubtfully through the net at the Miss Hartigans. + +“It is: ‘Ah, why would we?’ And indeed why should they? There is no +reason why one should not, so one never does. It applies to everything. +And children seem in every sense of the word to be inconceivable.” + +“My mother has five,” said Hercules, “I am the youngest. Hercules is a +family name because I am the only boy, but when I go to school I shall +be called Richard after my godfather, as everybody says that Hercules +even as an initial would be such a disadvantage to me, though not +nearly so bad as being afraid of bats.” + +“I wonder you aren’t at school now,” said Mr. Montmorency. + +“It would be holidays now anyhow, so I should be bound to be here. That +is my eldest sister, playing tennis. They do not see how I can possibly +go to school till I have got over being afraid of bats. Besides, I am +using up the end of my sisters’ governess.” + +“Nobody could possibly be sorrier for you than I am, Hercules,” said +Laurence. “This is an unreal party.” + +“Well, nobody brought you, I suppose,” said Hercules. + +The strong and dreadful smell of laurels made them all irritable. +Hercules tore off the tips of bland leaves which kept slapping +against his forehead. Laurence came with a ball on his racquet to Mr. +Montmorency and said: “I am sure this is one that you lost with Uncle +Richard and poor John Trent and the man who did not go to Ceylon in the +summer of ’06.” + +“Whereas, I did not go to Canada.” + +“No, you never did, did you?” + +Lady Naylor came and looked at them through the netting. “If between +you you cannot find any balls,” she said, “Laurence, you had better +please fetch that other box from the back hall. They are beginning a +new set with only three.” + +“I have two here that seem quite clean, but they haven’t much bounce,” +said Hercules. + +“Oh, that is splendid, you are a good little boy!” She took the balls +from him through a hole. “Here are a nice lot to go on with,” she +called out hopefully, rolling them to the court. Mr. Montmorency and +Laurence went on searching. + +“Now take Aunt Myra; what does she think she’s doing?” + +“If it comes to that,” said Mr. Montmorency, nettled, “what do you +think _you_’re doing? Why are you here at all if you don’t like it--as +Hercules said? I was happy here at your age, I was full of the place, I +asked nothing better. I ask nothing better now.” + +“Oh,” said Laurence. + +“However, I have no doubt you are right in being dissatisfied; I dare +say it is progress,” said Mr. Montmorency angrily. “I dare say it is +good for the race.” + +Laurence, who did not consider that he had anything to do with the +race, replied with some indignation: “I have no money; where do you +expect me to get any money from? I was to have gone to Spain this month +with a man and last year I should have gone to Italy with another man, +but what do you expect me to go on? I have to eat somwhere, don’t I, +and here it is simply a matter of family feeling.” + +“This is one of the balls; I shall throw it over.... I had no idea that +you were such a materialist.” + +“I can’t help my stomach. Besides, I like eating, it is so real. But +I should like something else to happen, some crude intrusion of the +actual. I feel all gassy inside from yawning. I should like to be here +when this house burns.” + +“Quite impossible; quite unthinkable. Why don’t you fish or +something?... Nonsense!” he added, looking warningly at the house. + +“Of course it will, though. And we shall all be so careful not to +notice.” + +“Are you the undergraduate of to-day?” + +“I should love to be quite, quite abstract.” + +Mr. Montmorency, offended by all this clever conversation, felt more +than ever his isolation, his homelessness. Life was to him an affair of +discomfort, but that discomfort should be made articulate seemed to him +shocking. The over-fine machinery of his mind ceaselessly strained and +caught and was agonizingly jerked over details. His refuge was manly +talk: he suspected Laurence. He said: “You are fortunate. There was +never a time when I had not other people to think about.” + +Laurence, who immediately thought this womanish, said: “Oh yes, love.” +He flicked out and studied the word indifferently--coin of uncertain +value. + +“Not entirely. One had a certain debt ...” + +“Oh, yes, yes.” + +Laurence became more formal, very much better mannered. He recalled +that the man was married, had given away his integrity, had not even +a bed to himself. The husband, glancing a last time through and under +the bushes, was negligible, diffused even a certain staleness. Laurence +sheered away mentally, moved further off through the shrubbery. He had +been talking foolishly, in his vein of the third or fourth quality, and +regretted now having talked still. He felt there had been something +morbid about his intrusion, as in a visit to a prison. + +“I was to have played in that second set,” said Mr. Montmorency. “It +seems to be nearly over: perhaps I shall play in the third.” + +“Tea will be coming, never forget tea.” Indeed, a move was being made +to the house already. Tea was too grave an affair to be carried out; +besides, one wasn’t accustomed to stability in the weather. + +“Oh, Hugo, come out now, dear,” cried Francie, walking past with Mrs. +Hartigan. “I am sure it doesn’t matter about the balls. And the Trents +have come--don’t you see them? We are just going back to the house to +meet them now.” + +“Archie? Splendid!” He burst from the shrubbery at the other side, +gained the path and hurried towards the house. At a turn of the path, +in an arch cut under some holly, he saw Gerald and Lois standing; +talking, looking down earnestly at their racquets. With her head bent, +Lois was like her mother. He stared, then passed them quickly. + +But Lois did not notice him going by. She was saying: “I feel certain +you have illusions about me; I don’t believe you know what I’m like +a bit.” And while she spoke she counted the crimson strings in her +racquet: three down, six across. + + + + + VI + + +MRS. VERMONT ate more hot cakes than she cared to remember, because +they were so good and nobody seemed to notice. She went on to chocolate +cake, then to orange layer cake, to which she returned again and again. +An idea she had had, that one should not eat very much when invited +out, languished; she finished up with a plate of raspberries. She put +all thought of her figure resolutely behind her. Mother, of course, had +filled out terribly, but oneself mightn’t. + +“Nummy-nummy,” she said, pointing out the raspberries to David +Armstrong who sat beside her. “David have some!” + +Livvy Thompson, sitting beyond David, deplored these women who talked +baby-talk. She felt that her own appeal to men was more serious. “Mr. +Armstrong has got to play in the next set,” she said warningly. + +“Hoity-toity!” thought Betty Vermont (she never used the expression +aloud, as she was not certain how one pronounced it: it was one of her +inner luxuries). Turning to Mrs. Carey (the Honourable Mrs. Carey), who +sat on her other side, she said frankly: + +“Your scrumptious Irish teas make a perfect piggy-wig of me. And +dining-room tea, of course, makes me a kiddy again.” + +“Does it really?” said Mrs. Carey, and helped herself placidly to +another slice of the chocolate cake. She thought of Mrs. Vermont +as “a little person” and feared she detected in her a tendency, +common to most English people, to talk about her inside. She often +wondered if the War had not made everybody from England a little +commoner. She added pleasantly: “This chocolate cake is a speciality +of Danielstown’s. I believe it’s a charm that they make it by, not a +recipe.” + +“Things do run in families, don’t they? Now I am sure you’ve all got +ghosts.” + +“I can’t think of any,” said Mrs. Carey, accepting another cup of tea. +She smiled and nodded across the table to Mrs. Archie Trent, who had +just come in. “We have been much more worried lately by people taking +away our car. Of course it is always brought back again, but one +doesn’t like to think of its being used for nefarious purposes. That is +the worst of a Ford.” + +Mrs. Vermont opened her mouth to tell Mrs. Carey the latest Ford story, +then checked herself because in Ireland they seemed to take Fords so +seriously. She observed instead: “All this is terrible for you all, +isn’t it? I do think you’re so sporting the way you just stay where +you are and keep going on. Who would ever have thought the Irish would +turn out so disloyal--I mean, of course, the lower classes! I remember +Mother saying in 1916--you know, when that dreadful rebellion broke +out--she said: ‘This _has_ been a shock to me, I never shall feel the +same about the Irish again.’ You see, she had brought us all up as +kiddies to be so keen on the Irish, and Irish songs. I still have a +little bog-oak pig she brought me back from an exhibition. She always +said they were the most humorous people in the world, and with hearts +of gold. Though of course we had none of us ever been in Ireland.” + +“Well, I hope you are pleased with us now you have come,” said Mrs. +Carey hospitably. “I expect you have all been enjoying this lovely +weather?” + +“Oh, _well_--you see, we didn’t come over to enjoy ourselves, did we? +We came to take care of all of you--and, of course, we are ever so +glad to be able to do it. Not that I don’t like the country; it’s so +picturesque with those darling mountains and the hens running in and +out of the cottages just the way Mother always said. But, you see, one +can’t help worrying all the time about Timmie--my husband--and all +the boys: out all night sometimes with the patrols or else off in the +mountains.” + +“Terrible. And do you find this a tiring climate?” + +A word attracted Mrs. Trent’s attention across the table. “Terrible +what?” she said. “Terrible who?” She was youngish, brusque and +dominant; the high pink colour over her face as from riding hard in +a wind gave her a look of zestfulness alarming to Mrs. Vermont. “I +shouldn’t worry,” she said to Mrs. Vermont. + +Mrs. Vermont replied with a shade of asperity that it was _they_ who +were in a position to worry and therefore must not. “’Cause _we_’re +here to take care of you!” The remark, caught in a momentary silence +around the table, was received with civility and attention. “That’s +splendid!” said Mrs. Trent heartily. She got up, having finished her +tea rapidly and went to smoke outside. Her husband was M.F.H. and +really, thought Mrs. Vermont, they did not seem to worry about anything +but wire. Mrs. Vermont turned for support to David; his ears were +scarlet, he rapidly stirred his tea. + +Five days ago, an R.I.C. barracks at Ballydrum had been attacked and +burnt out after a long defence. Two of the defenders were burnt inside +it, the others shot coming out. The wires were cut, the roads blocked; +there had been no one to send for help, so there was no help for them. +It was this they had all been discussing, at tea, between tennis: “the +horrible thing.” No one could quite understand why Captain Vermont and +the subalterns did not seem more appalled and interested. It was not +apparent how the subject rasped on their sensibilities. These things +happened, were deplored and accepted, and still no one seemed to look +on David or Gerald, Smith, Carmichael or Mrs. Vermont’s Timmie as a +possible remedy. Here they all were, playing tennis, and every one +seemed delighted. “If they’d just let us out for a week--” felt the +young men. David could not look up as he stirred his tea. What was the +good of them? This, he felt, every one should be wondering. But the +party would indeed have been dull without them, there would have been +no young men. Nobody wished them elsewhere. + +Lois had been worrying chiefly because Gerald had illusions about her, +also, as to whether Aunt Myra noticed the raspberries still would not +go round. The guests for which she was responsible were not only +unexpected but ravenous. And while she sat watching Aunt Myra, Gerald +sat watching herself as though she were an entirely different person, +not the sort of person one could describe at all. After tea she played +on the upper court with Captain Vermont, against Gerald and Nona Carey. +She played well, all her strokes came off; it seemed that worry agreed +with her. It could not agree with Gerald, who played badly. Then it +occurred to her: he was not worried; she had not the power to worry +him. Some idea he had formed of herself remained inaccessible to her; +she could not affect it. + +By now the upper court was in shadow, they all flickered against the +dark screen of the trees like figures cut out of light green velvet. +Below, where hot bands of light still blinded the players, there was +a suggestion of strain and violence. Whenever she looked down, Mr. +Montmorency seemed to be handing balls to his partner in silent anger. +She guessed it must be himself who was playing badly, so that while she +could not resist looking down, she had to keep looking away from him +just as fast. + +“You were splendid,” said Captain Vermont when their set finished. + +“Oh no, I wasn’t,” said Lois by reflex action, and wished all the other +things to which she was always replying, “Oh no, I didn’t,” or “Oh no, +I’m not,” were half as true. And she thought what a pity it was that +Mr. Montmorency, instead of exerting himself so fruitlessly, had not +been sitting there at the edge of the court to watch her. + +She walked down the slope from the court with Gerald beside her. +Conscious of many people’s attention, she did not know if she seemed +enviable or foolish. “I wish you wouldn’t keep looking so pleased the +whole time,” she said to Gerald. + +“Oh?... but I am.” + +“What at?” + +“Well, I love coming over here. I think you have such awfully nice +parties.” + +“Oh, the party.... But David enjoys them, and he hasn’t got the same +expression as you have. In fact, he looks rather sick. What can be the +matter?” + +“Well, we all feel a little rotten about that barrack.” + +“_Don’t!_ Do you know that while that was going on, eight miles off, I +was cutting a dress out, a voile that I didn’t even need, and playing +the gramophone?... How is it that in this country that ought to be full +of such violent realness, there seems nothing for me but clothes and +what people say? I might just as well be in some kind of cocoon.” + +“But what could you have done? You, you--” + +“I might at least have felt something.” + +“But you do; you’ve got the most wonderful power of feeling.” + +“But you never take in a word I say. You’re not interested when I tell +you about myself.” + +“You know I could listen all day to you talking.” + +She thought: “As though you could make me talk all day!” To cover the +thought she said earnestly: + +“You think we don’t all understand your not being there in time and +not doing anything afterwards? We’re not all such idiots. We know +it’s most terribly difficult for you and that you must obey orders. +It’s bad luck the orders are silly. It’s all this dreadful idea about +self-control. When _we_ do nothing it is out of politeness, but England +is so moral, so dreadfully keen on not losing her temper, or being +for half a moment not a great deal more noble than anyone else. Can +you wonder this country gets irritated? It’s as bad for it as being a +woman. I never can see why women shouldn’t be hit, or should be saved +from wrecks when everybody complains they’re superfluous.” + +“You don’t understand: it would be ghastly if those things went.” + +“Why? I don’t see--and _I_ am a woman.” + +Which was, of course, exactly why it wasn’t to be expected or desired +she _should_ understand. He smiled, too happy to answer, and tore out a +handful of leaves from the privet hedge. She had this one limitation, +his darling Lois; she couldn’t look on her own eyes, had no idea what +she was, resented almost his attention being so constantly fixed on +something she wasn’t aware of. A fellow did not expect to be to a girl +what a girl was to a fellow--this wasn’t modesty, specially, it was an +affair of function--so that the girl must be excused for a possible +failure in harmony, a sometimes discordant irreverence. When he said: +“You will never know what you mean to me,” he made plain his belief in +her perfection as a woman. She wasn’t made to know, she was not fit for +it. She was his integrity, of which he might speak to strangers but of +which to her he would never speak. + +He tore out another handful of leaves from the hedge and scattered +them carefully over the grass. They both laughed. + +She was thinking: “When next I write to Viola, can I describe him?” +Viola flashed off her men in a phrase, with a sweep of her red quill +pen. The red pen had leaned from the Chinese inkpot, against the +window, like a thin flame, a leaning flamingo on that day’s sunny mist +in the Westminster street. It remained a picture of their intercourse. +They had said good-bye in December, a slight day, anxious between the +enormous past and future. The parting was hardly real, they had barely +kissed. They were impatient, nervous, waiting for the curtain to rise. +They had just left school. + +They had left school the day before. Yet the new life had been +impatient for Viola, drawing her away from Lois in the taxi, +appropriating her with certainty. She had stepped from their taxi +toppling with school trunks with a kind of solemnity, as on to a +carpet stretched for her festal approach from the kerb to the doors +of her home. Next day, when they said good-bye, her hair was in place +already, woven into her personality. Her pigtail had been the one +loose end there was of her, an extension of her that had independence, +a puppyish walloping thing with nerves of its own. Now the hair was +woven in bright sleek circles over her ears, each strand round like an +eel’s body. The effect completed her; Lois knew she had been missing or +else discounting something all these years. Viola must have played at +being a schoolgirl just as Lois would have to play at being a woman. +Two expensive young men’s photographs had risen like suns on her +mantelpiece; these young men had loved since last Easter holidays; +their position was now regularized magically by the putting up of +Viola’s hair. For only little commonalities, she declared, had affairs +while still at school. And Lois, after that good-bye so distinct and +distant, as at the little end of a telescope, had left her with the +composed, knowing photographs and the red pen leaning against the +sunshine. She had wondered, going out to a day of shopping and the +night mail to be caught at Euston, whether life was to hold for her, +too, a man’s passion; and if so, when? And she had bought a dozen pairs +of silk stockings and the black georgette Aunt Myra said was “old.” + +But a man’s passion was not at all the thing. My dear, too Dell-ish! +Viola went to what she supposed one would call her first ball; in +tulle she went, smoke blue, with a close gold-leaf round the hair--not +bright gold, dull gold. Various people had seemed intrigued, were in +fact intrigued rather definitely. There was So-and-so, an absurd person +(flash of the red pen), and the aloof, rather mask-like So-and-so--who +might intrigue Lois. But when it came to _So-and-so_ (a most brilliant +flash of the pen) Viola would admit to Lois she _was_ affected: it +really had been affecting. But enough of Viola. “Now, Lois darling, you +must tell me about them all: I must know everybody.” + +And there arose, recurrently, the difficulty in describing Gerald. Who +else had been intrigued, Lois was not certain. How much was somebody +intrigued when they wished to sit out in a car in the barrack square +for four dances? Might not Viola consider sitting out in a car at all +rather Dell-ish? When some one tried to kiss you with whisky-ish +breath, how much were they intrigued and how much was whisky? She +thought a major proposed to her, though he seemed rather old, but he +was so much confused and had such a mumbly moustache she could not be +certain. And later on at the Clonmore Club a lady was pointed out to +her as, she was almost certain, that major’s wife. David had seemed +intrigued, but then he himself intrigued Livvy so very definitely and +did not a young man under these conditions become slightly sordid? +So Lois became so very general in her references that Viola was +suspicious: she asked, was there really anyone? Then she began to +write in a married-womanish tone of encouragement, which considering +she _could_ be married at any moment was really justified. Lois was +forced to state, there _was_ a man in the Rutlands, a Gerald Lesworth, +whom she found affecting. She supposed there was no question as to his +being intrigued; people seemed to notice. So Viola wrote back, she must +hear all about him, should have heard before: her Lol was really the +final Sphinx. She wanted to know, to see, to hear him, even to smell +him--because all the nicest men did smell, didn’t they, indefinably but +divinely. One noticed it when one was dancing or, sometimes, sitting +out. So now, please, everything; by return. + +Viola did not like moustaches, but some men did qualify their +moustaches, surely? Gerald’s lay like a fine dark shadow, so that +his lip seemed to curl up more than it did. It answered his eyebrows +somehow--that had a way of drawing together while he spoke--and some +soft edgeless darkness about his eyes. If one mentioned his teeth +so white that his smile seemed a long slow flash in the tanned face, +didn’t it make him sound like Fairbanks? For he was _not_, at all. +He had a way of looking down while he spoke, as though his thoughts +were under his eyelids. From his look she had sometimes turned in +impatience, never in discomfort. There was emotion there unclothed in +the demi-decency of thought; nakedness, not a suggestive deshabille. +If he was looking away and one spoke, his eyes returned with an +extraordinary look of welcome. He had a good chin, cut sharply away +underneath with a strong shadow. His head was pleasant with bumps, +that made planes of light and shadow over his polished hair. And she +knew she liked something about the back of his neck: it was a personal +neck--not just a connection, an isthmus--with skin fitting closely over +the muscles. + +As she stood looking at Gerald by the privet hedge, he emerged from the +mist of familiarity, clear to her mental eye. She saw him as though for +the first time, with a quick response to his beauty; she saw him as +though he were dead, as though she had lost him, with the pang of an +evocation. While she could hold him thus--before he receded or came too +closely forward--she wanted to run indoors and write to Viola. Viola +would be certain to tell her she loved him, and by that declaration, to +be expressed with vigour, Lois was too certain to be affected. She was +afraid at the thought of it. + +She would have loved to love him; she felt some kind of wistfulness, +some deprivation. If there could only be some change, some movement--in +her, outside of her, somewhere between them--some incalculable +shifting of perspectives that would bring him wholly into focus, mind +and spirit, as she had been bodily in focus now--she could love him. +Something must be transmuted.... Or else, possibly, if he would not +love her so, could give her air to grow in, not stifle imagination. + +He said: “What’s the matter? Bothered?” + +“Thinking--about you, in a kind of way.” + +“Good.” + +“I was describing you. How would you describe me?” + +He was surprised, he needed time to think of this; he did not know. “I +must just go in,” she said--“do you mind?--and write a letter. It’s so +important. Will you post it for me at Clonmore?” + +But meanwhile, they had been irritating Lady Naylor, who seeing Lois +stand so vaguely down by the privet hedge, disclaiming implicitly +the party given for her amusement, was goaded to the point of an +interruption. Now she called: “Lois--Lois!” + +Lois sighed and went to her. + +“I want you to take the Trents and Maguires and Boatleys round +the garden,” she said as her niece approached. “I shall be coming +later”--she murmured: “when some more of the people have gone. Mrs. +Trent wants a cutting of the allspice and would like to see if there’s +anything else she would like. Tell Donovan.” She murmured again: “And +don’t let Mrs. Boatley get with Mrs. Maguire, she is a Christian +Scientist and will talk of it, and you know the Maguires’ little +nephew died of that. And if the Boatleys like the peaches give them +some; let Donovan pack them.” She added in a still lower tone of +reproach: “Because I don’t believe there were raspberries for them at +tea.” + + + + + VII + + +FRANCIE was finding Laurence not so difficult after all, if one just +ran on quite naturally. They sat at the top of the steps together, +after everybody had gone. The fields looked wider, the sky more +gracious and distant seen through the clearing smoke of social +activity. The Trents left last but one, the Hartigans and their aunt +Mrs. Foxe-O’Connor had just gone jogging away up the avenue, knee to +knee in their little trap. The gravel at the foot of the steps was +all scored up and flung into spirals by the turning of wheels. Early +to-morrow, there would be a busy sound of gardeners raking it smooth +again. At present, there was the busy sound of rooks: it heightened +Mrs. Montmorency’s and Laurence’s peaceful lassitude to reflect that +rooks still had to talk, to flock and mix in intricate sociability. Men +and women had, since seven o’clock, been released from this obligation. + +There was nothing to say, they did not have to say anything: they +exclaimed their thoughts casually, not answering one another’s, on +the retreat towards silence. All the afternoon they had been asking +questions, and ignoring the answers as far as possible. Laurence +knew he could not be asked by his aunt to bring the chairs in or see +whether Lois had locked up the garden while he sat here, so apparently +entertaining Mrs. Montmorency. + +Francie had not wanted to know how anyone was; health played too large +a part in her life already. She had not wanted to know if they thought +the garden lovely--the supremacy of Danielstown garden made opinion +irrelevant--whether they preferred winter to summer because of the +hunting, or summer to winter because of the tennis. Neither had it +seemed to Laurence important whether anyone wanted more tea or had had +really enough, whether they feared to be driven into the ditch by Black +and Tans on the way home, or whether they knew Oxford. They both felt +themselves coming to life again slowly, now that the party was over, +and putting off a sort of antagonism. At an upstairs window they could +hear Lady Naylor and Lois discussing the guests, agreeing that it had +been a successful day. + +Francie said: “I do wonder now whether this weather will last.” +This gold weather had all the delights of a new perception, it made +Danielstown real as a memory. + +“I suppose they don’t really feel like that inside,” said Laurence. + +“I wonder at them bringing a child like Hercules. I found him walking +about the house when I went up for my air-cushion. The poor little +fellow ... I let him blow up my air-cushion and then I took him and +showed him photographs of the Carnival that I brought back from Nice. +We talked quite a time; he tells me he is afraid of bats. I wonder now +why they called him Hercules.” + +“Wouldn’t it be terrible to be in the Army ...” + +“Isn’t that young Mr. Lesworth devoted to Lois? I wonder does she feel +it at all?” + +“I always wonder what one does in the Army when one’s not doing +something particular, very particularly.” + +“I wonder if they would marry?” + +“Marry?” said Laurence, surprised into attention. “I don’t see why. +Though I don’t see why not. As Lois never does anything or seems +to want to, I suppose she must be expecting to marry some one. And +Lesworth is pleasant, I think, and rather pretty. He is like a +photograph of a man in an advertisement putting on the right kind of +collar. Doesn’t advertising develop--I sometimes wonder if one might +not think of taking it up.” + +“But doesn’t she draw very nicely?” + +“Well, she could draw people in the Army doing things, like Lady +Butler.” + +“She is so sweet, I think; I love to watch her.” + +“Her consumption of tennis is something enormous. There’s tennis +to-morrow at Castle Trent and I’ve got to drive her over. I often +wonder whether she really _would_ get assaulted by Black and Tans if +she went alone, or by sinister patriots, or whether she might not be +old enough now to look after herself.” + +“I’m afraid at _her_ age,” said Francie, blushing; “her age isn’t any +protection.” + +“I cannot imagine wanting to assault anybody. But then I never can +conceive of anybody else’s mentality--or isn’t that mentality? Why is +it so much worse for a young girl to miss tennis than for a young man +to miss Spain? I suppose it is something to do with the life force and +that one must not trace the connection.” + +“I wonder why she’s so fond of that Livvy Thompson--she seems to me +managing.” + +“She’s not fond--it’s contiguity. Why should they chop up the rather +beautiful name of Olivia into something that sounds like cat’s meat?” + +_This_ Francie well understood, she herself did not care to be +called Frances, it sounded formal. She sighed, and gathered together +the folds of her grey-and-blue “mottledy” foulard. She had been +wondering--watching Hugo so happy with Mrs. Trent, and now the +speculation recurred to her--whether the woman Hugo had really needed +would not have worn coats and skirts, snapped her fingers at dogs +and recrossed her legs with decision. Mrs. Trent was an amusing good +sort; she so radiated the quality that Francie, after a minute or +two’s conversation, had felt quite a good sort also. Was she, though, +perfectly understanding? But then did not Hugo perhaps feel a little +smothered in one’s own understanding, a little reduced by it? For +instance: Francie thought, honestly, Hugo had played magnificently +this afternoon; several people had said to her: “It’s a delight to +see your husband play on these courts again”; they would not have +said that, surely, if he had not been playing magnificently! But even +so armed, she would not be able to combat Hugo’s conviction that his +tennis was going off, because it was something he never mentioned and +he would be furious at hearing it put into words. So still she would +have to feel his pride suffer--as though he were growing old, when +there wasn’t a shadow of age on him. She remembered how he had shown up +to-day, playing, sitting or walking, among the young men. She liked the +young men, but they seemed all limbs and faces, not yet related. She +wondered what Hugo had thought of the young men. + +She thought of their room upstairs with quiet light in the ceiling; +of ghostly roses that still showed faintly when one drew the curtains +over the daylight. She supposed she ought to be lying down; she got up, +murmuring something, and went indoors. Laurence stood up, vacillating. +He wondered if they would meet him and make him do things if he were to +venture up for his book. + +Francie, crossing the ante-room, was waylaid by Lady Naylor coming out +of Lois’s room. “Ah, there you are, Francie, good! Now I’m longing to +know what you thought of them all. To tell you the truth, I am thankful +it’s safely over. I hope they enjoyed themselves really: they _looked_ +all right.” + +“Indeed they must have! It was a great success.” They sat down on two +of the crimson chairs, stepping-stones over a lake of floor, to discuss +the party. + +Francie declared how pleasant she had found Mrs. Archie Trent, and how +nice it had been to see Mrs. Carey again, and how handsome Nona was +growing up. And what a pity it was, she said, about the Hartigans; they +had been grown-up girls when she had seen them last, and it did seem +hard! “And oh,” she cried, in a glow of pleasure and sympathy, “isn’t +that young Mr. Lesworth very devoted?” + +“Yes, he has charming manners; he comes over here a good deal. He’s so +helpful with chairs and rugs: I do wish he were Laurence!” + +“But so devoted to Lois--and really one can’t be surprised. The way he +follows her round with his eyes--and his feet too--” + +“_Sssh!_” exclaimed Lady Naylor. “She’s in her room! I wouldn’t like +her to pick up ideas like Livvy’s. Are you sure, by the way, you’re +not thinking of Mr. Armstrong? There’s a very great case of devotion +there. He follows Lois and Livvy follows him. I expect in the general +confusion, with so many people, you mixed up the young men. They are +all alike--it’s a pity, I always think. It’s a pity, too, about Lois +and Livvy; it isn’t a friendship I like. But poor Livvy’s motherless +and she’s always riding over to meals, and of course Lois needs girls +of her own age. She made very nice friends at her school in England, +but it’s so unlucky, they’re never allowed to come over. Something said +in the English press has apparently given rise to an idea that this +country’s unsafe. It’s unlucky for Lois. _I_ should never go by the +papers about England.... No, Francie, if you didn’t mix up the young +men, I really don’t know what you mean.” + +“Oh, it’s been very stupid of me,” cried Francie, flushing with +agitation. “Of course I should never have said if I hadn’t thought--if +I hadn’t been led to think ... No, I see now that I oughtn’t to have. +But I thought from what every one said ...” + +“But I am still quite in the dark, dear,” said Lady Naylor, flushed +also and smiling with irritation. “I suppose, however, you must have +gathered that as I _don’t_ understand what you _do_ mean, what you mean +cannot really be so.” + +“Oh, of course,” agreed Francie, ruffling the silk on her lap with +light, feathery touches. “All the same, I do think you ought to know, +Myra, that every one said ...” + +“One cannot help what people say, though it is always annoying. Not +that I ever do know what they say: I make a point of not knowing. +You know how I’ve always turned my face against gossip, especially +these days: it’s annoying to hear of it everywhere, even at one’s +own parties. It’s a very great danger, I think, to the life of this +country.” + +“Well, but really, you couldn’t say this was political. It seems to me +natural that people should take an interest--they’re all so fond of +her. If young Mr. Lesworth and Lois _are_ really--” + +Lady Naylor was forced into open country. “Oh, is that it?” she +exclaimed in enlightenment. “But really, my dear Francie, what a fuss +about nothing! No, not you, dear; I never meant you made the fuss, +but really with all these hints: ‘People are saying,’ you might have +meant almost anything. One’s friends do excel themselves, really! +Just because they’ve played tennis together and danced once or twice! +Really, you would think they wanted one to divide one’s tennis parties +up like a Quaker meeting, and turn ballrooms into that horrible kind +of country dancing they have in England--Anna Partridge’s people do +it--women hopping one way, waving things, men all hopping the other +way, stamping. ‘Really,’ as I said to Anna Partridge, ‘if this is +what you call getting in touch with the people, give me what you call +feudalism!’” + +“Yes. But really, Myra, is it so very improbable? They’re both so +young, and so--” + +“Why yes, of course; exactly!” Lady Naylor sat up in her chair with +a heightening of colour, an incisive gesture; her eyes threatened a +falcon-swoop on her friend’s rash flank. “Ex-_actly!_ Which is one of +the many things that do make it so impossible.” + +“I said ‘Improbable!’” Francie spoke with a funny zest. She hated +arguments as she hated rain; once caught in the rain she could hear +it crashing on her umbrella, feel it spill on her shoulders with +exhilaration. She knew so little excitement. She now felt for the first +time Myra’s equal in vigour and personality; she felt this opposition +to Myra must at last increase their confidence in each other. + +“In the first place,” said Lady Naylor, “he’s a subaltern. Subalterns +can’t marry--not of course that they’re like priests, but they might +just as well be until they are captains and thirty. Colonel Boatley +feels very strongly ... Of course, he’s a thoroughly nice boy, so +much liked in the Regiment. But then, what are the Rutlands nowadays? +Of course they did magnificently in the War. But now they seem to be +full of people like that extraordinary little Mrs. Vermont, who turned +up perfectly pleased with herself this afternoon, in spite of Lois’s +having quite forgotten that she’d asked her. No, _he_ of course is +charming, but he seems to have no relations. One cannot trace him. His +mother, he says, lives in Surrey, and of course you do know, don’t you, +what Surrey _is_. It says nothing, absolutely; part of it is opposite +the Thames Embankment. Practically nobody who lives in Surrey ever +seems to have been heard of, and if one does hear of them they have +never heard of anybody else who lives in Surrey. Really altogether, I +think all English people very difficult to trace. They are so pleasant +and civil, but I do often wonder if they are not a little shallow: +for no reason at all they will pack up everything and move across +six counties.... Of course, I don’t say Gerald Lesworth’s people are +in _trade_--I should never say a thing like that without foundation. +Besides, if they were in trade there would be money, money on English +people shows so much and he quite evidently hasn’t any. No, I should +say they were just villa-ry.” + +“But there are so many villas in England,” said Francie, “that some of +the people who live in them are bound to be nice. I often think so, +looking out of the train.” + +“Very nice in their way, I am sure--but that’s not the immediate point, +dear. There is _no_ question at all--you understand?--of anything +between Mr. Lesworth and Lois. And of course naturally _they_ haven’t +thought of it--if they had, don’t you see, they’d be much more careful +to make it appear there wasn’t. Of course I agree that Lois ought to +be more careful. I was careful at her age; I was careful by instinct, +which is a thing that girls nowadays seem to lack. There seems nothing +to do between putting ideas in a girl’s head and letting her behave +like an absolute donkey. It is all very difficult, really. If she +were my own niece I should speak to her--I should certainly speak to +Laurence if he were going on like that--but as she’s Richard’s niece +I don’t very well see that I can. There’s so little to go on. And I +really cannot have Richard bothered, it makes him so difficult. When he +feels he ought to do something and isn’t sure what, there’s no saying +at all what he may do. One does dislike awkwardness. And it doesn’t +seem kind to ask the young man his intentions when if he _should_ have +any they would have to be quashed immediately.... No, one must leave +it at this. I rely on you, Francie, to contradict any more of this +gossip that comes your way, and you might ask Hugo to also--if he has +heard any-- Perhaps on the whole better not put the idea into his +head; he might forget and discuss it with Richard.... Meanwhile, I +shall talk to Lois seriously about her future. She draws very nicely; +I often think that she might take that up. I must tell her to show you +and Hugo some of her drawings.” + +“But I don’t know anything about drawing.” + +“Oh, all she needs is a little encouragement.” + +“Just one thing, Myra--I think you’re so wise, you’re so perfectly +right, as you know. I do always in general believe in letting things +like this take their course. But ... as this thing can’t _have_ a +course, really mustn’t: is it quite fair to the young man? Because Lois +is so very--” + +Here she broke off, scared by a terrible clatter in Lois’s room. A pail +had been kicked and some furniture violently shifted. + +“Oh, Francie!” exclaimed Lady Naylor reproachfully. “You ought to +remember she’s there! One can’t be too careful! In fact, if you don’t +mind, I expect we had better not talk any more. You must go and lie +down--you’re looking as fresh as a rose, but I know how Hugo insists +upon it.” + +They got up, she took Francie’s arm and led her as far as her door. +Francie felt like something being put back in its box. Lady Naylor went +down, calling, to look for Laurence and ask him to bring the chairs in +and lock up the garden. + +For Lois, this had all been exceedingly difficult. There she was, +caught in her bedroom, she had not the face to come out. The door went +paper-thin as they raised their voices. At first it had seemed all +right: Aunt Myra knew she was in here, having just left her. But soon +their tones changed, a keen hunting note came into them; they were on a +topic. Carried away, Aunt Myra had forgotten. She heard “Lois ... Lois +... Lois ...” She hummed and sang: they were too intent. To one’s sense +of honour such things were agonizing. She leaned right out of a window +into the cooling air, into the hush of limes on the avenue; she watched +Uncle Richard and Mr. Montmorency walk to the white gate. Their heads +nodded down from their shoulders like old men’s, happily; they spoke +of Archie and Mrs. Archie and poor John. But from the room behind the +other voices, flooding in through the door, came after her. She flung +herself on her bed with a squawk from the springs and pressed her ear +shut till the lobes and her finger-tips ached: also she pulled the +pillows over her head. It was hot thus and still the voices penetrated. +They came on steadily, like the Hound of Heaven. It was hard, really, +the way they both kept at it. + +The voices spoke of love: they were full of protest. Love, she had +learnt to assume, was the mainspring of woman’s grievances. Illnesses +all arose from it, the having of children, the illnesses children had; +servants also, since the regular practice of love involved a home; by +money it was confined, propped and moulded. Lois flung off the pillows +and walked round the room quickly. She was angry; she strained to +hear now, she quite frankly listened. But when Mrs. Montmorency came +to: “Lois is very--” she was afraid suddenly. She had a panic. She +didn’t want to know what she was, she couldn’t bear to: knowledge of +this would stop, seal, finish one. Was she now to be clapped down under +an adjective, to crawl round lifelong inside some quality like a fly in +a tumbler? Mrs. Montmorency should not! + +She lifted her water jug and banged it down in the basin: she kicked +the slop-pail and pushed the washstand about.... It was victory. Later +on, she noticed a crack in the basin, running between a sheaf and a +cornucopia: a harvest richness to which she each day bent down her +face. Every time, before the water clouded, she would see the crack: +every time she would wonder: what Lois _was_-- She would never know. + + + + + VIII + + +SIR RICHARD, to whom the idea about Lois and Gerald percolated in time +through the family conversation, declared the idea was preposterous. +What chiefly worried him was, might she not have mentioned to Gerald +those guns in the lower plantations? He had charged her not to, but she +was just like Laura, poor Laura’s own child in fact; she would talk and +talk and you never knew where you had her. He announced, he had been +thinking for some time subalterns should be fewer and more infrequent. +He was delighted when he heard from the postman, and was able to pass +on, how three young women in the Clonmore direction had had their hair +cut off by masked men for walking out with the soldiers. And indeed +they had got no sympathy from the priest either, the postman said, for +the priest knew that English soldiers were most immoral. + +“And how would you like it,” Sir Richard said to his niece indignantly, +“if a thing like that were to happen to you?” + +“I should be bobbed,” said Lois. “I should take it as a sign. But I +have never walked an inch with anyone, not what you would call _out_, +Uncle Richard.” + +“But masked men,” said Lady Naylor, “would be a very nasty experience +for a girl of your age.” Lois said she would prefer the men to be +masked; she would be less embarrassed in the event of meeting them +afterwards. + +“I wonder what they do with the hair,” she added. She thought inwardly: +“If they’re going to take this attitude, I could not be blamed for +falling in love with a married man.” She searched her heart anxiously. +She wrote to Viola that she feared she might be falling in love with +a married man. But when she looked at Mr. Montmorency next morning at +breakfast, and still more when she had to drive him back from Mount +Isabel, the idea seemed shocking. She regretted having sent her letter +to post in such a hurry. + +Scandalized by the memory, she drove home briskly. On the bright sky, +opposite, Mr. Montmorency’s pale face hung like an apparition’s. She +took the curves of Mount Isabel drive with a rattle: the trap swung +on its axle, the traces creaked. Beyond the gates, light lay flat and +yellow along the hedges where brambles showered; hard red blackberries +knocked on the spokes and swung back, shining. She took the short way, +over a shoulder of mountain; the light-pink road crunched under the +wheels like sugar. Coming up out from the lanes they bathed an hour +or so in the glare of space. Height had the quality of depth: as they +mounted they seemed to be striking deeper into the large mild crystal +of an inverted sea. Out of the distance everywhere, pointless and +unrelated, space came like water between them, slipping and widening. +They receded from one another into the vacancy. On yellow furze-dust, +light was hard and physical; over parching heather shadow faded and +folded tone on tone, and was drawn to the sky on delicate brittle peaks. + +The road bent over a ridge, the trap ran down on the pony’s rump; +he and she shifted back on their seats. They stared with unfocussed +intensity over each other’s shoulders. Gorse, they said, was never out +of bloom (he commented). Nor kissing, they said (she supplied), out +of season--yet she supposed this untrue; she supposed that they both +sometimes must be. “And so much bitterness,” he exclaimed, “over this +empty country!” + +“What is it exactly,” she asked, “that they mean by freedom? What does +it affect? What is it besides an excuse for war?” + +“I suppose,” he said in his faint voice, as at the pit of a yawn, “some +kind of a final peace--stability.” + +“Then to fight’s absurd; the more one keeps on, the further from it one +is. It’s a hopeless kind of beginning.” She looked at him earnestly, +lucidly, like a puppy. + +“You are very reasonable.... Do you read the papers?” + +“Well ... I do hate things that have just happened.” + +“--I don’t follow?” + +“They’re so raw.” + +The road was steep and the pony determined to trot; it stumbled; she +pulled it up sharply. She was inclined to forget she was driving at +all. He started and put out a hand, to steady himself, along the back +of the seat. He hated things to be done badly; he was old-maidish. They +were silent in a mutual criticism. As they came down and the mountains, +drawn behind, were once more scenic, as hedges ran up at the sides of +the road, the illusion of distance between them faded; they obtruded +upon each other; a time when they could have talked was gone. They +might have said, she felt now, anything; but what had remained unsaid, +never conceived in thought, would exercise now a stronger compulsion +upon their attitude. She was to believe they had approached each other +in the unintimacy of silence. Shy with retrospective emotion she +fidgeted in the trap, irked by his look, his manner, all his presence +physically. Whenever she stretched a foot it touched his, always she +seemed to be retreating, apologizing, having to shift her position. +When she sat well forward to give her attention to driving, their knees +touched. + +“This trap’s too small,” she said finally. Mr. Montmorency--face +dull on the bright sky--replied: “Oh, I don’t know--it depends on +how one arranges oneself.” If he only would not smile--but he smiled +constrainedly. Next to Laura, she was the most fidgety person from +whom he had suffered. But Laura’s unrepose had been an irradiation, +a quiver of personality. She was indefinite definitely, like a tree +shining, shaking away outlines; a bay, a poplar in wind and sunshine. +Her impulses--those incalculable springings-out of mind through the +body--had had, like movements of branches, a wild kind of certainty. He +had been half aware of some kind of design in her being of which she +was unaware wholly. + +Whereas, here still was Lois (now Laura’s tree had fallen), twisted +away from him on the opposite seat of the trap, outraging tone in her +pink jersey--a shade or two nearer than Laura, perhaps, to the accuracy +passing for beauty. She looked gênée, dispirited; some failure, no +doubt, in his company: he must be an old man to her. She glanced back +once or twice at the mountains, from which a light peaty breath still +came after them down the descending road. + +She laughed suddenly, parted the reins, and jerking a rein in each +hand, with wide elbows, chirruped and clucked to the pony. “This,” +she said, “is how my governess used to drive. She used to say it came +natural because all her people were horsey. She said her father had +been a colonel and she used to plait hats out of crinkled paper and +wear them. She loved my mother embarrassingly, and she was always +embroidering things. My mother hated it--do you remember?” + +“I don’t remember your governess. Hated what?” + +“Being loved like that, and given embroidery. Miss Part used to laugh +and say, ‘I’m afraid I’m terribly whimsical, Mrs. Farquar,’ and Mother +used to say, ‘Oh no, I don’t expect you are really’--was it unkind?” + +“Well, it sounds unkind.” + +“I wonder if she would have liked being loved at my age--do you +remember?” + +“I don’t suppose she had made up her mind.” + +Lois turned and looked at him so intently that he was uneasy suddenly: +the bottom dropped out of the past, spilling all its security. He would +never know how much Laura had said to her daughter those last ten +years--years locked away from him: Lois had got the key. He said with +acidity: “If she and I had married--” + +“Oh, _yes_....” + +“My dear child, you wouldn’t be here.” + +“Oh, but half of me would be. And I dare say,” she said charmingly, +“the other half of me would have been much nicer.” The turning away of +her look was more confidential than any directness. + +“Thank you--don’t run over the little pigs!” + +Michael Connor’s farm first announced itself by some pink little silky +pigs running along the roadside. A sow got up, like a very maternal +battleship. Connor children looked, shrieked, fell from a gate and fled +to the farmhouse, skirting a pool of liquid manure in the front yard. +It was a nice farm, Lois pointed out, it had the door and window-frames +painted blue, the colour of all the cart-wheels. The Connors were +darling people; she drove past slowly, leaning over the side of the +trap to see if the family were about. The house was one story high, +with a slate roof. Mr. Montmorency sat frowning; he could not remember +if this were a Michael Connor he ought to remember. + +Michael Connor came out from a furze-thatched shed at the side. He took +off his wide straw hat and shook hands with them both. His hand was +bony, nervous and dry as earth. “It’s a grand evening,” said he with a +melancholy smile. + +“It is indeed. And how,” she asked, apprehensive, “is Mrs. Connor?” + +“Ah, the poor woman ... the poor woman!” Michael looked away from them, +nobody spoke. Lois at last said: “Give her my love.” + +“I will,” said Michael, “and proud she will be. And yourself’s looking +lovely, Miss Lois; a fine strong lady, glory be to God.” + +“You remember Mr. Montmorency?” + +“Sure indeed I do!” exclaimed Michael, and shook hands with Mr. +Montmorency again with greater particularity. “And very well I remember +his poor father. You are looking grand, sir, fine and stout; I known +you all these years and I declare I never seen you looking stouter. And +welcome back to Danielstown, Mr. Montmorency, welcome back, sir!” + +“Are your grandchildren well?” + +“They are,” said Connor gloomily, “but they’re very bashful. And they +do be stravaging about always and not contented at all. They are a +great distress to herself, and she unable to come out after them.” + +“But is Mrs. Peter Connor not with you?” + +“She is, Miss Lois. But she is desthroyed with it all and disheartened. +Indeed, miss, she is in great distress; and she always looking and +starting and craning up the boreen. It is torn in herself she is; +distracted for Peter and dhreading he’ll come. It would dishearten yous +to be with her daily and nightly the way she is, the poor woman. And +the military from Carveen have the hearts torn out of us nightly, and +we stretched for sleep, chasing and charging about in the lorries they +have. Sure you cannot go a step above in the mountains without them +ones lepping out from your feet like rabbits. Isn’t it the great pity +they didn’t finish their German war once they had it started?” + +“And no news at all of Peter?” Lois asked, diffident. + +“We have not,” said Michael, expressionless. His face resumed its +repose. The sum of detachment and sadness was this special kind of +nobility. “And I don’t know what is to be the end of it,” resumed +Michael, with a return to his conversational manner. “I couldn’t tell +you what will be the outcome at all. These surely are times that +would take the heart from you. And thank you, Miss Lois, and you too +yourself, your honour.” + +They once more shook hands, complimented each other again on the beauty +of the evening, and Lois drove on. Michael stood at the gate till they +turned the corner. The mountain farm, its wind-bitten firs dragged +east, its furze-thatched byres, sank slowly under the curve of a hill. +Looking longest after them, like an eye, a window glittered. Some grey +geese that had gaped and straggled behind the trap relinquished the +chase abruptly, stumbled round in a flock and went straining off in the +other direction. Their backs were more than oblivious; they made the +trap, the couple in it, an illusion. And indeed Lois and Hugo both felt +that their pause, their talk, their passing had been less than a shadow. + +“That is not,” said Hugo, after reflection, “the Michael Connor that I +remember. He was a foxy man with a chin. Has that one a son Peter?” + +“He has. I expect you guessed--he is on the run--‘Proscribed’ don’t +they call it? He could be shot at sight. He is wanted over an ambush +in County Clare; they got him once, but he escaped again--I was so +glad. I shouldn’t wonder if he was up the boreen at the moment. I know +he is home, for Clancey saw him three days ago. But don’t speak of +it--one cannot be too careful. Poor Mrs. Peter must be in a dreadful +state, wherever he is. Mrs. Michael is dying, you know: she has been +dying a long time. The last time I went up they wouldn’t let me see +her, because of the pain.... There are young men gone from three of the +farms up here--Captain Carmichael told me; he is Intelligence Officer. +And I know it is true, because Clancey told me too--I say, supposing +Gerald had happened to be with us and Peter Connor had come down the +boreen, would Gerald have had to have shot him, or would he have been +off duty?” + +“Peter might have shot Gerald.” + +“Oh no, not when he was with me. Besides,” she added, “Gerald is so +matter of fact. Nothing could make him into a tragedy.” + +Hugo debating if she were subtle or very stupid, Lois busy with +melodrama, they drove home briskly. To the south, below them, the +demesne trees of Danielstown made a dark formal square like a rug on +the green country. In their heart, like a dropped pin, the grey glazed +roof reflecting the sky lightly glinted. Looking down, it seemed to +Lois they lived in a forest; space of lawns blotted out in the pressure +and dusk of trees. She wondered they were not smothered; then wondered +still more that they were not afraid. Far from here too, their +isolation became apparent. The house seemed to be pressing down low in +apprehension, hiding its face, as though it had her vision of where it +was. It seemed to gather its trees close in fright and amazement at the +wide, light, lovely unloving country, the unwilling bosom whereon it +was set. From the slope’s foot, where Danielstown trees began, the land +stretched out in a plain flat as water, basin of the Madder and Darra +and their fine wandering tributaries, till the far hills, faint and +brittle, straining against the inrush of vaster distance, cut the droop +of the sky like a glass blade. Fields gave back light to the sky--the +hedges netting them over thinly and penetrably--as though the sheen +of grass were a shadow on water, a breath of colour clouding the face +of light. Rivers, profound in brightness, flowed over beds of glass. +The cabins lifting their pointed white ends, the pink and yellow farms +were but half opaque; cast doubtfully on their fields the shadow of +living. Square cattle moved in the fields like saints, with a mindless +certainty. Single trees, on a rath, at the turn of a road, drew up +light at their roots. Only the massed trees--spread like a rug to dull +some keenness, break some contact between self and senses perilous +to the routine of living--only the trees of the demesne were dark, +exhaling darkness. Down among them, dusk would stream up the paths +ahead, lie stagnant over the lawns, would mount in the tank of garden, +heightening the walls, dulling the borders like a rain of ashes. Dusk +would lie where one looked as though it were in one’s eyes, as though +the fountain of darkness were in one’s own perception. Seen from above, +the house in its pit of trees seemed a very reservoir of obscurity; +from the doors one must come out stained with it. And the kitchen +smoke, lying over the vague trees doubtfully, seemed the very fume of +living. + +But as they drove down the home-sense quickened; the pony, knowing +these hedges, rocketed hopefully in the shafts. The house became a +magnet to their dependence. And indeed it was nice, they felt in this +evening air, to be driving home, with all they would have to tell of +the Mount Isabel party, to all they would have to hear of Sir Richard’s +day in Cork. Friendly women smiled at them over half-doors of cabins. +And they both felt approached, friendlier, turning in up the avenue +under the arch of the trees; he accepting her with philosophy as though +she were his daughter, she comforted in her fancy, as though he had +wept coming over the mountains and told her his life was empty because +she could never be his wife. + +She said: “I hope we shan’t have to wait for dinner; I couldn’t bear +it.” He said: “Really?” shocked to discover that he also had been +thinking of dinner. + +Livvy Thompson had ridden over; she sat on the steps with her habit +over her knee, waving as they approached. She had sent a message round +to the yard when she heard the trap, so that a man immediately came +to take the pony. “Listen now--” she began. But Lois only gave her +a brush of the hand; she couldn’t speak till she had rushed past her +into the hall to look for the post, because of a tearing feeling of +expectation. There was Viola’s square blue temperate envelope on the +table. There was nothing more but some gloves Lady Naylor had worn in +Cork, some English papers, a box of tennis balls. She had again that +conclusive feeling of disappointment. “They’re back,” she said to Hugo. + +“Listen now,” resumed Livvy, coming in after her. Lois slipped Viola’s +letter into her pocket and buttoned the flap over it. For what Viola +would think of Livvy she did not like to imagine. + +Livvy was anxious to know if Lois had seen Mr. Lesworth lately, and, if +so, whether he had happened to mention Mr. Armstrong. Because it did +seem strange, she thought, about Mr. Armstrong; she almost feared that +he must be ill. When she heard Mr. Lesworth had not appeared either, +she was amazed, she said, that Lois was not more worried. It was now +too evident something must be the matter. She pointed out it was her +duty and Lois’s to find out if they were ill, or indeed if worse hadn’t +happened, as worse might, to the two young Englishmen in a hostile +country. Lois, thumbing Viola’s envelope, said she was quite certain +they would have heard. Livvy suspected something was hushed up for fear +of the English papers: nothing was ever allowed in the English papers +that could be mortifying for the English people to read. + +“If they should only be ill,” she said, “there would be so many +little things we could do for them. It does seem in a kind of a way +an opportunity. I often think it is only when a man is ill that he +understands what a woman means in his life.” + +Lois said that her own impression of a man ill was one of extreme +crossness and of inability to find the nicest woman attractive at +all. She pointed out that there was an excellent military hospital +at Clonmore, so that they need not imagine David and Gerald tossing +feverish and untended. She did not suppose they would be allowed a +visit, and confessed that, for her part, she found people lying down +while she stood up embarrassing; so curiously bumpy and extremely +difficult to talk to. + +“But if he seemed at all unlikely to recover,” said Livvy, “there would +be several things I should like to say to Mr. Armstrong. If he should +recover after all, he would be gentlemanly enough to forget them, +though there would be no harm in their leaving a pleasant impression. +To tell you the truth, Lois, I have often wondered if he does not think +me a little reserved and cold. Does it ever seem to you that he looks +discouraged? You see, he is accustomed to English girls who are very +free; I believe there is almost nothing they will not let a man say and +that they get kissed before they get engaged. Now I should not like +him to think I had no heart at all. You know Irish girls in books are +always made out so fascinating and heartless; I should not like him to +think that of me. And if he does recover, he might go back to England +and get engaged to a girl simply out of his lower nature. I should not +like to feel I had spoilt a man’s life.” + +“I expect,” said Lois, “it is their week for extra duty.” She thought: +“If only I weren’t so certain there’d be a letter from Gerald +to-morrow! If only he’d let me wonder! He is so terribly _there_....” +If only his coming or writing could have some touch of the miracle, +heal a doubt. + +“Will you not stay to dinner?” she said to Livvy. “You could borrow one +of my frocks.” + +“I’d like that yellow taffeta, though I should have to reef it in. It’s +a great inconvenience, Lois, being so slight as I am, though it does +seem to be admired. Are you sure your aunt will not mind?... But no, +thank you, I couldn’t; my father’d kill me for riding home after dark. +In fact, I should go now,”--looking up at the sky--“one never knows, +does one? Isn’t that too bad?” + +“_Too_ bad,” agreed Lois, touching her letter. She walked round to the +yard with Livvy to get her horse. “But listen,” said Livvy, mounting, +“there’s one thing that we had better do. We can drive in to Clonmore, +Wednesday, to do some shopping: I really do need wool for a jumper. +And if we should meet Mr. Smith or Captain Carmichael, I should just +mention, laughingly, we hadn’t seen any of them for a long time. And +then it might all come out. Or if the worst came to the worst, we could +drop in to tea at the Fogartys’; if there was nobody else, there’d +be bound to be Mrs. Vermont. I don’t think she’s trustworthy, but if +there were anything definite she’d be bound to say--like illness, or an +ambush they were not supposed to mention. Or it might all come right +and the first we would meet might be Mr. Lesworth or Mr. Armstrong.... +I certainly think, Lois, that is what we should do. If you can’t get +your uncle’s trap, I will take my father’s.” + +She rode away. Lois listened until the romantic horse-hoofs had died on +the avenue, smothered in trees. This manner of Livvy’s of coming and +going gave her a setting--picaresque, historical somehow. She would +have been much worse if she had ridden away on a bicycle-- Then she +took Viola’s letter out of her pocket and read it out there in the +yard. Gnats danced in the underneath gloom of the chestnuts. + +Viola did think Lois took feeling rather too earnestly. Lois must +not grow less interesting. She admitted the little Gerald might be +affecting; he was permitted to happen once. Gerald assimilated, she +should be more of a woman. Only don’t lose detachment, darling; do +not lose distance. Viola would be delighted if Lois would give her +“Trivia.” She confessed it did startle her to be reminded that up to +now she had been only eighteen by this talk of a nineteenth birthday. +She felt, she said, older than the rocks among which she sat--she wrote +from a rock-garden. Maurice Evans, a really ridiculous person, sat on a +pink tuft of something valuable, apparently painting her. By the way, +did Laurence read Pater? Maurice did not--did really anyone nowadays? +Did Lois think that Viola might intrigue Laurence? Laurence continued +a subject for speculation for three paragraphs. She only referred to +Mr. Montmorency indirectly, and at the very end. She warned against +introspection. “For introspection, darling, does make us the prey of +the nice-middle-aged.” She complained there was too much introspection +and tennis in Lois’s letters. “Don’t talk of yourself to that elderly +man.” + +Lois, relieved but chagrined by the omission, wondered if Viola really +did read one’s letters at all thoroughly. She always noticed the +split infinitives--one could not be sure. Lois turned in at the back +door and pulled herself up to dress by the back-stairs banisters. She +sniffed--duck for dinner again: it seemed the end of a cycle. This +morning she had renewed the roses in Mrs. Montmorency’s room. + +Crossing the ante-room, a spring in some board from her step made an +unlatched door swing open. She saw Mr. Montmorency in shirt-sleeves +brushing his wife’s hair. And Francie, facing the glass, saw Lois +reflected, standing still in alarm on the shining floor. They smiled at +each other. Mr. Montmorency, thoughtfully and heavily brushing, did not +observe the interchange. + + + + + THE VISIT OF MISS NORTON + + + + + IX + + +LIVVY’S afternoon in Clonmore was such a great success that she forgot +the wool for her jumper. At first there had been uneasiness; she let +Lois drive while she looked carefully round the Square, went into the +Imperial Hotel to see if her father had left a stick and searched both +pavements of Cork Street, down which they drove from end to end. In +despair, she had just suggested going up to the tennis club to see was +there anyone there, when the rain came down--it had been threatening +all day, the mountains looked moist and close on their drive in. They +had to turn in to the Fogartys’. And there, to them anxiously awaiting +tea and social developments in Mrs. Fogarty’s artistic drawing-room, +entered severally all whom they wished to meet: Captain Carmichael, +Smith with Mrs. Vermont, finally Mr. Armstrong himself. Mr. Lesworth +did not appear (which, as Livvy whispered to friends, would be a +disappointment for Lois): it turned out that he was on extra duty. Mrs. +Fogarty had one of the narrow houses looking out on the Square; her +windows were screened from outside observation by cubes of evergreen; +between the pane and the evergreens rain fell darkly. Mrs. Fogarty’s +drawing-room was thronged with photographs; all the dear boys who for +years back had been garrisoned at Clonmore, many of whom, alas! had +been killed in that dreadful War. You could not stoop to put down +a cup on one of the little tables without a twinge of regret and +embarrassment, meeting the candid eyes of some dead young man. The +room was crowded with cushions that slid from the narrow seats of the +chairs and tumbled over the back of the sofa; cushions with pen-painted +sprays, with poker-worked kittens; very futurist cushions with bunches +of fruit appliques, dear old cushions with associations and feathers +bursting out at the seams. And there were cushions with Union Jacks +that she wouldn’t, she said, put away--not if They came at night and +stood in her room with pistols. And this was all the more noble in Mrs. +Fogarty in that she was a Catholic, with relations whose politics were +not above reproach at all. Mr. Fogarty was a retired solicitor; he +had no politics; he became very cross and reproachful when they were +discussed at the Club and said he supposed he could not help being a +philosopher. But he drank, which shows that nobody can be perfect. He +never appeared at tea. + +As more and more people dropped in and the chairs gave out, the +subalterns pulled the cushions on to the floor and sat on them. Mrs. +Fogarty was delighted. The room warmed up, there was just enough air +left not to make one aware of discomfort in breathing. There was a +smell of wall-paper, tea and tea-cakes, polished Sam Browns and the +_Nuit d’Amour_ on Mrs. Vermont’s handkerchief which she pulled out +frequently to wipe honey from her fingers. They all felt very easy and +very Irish--the qualities radiated, perhaps, from Mrs. Fogarty, who sat +flushed with pleasure and hospitality, taking up rather more than half +of her own sofa. She wore a brown lace blouse and a tweed skirt, with a +green shell rope that swung and clinked on the teapot. Indeed, it was +all very harmonious; she did not know how she would have lived at all +without the military at Clonmore. + +After tea, cigarettes went round, there was a kick and splutter of +patent lighters. Livvy said she would _not_ smoke, she would not +indeed: they might laugh but she was an old-fashioned girl. Her +continued protests attracted a good deal of attention, till she noticed +that old-fashioned girls were after all in the majority. The rector’s +daughters and Doreen Hartigan all sat looking approving and rather +unfinished about the mouth. So she accepted a strong cigarette of +Captain Carmichael’s, and Smith broke into a howl and said she had +sacrificed his ideal of womanhood. Mrs. Fogarty suggested music: they +helped her move the bowls and photographs off the grand piano which, +undraped and opened, gave out to Mrs. Vermont’s fingers some damp +chords. It was too bad, declared Mrs. Fogarty, listening doubtfully, +that their tuner had died in Cork and she hadn’t the heart to look for +another since. She said they must have real music, not just the piano. +Real talent was present, she added, and looked round compellingly. +There was a scuffle from which Mr. Smith was forced up. He stood with +his weight on one leg, stroking his hair detachedly, while Mrs. +Vermont looked through the music. + +Mrs. Vermont remarked in passing to Captain Carmichael that this was a +country where the most extraordinary people died. “Well, I mean,” she +said, “who would have expected that of a piano-tuner? There was a house +where I went for tennis; they had had a parlourmaid there who died. +And last week I went for some little cakes to Fitzgerald’s and they +were all plain ones. I asked for some fancies and they said the woman +who did the icing had been taken, God rest her soul! Really, there’s +something grizzly about that cake shop.” + +“In the midst of life we are in death, if you know what I mean,” said +Captain Carmichael. + +Mr. Smith said he didn’t mind what he did sing: they all wanted +“The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God.” The piece was very tragic +and sinister, they all sat wrapt and Livvy did not notice that Mr. +Armstrong was pressing her arm till she felt Doreen Hartigan notice. +She moved away from him, closer to Lois. + + “There’s a b-r-r-roken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carewe + And the Yellow God sits smiling up above.” + +Lois blushed and let Livvy squeeze her hand. They both wondered: “How +should I feel under the circumstances?” The subalterns round all +looked dogged, clasping their knees, and thought of what one would +do for a woman. There was a stagger of emotional clapping. Then Mrs. +Vermont cried they were too ridiculous, the boys were sillies, she +couldn’t sing at all really, but if she must she would. So she sang +“Melisande,” which sent every girl there into a trance of self-pity; it +was so clearly written about oneself. + + “With your eyes for fear and your mouth for love + And your youth for Pity’s grace + --All alone, Mel-lisande, all alone.” + +The subalterns thought it pretty, high-class but rather dull, and +clapped with abandon when it was over. They cast up David Armstrong, +blushing and looking very much surprised at himself and all of them. +He blushed till half-way through “The Shooting of Dan McGrew,” when he +became carried away and carried his audience with him. + + “A woman came between us, + She was beautiful as Venus,” + +brought a momentary return to consciousness. He looked at the ceiling +to avoid seeing Livvy and Lois. The atmosphere strained with cramp, +there was a creak of leather as subalterns readjusted their attitudes. +Mrs. Fogarty sent round a plate of chocolate biscuits. What a pity +it was, she said, that they did not get up some pierrots. When David +returned to his place Livvy was rose-pink; she fluttered at him her +remarkably long lashes. + +“Indeed,” declared Mrs. Fogarty, looking from David to Smith (who had +no Christian name), “I never heard anything like the two of you. No, +not in Dublin in Horse Show week, nor in London nor Liverpool either. +You’re remarkably gifted. Isn’t it a pity they were all so sad? Shall +we all have a song now, something rousing, you know, that you sang in +the Great War?” + +“Oh, do you know,” cried Mrs. Vermont, “I never knew Tipperary was +really a place till I came to Ireland?” + +“Listen to her!” shouted Mrs. Fogarty, sweeping some more of the +cushions on to the floor. They were all delighted. Mrs. Vermont spread +her fingers over her face. Under cover of all this excitement Lois rose +and said they would have to go. She was sorry, because the party seemed +slightly insulted; also, Livvy was so happy. If David should die now, +she did not think Livvy would have to reproach herself. Also Captain +Carmichael had seemed intrigued; he had spoken mysteriously of the +adventures he had in the mountains and of the disguises he sometimes +put on. She knew he must feel like the Scarlet Pimpernel; she could +not help sympathizing. When she rose, he said they must meet again. +He and David came out to help them into their trap in the Imperial +yard, tucked them up in their rugs, relinquished them disapprovingly +to the exposures of the journey and stood looking after them with rain +dripping down their bronzed and military noses. + +They drove home very much flushed and excited. The rain came down in +a curtain and hid the mountains; brown shining puddles were linked +along the road. They agreed about almost every one--especially Mrs. +Vermont and the D.I.’s niece--they laughed at each other over their +mackintosh collars, eyes bright with comprehension and sympathy, while +the strong rain stung their noses, then numbed them. Only when Livvy +said, “Melisande” was a beautiful poem, wasn’t it, something stiffened +in Lois: she said she thought it was sentimental. + +“All that fuss, if you know what I mean, about just somebody.” + +“Well, love is that, if you come to think,” said Livvy, “and myself I +think it is very satisfying.” There was something so very experienced +about the tip of her nose that Lois went flat. She felt that she +herself must be like a cake in which the flour had been forgotten. + +She complained: “I wish we were not being late just this evening. Miss +Norton, you know, is arriving and I did so want to look nice. My nose +will not have thawed till half through dinner.” + +“Oh, who is she? Is she pretty? How old is she? Is she engaged?” + +“Never met her--though she often seems to have come to Danielstown. +But I feel she may be a person one wants to look pretty at. She annoys +Aunt Myra by being unfortunate in ways that are far more trying for +other people than for herself. When she was little she came over to +Danielstown to a children’s party: she fell down at once on the scraper +and cut her knee and there was a good deal of fuss and bloodiness. And +another time there were people to tea she started an argument about +Kimberley: they all stayed till past eight o’clock in the library +taking down the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ while other people who +were coming to dinner kept arriving. And another time she lost her +engagement ring at a tennis party and they were all very much upset. +She wrote afterwards to say it didn’t matter because she had broken +off her engagement anyhow and the man said he didn’t want the ring, +he said he wished it were at the bottom of the sea. I always thought +people breaking off an engagement went all noble, but that sounds to +me vindictive. Aunt Myra stayed put out.... She is twenty-nine.” + +“It seems to me odd,” said Livvy, “that she shouldn’t have brought +anything off by this time. But I dare say,” she added, “that there has +been a disappointment.” + +At this point they heard a lorry coming. Black and Tans, fortified +inwardly against the weather, were shouting and singing and now +and then firing shots. The voices, kept low by the rain, the grind +of wheels on the rocky road tunnelled through the close air with a +particular horror. To meet in this narrow way would be worse than a +dream; before the half-obscured lorry appeared Livvy had turned the +pony hurriedly up a boreen. They went up some way and waited under +a dripping thorn-bush: if Black and Tans saw one hiding they were +sarcastic. They heard the lorry grind past the mouth of the boreen with +apprehension, feeling exposed and hunted. Lois recalled with surprise +that she had cried for a whole afternoon before the War because she was +not some one in a historical novel: it had begun, she thought, because +they told her to go and practise. The road clear again, they discovered +they could not turn the trap; they had to back the pony out. “My!” said +Livvy, glaring at the horizon. “I wish I were driving a lorry! I should +like to crash those fellows head on!” + +Just before eight, Livvy dropped Lois at Danielstown gates and drove +off, beating her pony into a gallop. Her father would kill her, +certainly! Lois raced up the avenue till she had no breath, then had +to crawl the rest of the way, recovering. Apprehensive, she strained +for the throb of the dinner-gong, a shriek of reproach from a window. +But her unpunctuality passed unnoticed: Miss Norton herself had only +just arrived. The hall was full of suitcases, a fur coat sprawled on a +chair, there was a tennis racquet, a bag of golf-clubs. + +“Though where the poor female is going to play golf ...!” thought Lois. +“A nice coat.... Good, she has brought the _Tatler!_” + +No one had even gone up to dress, from the library voices exclaimed +in excitement; voices complained insistently through the drawing-room +door. Lois undid the top buttons of her mackintosh and stepped out of +it, leaving a damp ring. Absently she wrung the water out of her hat. +She listened. + +“She is certain she has left it in the train,” her aunt was saying; +“she says she would swear it was put in with her at Kingsbridge and +that she saw it after leaving Darramore. I do not believe myself in +travelling with suitcases, one is always counting--I believe in one +good trunk.” + +“Looking at it from the porters’ point of view--” said Mrs. +Montmorency. + +The library door clicked open and Laurence, looking quite enthusiastic, +shot into the hall. “She thinks telephoning will do it,” he said to +Lois. “I cannot make her understand about the Ballyhinch telephone.” +He disappeared, shouting, into the back part of the house. Evidently +there need be no hurry for anything. Lois sat on the hall table to +look at the _Tatler_. Early autumn fashions reminded her--this was an +opportunity to try on the fur coat. She hoped for the proper agony, +finding a coat she could not live without.... Her arms slipped silkily +through; her hands appeared, almost tiny, out of the huge cuffs. “Oh, +the escape!” she thought, pressing her chin down, fading, dying into +the rich heaviness. “Oh, the _escape_ in other people’s clothes!” And +she paced round the hall with new movements: a dark, rare, rather +wistful woman, elusive with jasmine. “No?” she said on an upward note: +the voice startled her, experience was behind it. She touched the fur +lightly, touched the edge of a cabinet--her finger-tips drummed with +a foreign sensitiveness. And the blurred panes, the steaming changing +trees, the lonely cave of the hall no longer had her consciousness in a +clamp. _How_ she could live, she felt. She would not need anyone, she +would be like an orchestra playing all to itself. “Is it mink?” she +wondered. + +“You look so nice!” said Miss Norton, from the door of the library. + +Lois went quite blank. “Oh,” she said. + +“Where is that unfortunate Lady Naylor?” + +“I can’t _think_-- Well, she is in the drawing-room.” + +“Anyhow,” said Miss Norton, “I will go up now. When she sees me looking +less arrived she may forget about the suitcase.” She looked at Lois +earnestly. “I don’t lose things except coming here; I am efficient +really. But there seems a kind of fatality ...” + +“I _know_.” + +“Do you?” she said with interest, a keen disconcerting flash. “How odd +that you should!” + +An approach seemed possible, imminent. Lois, feeling herself smiled +at, unwrapped herself from the coat without embarrassment. Miss Norton, +who did not seem surprised by the disappearance of the family, asked to +be shown where she was. They went upstairs together; she was on the top +floor, opposite Laurence. + +“Who was the capable person? Who wouldn’t let me telephone--the young +man?” + +“Laurence.” + +“Oh, Laurence. And the other people: I couldn’t hear their names. +They seemed very much here--faintly resentful: I expect I must be +horrible for them. He at once accused me of having cut my knee on a +scraper--when I was three or four. Who did you say?” + +“The Montmorencys.” + +“Oh, Hugo and Francie? Of course I have heard of them. Isn’t she his +mother--practically?” Miss Norton took off her hat and looked at +herself in the glass dispassionately and closely. “God!” she remarked. + +“He brushes her hair,” said Lois, laughing--in the sharp unshadowy +atmosphere produced by Miss Norton it sounded more of a giggle--and +swinging with her back against the edge of the door. + +“Oh, then it is mutual.” + +“I knew him best when I was a child.” + +“Yes, he looks like that. Thank you so much; I think I have got +everything. Yes, heaps of hot water. Wouldn’t you like to go now: I +mean, won’t there be dinner?... Oh, Lois!” + +Lois, from over the threshold, came back willingly. “Mm?” she said. + +“I mean, you are Lois, aren’t you? I’ve heard so much ... No, don’t +be late: I should hate you to help me.” Miss Norton had taken her coat +off and stood in a frilled shirt looking round distastefully at her +suitcases. “Go,” she said, “do really.” + +Lois, half-way down the gallery, met Laurence coming up. “Mm?” said +Laurence. + +“I think she seems quite mad,” said Lois doubtfully. + +“You would,” replied Laurence and went past her coldly. + + + + + X + + +ONE did not lightly telephone. There was a telephone six miles away, +at Ballyhinch, but its use made excessive demands upon the sympathy +and attention of the post-mistress. Marda could not understand--as +Sir Richard said, one would think she had come from America. From all +their angles she seemed to them very modern. They sat on the steps +after breakfast, waiting for post to come, discussing what they should +do. There was something agonizing to Sir Richard in the thought of +that suitcase. Marda said, it would not have mattered at all but that +her tennis shoes seemed to be in it. It was quite a relief when the +postman settled the matter by saying there had been another raid last +night in the Brittas direction and that all the wires were down again. +It had been a great raid, the postman said; if the boys had not fled +it would have been almost a battle. What times, said Francie, looking +at Marda doubtfully, they did live in! But other times, said Marda, +other disadvantages. Nobody hurt, they hoped? Well, said the postman, +the Black and Tans had been fired on, but why would they not be, they +themselves firing to the left and right continually? It seemed two of +them ones had pitched from the lorry the way you would think they’d be +killed and the boys had bolted, leaving the two lying. + +“How do you know?” said Marda. The postman, looking austerely at her, +asked how would one help hearing? Though it was not for him to say what +was true and what was what you would hear. Sir Richard agreed with +this hastily and with some warmth: he did not want to have the postman +discouraged. + +Marda received her six letters as a matter of course and glanced them +through sceptically. Lois watched her. Putting the letters away Marda +suggested that, since Laurence was so practical, he should drive her +into Clonmore or Ballydarra to buy more tennis shoes. Laurence feared +he did not drive the car nicely: he could avoid things but he was +inclined to wobble. + +Sir Richard had disappeared on his morning round; how much of his corn +had been “laid” by the rain last night he did not like to imagine; it +was better to know. The rain had ceased before breakfast; loud drops +still drummed through the leaves; the trees with their rainy smell +were a wall of moisture. Thin vapours trailed on the sky over an +intermittent brightness; distances showed up thinly, as though painted. +“The end of our weather,” said poor Francie. + +“But I feel,” persisted Marda, “I must have tennis shoes. I don’t mind +wobbling.” + +“Laurence is more of the intellectual type,” explained Francie. + +“I don’t think that matters.” + +“It does with a car,” said Lois. + +“I have never consciously driven _you_,” said her cousin coldly. + +Marda laughed; she got up and stood on the steps. Fixed in their +row, the others all looked up at her. She was tall; her back, as she +stood looking over the fields, was like a young man’s in its vigorous +slightness. She escaped the feminine pear-shape, her shoulders were +square, legs long from the knee down. Her light-brown dress slipped +and fitted with careless accuracy, defining spareness negatively under +its slack folds. Sophistication opened further horizons to Lois. Marda +gathered her strung cornelians in one hand into a bunch at her throat; +they slipped down the nape of her neck. Standing vaguely she had still +that quality of directedness--from which they all swerved off in their +different ways. A hardy unawareness of self in her heightened one’s +own consciousness. Her lightest look watched, her casual listening +assessed, her speech was a lightning attack on one’s integrity out of +the stronghold of her indifference. + +They remained sitting behind her with a vague sensation of having +been abandoned. Hugo came out, shut the glass door with precision and +blinked at the sky. “Clearing,” he said, then asked Marda to come for a +turn. Exercise seemed the order of the morning; Lois and Laurence were +later to go to the village with messages. Francie was waiting to go to +the garden with Lady Naylor. + +“Am I or am I not to drive her?” wondered Laurence aloud, with +fatalism, looking after Miss Norton. + +“She’ll certainly let you know.” Francie’s little ironical smile sent +her cheeks up, their faint flush wavering, under her eyes. She was +not so simple. Her diffidence, her inquiring softness, an outward +“laciness” of her personality--into which impressions seemingly +filtered like light, diffusedly, making no impact--covered a structure +of delicate hardness. She was in spirit insistent, tenacious and quick +in antagonisms; complexity tightened, as had been her delicate body’s, +by constant resistance to pain. She gave hospitality to the ever-living +Laura, she invited claims from Mrs. Archie Trent, she would have +endowed Lois, but she watched Marda turn beside Hugo into the beech +walk with raised brows, a cat’s blank unsparing lucidity. + +“She’s very positive,” said Laurence, still looking after them. + +“Positive about what?” asked Lois eagerly. Laurence held his breath +with annoyance and pulled up a sock. + +Marda wanted nothing of Mr. Montmorency but entertainment. She was +an experienced fellow-visitor. He interested her; his negativeness +was startling. She had heard of him, and of it, in all parts of the +country, had arrived at several houses into a loud reaction, a kind +of indignant excitement following his departure. Her acquiescence +in finding him so exactly as he had been described was tempered by +incredulity, almost shock. And she could define in him qualities which +her friends in the rush of discussion had slurred or had overshot: +one, a kind of drawn-back apprehension in his approaches, as though +something bright were being brandished before his eyes. His look, +coming wavering round this interruption, had, in regard to herself, a +peculiar intensity. She was already real to him as a woman. + +He now swung his blackthorn, slashing the air widely. “I remember this +walk,” she said. “I seem to have been here yesterday. But I thought it +was somewhere in Kerry, at Castle Reagh.” + +“Oh no, it is here,” he said wisely. They laughed. Down the walk, +brightening air slipped like gauze round the beech trunks; great pewter +limbs went turning and straining up with the sheen of muscles. Drops, +infrequent and startling, loudly fell on his hat brim, icily on her +shoulders through the mesh of her dress. The path’s perspective was a +tunnel of glass. Her companion’s lameness of thought, the faltering +silence produced a kind of vacuum in her; she covered a yawn. + +“This is not a good morning,” he suggested, “to walk under trees.” + +“Really the worst possible.” + +“Oh ... had we better--?” However, they walked on. + +“I always come here,” he said in extenuation. “My turn to the right’s +mechanical. I was here as a boy, you know.” + +“Were you here when I bled so much at that children’s party?” + +“Not actually, but I have always heard of it. Didn’t you lose a ring?” + +“At another party, at a more suitable age. It was the most lovely ring +I have ever had--Regent Street. The jeweller said it must be emeralds +because the lady was Irish and Timothy fully agreed with him. I had had +no idea I had such an expensive nationality.” + +“What a pity!” + +“Yes, those things are always a pity.” + +He was not sure how much she included. “Did your--did Timothy mind?” + +“Not so much as the Naylors. Later, he was killed on the Somme. But he +had two sons first, so it all came right--I mean, he married.” + +“Oh yes ... I suppose you are often here? I have often heard of you. +And at Johnstown and Ballyduff and up in the North I have heard you +expected. But I was always going. Once, I believe, we crossed at an +avenue gate.” + +The fact was, she acknowledged with a laugh, that they both visited +incorrigibly. She knew also, she told him, that he not only visited but +travelled; he had been almost everywhere but Canada. + +“But I really should not have come back here,” she said. “There is +something in Lady Naylor’s eye: a despairing optimism. I feel that +suitcase won’t be the end of me here. There will be a raid and I shall +be shot on the avenue, not even fatally, or Laurence will take me out +and upset that car. Then really she will never forgive me, though the +efforts she makes will follow me over Europe.... How far do you think +this war is going to go? Will there ever be anything we can all do +except not notice?” + +“Don’t ask _me_,” he said, but sighed sharply as though beneath the +pressure of omniscience. “A few more hundred deaths, I suppose, on our +side--which is no side--rather scared, rather isolated, not expressing +anything except tenacity to something that isn’t there--that never +was there. And deprived of heroism by this wet kind of smother of +commiseration. What’s the matter with this country is the matter with +the lot of us individually--our sense of personality is a sense of +outrage and we’ll never get outside of it.” + +But the hold of the country _was_ that, she considered, it could be +thought of in terms of oneself, so interpreted. Or seemed so--“Like +Shakespeare,” she added more vaguely, “or isn’t it?... But now tell +me,” she said, “about Lois?” + +“Lois?” He was guiltily startled, thinking of Laura’s daughter. + +“Lois--haven’t you noticed her? She sat beside you at dinner.” + +He feared he was no good at people, he was preparing to say--but the +remark, tried over critically, seemed a kind of echo: he reminded +himself of Laurence. He was confused by her cool watching, her eyebrows +drawn up and together in ironical friendly despair at him. Her +face--like a Dutch doll’s; he defensively told himself, in its accurate +clear disposition of red-and-white colour--was, at this sudden pull-up +to her interest, like a mask in its halt of expression. Her features, +the dark line of hair springing over the white square of forehead, were +in their special relation like something almost too clearly written +that he still could not read; to be learnt now and puzzled over in +retrospect. + +She was, in fact, repelled by his lack of sympathy. “Lois,” she said, +“is nice. She is in such a hurry, so concentrated upon her hurry, so +helpless. She is like some one being driven against time in a taxi to +catch a train, jerking and jerking to help the taxi and looking wildly +out of the window at things going slowly past. She keeps hearing that +final train go out without her. How I should hate to be young again! +But, I had no ambitions.” + +He watched her unguarded profile. “Oh yes,” he said, “ambition?” + +“I’ve never met any woman so determined to love well, so anxious to +love soon, so certain of her ability. She really prays for somebody to +be fatal; she eyes doors. And you are all disappointments.” + +“To begin with,” said Hugo, nettled. “She’s not a woman--” + +“Awful if nothing happens to her! She reminds me, too, of a little girl +I remember at school sports; in a team race, one of those things with +bean-bags. Hopping at the end of the line, working up to the front +slowly, simply sick with eagerness. Her turn comes, she is the whole +world: her eyes shoot out of her head--she drops the bean-bag. They all +groan.... It makes me go dry inside to think of it now.” + +“There is a young man--Harold--Gerald. They dance on the avenue.” + +“Like rabbits?” + +“They have a gramophone.” + +“Is he supposed to love her?” + +“My wife thinks so. Laurence considers he suitably might. Her aunt +does not think it suitable at all and won’t hear a word of it, so he +officially doesn’t.” + +“Anyhow, to be loved is not her affair at all, it is quite irrelevant. +She does not love him, poor little thing: he is useless.” + +“I can’t think it necessary for a young girl, at her age, to love +anybody.” + +“Oh, it is not,” she said impatiently, “at any age. But one has those +ideas.” + +This dismissal, this lightness vexed him. Let her speak for herself. +She had, then, her whole sex’s limitations: a teachable shallowness, a +hundred little abilities. But he, prey to a constant self-reproach, was +a born lover; conscious of cycles in him, springs and autumns of desire +and disenchantment, and of the intermediate pausing seasons, bland or +frigid, eaten at either margin by past or coming shadows of change. + +“I have not these ideas,” he said coldly. + +They turned at the end of the walk through a gateway, into a fir +plantation. Here they walked between walls of dusk, to be released to +an airy green space, tree-pillared. The green strip, measureless on +ahead but narrow, slanted down on their left to the open meadows, on +their right was bounded by an uneven wall. Below the wall an unseen +swift stream flowed, tinkling and knocking. The path hesitated ahead +of them, faint on the bright green turf. Here the few beeches stood, +unrelated, lovely, desultory; between their trunks--the tall mountains, +vivid in a suffusion of distant light. The scene glittered. “More rain +coming,” said Mr. Montmorency. + +But she stared ahead. A trench-coat flickered between the trees, +approaching. Her look focussed; there was an interchange. Coming to +them, the young man almost hurried. After consideration: “Hullo!” said +Mr. Montmorency. + +“Hal-_lo!_” cried Gerald, flushing with expectation. Never had they +been so acclaimed. He was out this way, he explained, coming into +ear-shot, and was proposing to take advantage of something rash that +Lady Naylor had once said about dropping in to lunch any time. “They’re +not _out?_” he asked suddenly with, Marda noticed, a queer haggardness. +They were not? That was splendid, marvellous. Early about?--he had been +out all night, he told them. Oh yes--feeling Mr. Montmorency glance at +his chin interrogatively--he had shaved by the road; he had brought his +tackle with him, he often did. Here--no, that was his pistol: the other +pocket. Marda extolled his foresight. Mr. Montmorency had forgotten to +introduce them; they stood socially grouped round a beech and exchanged +cigarettes. + +“Very busy now?” said Marda, bending down to the match Gerald sheltered. + +“Off and on--generally on, but we don’t know.” She really seemed most +remarkable, he looked intently, just lightly enough to avoid a stare. +He liked talk like this, square and facty, compact with assumptions +Pleasant that she should be here at the house for lunch. Light slipped +back over the dints of her hair as she looked up again. Lunch seemed a +torch in the future; between now and lunch-time he would have come on +Lois, somewhere, somehow, and amazingly kissed her amazed hands. There +would be, till the kiss, no speaking--there she eluded him. He had +thought this out. + +He had thought this out, seen ahead to this climax rather--as though a +flower’s centre had been revealed by an impetuous opening out of lovely +confused petals--on the lorry, breasting the darkness. Watching the +morning skylines form and creep out like enemies from the cold night, +he had burned at her nearness under the insistent groping of the wind. +Rushing under his eyes the hedge-tops shivered; he had laughed and +shivered, hand in his pistol pocket, hand on his razor. And now, as +looking at Marda he once more kissed Lois’s hands, he knew once more, +assured by her eyes, that keen truth of the first showing of daylight. +He was fortified in assurance. Leaning with her elbow against the tree, +returning casually his directness of look, she recalled some profound +and certain excitement, as of his first approach to the War. Now he +meant to go past the hands, to kiss the curve of Lois’s cheek as she +strained away, then stamp her uncertain mouth with his own certainty. +Naïvely, he looked at his wrist-watch. + +“Yes, go on,” she said, looking up through trees where a bright breath +disturbed the closeness. He looked past her, the path led to Lois. This +green open path spaced out with trees was (he afterwards thought) like +something in heaven. + +“It will rain by lunch-time,” said Mr. Montmorency. And indeed the sky +was already creeping together and fading, and the mountains’ sharpness +seemed a kind of anxiety. + +“I wish,” said Gerald to Marda, “you’d been out up there this morning. +You wouldn’t know where you were, with the light coming.” + +“Is there a smell of daylight? I once heard a man say--” + +“Well, that is just like me--I was smoking.” + +“Look, you must go on.” + +“Yes, perhaps--” He went on. She was left only half protected by +irony from an inrush of desolation. His look and smile clung to her +memory with the tenacity of irrelevance: his steps on the grass died +out quickly. There was silence: a cold apprehension of rain in the +beeches, the tinkling and knocking of water beyond the wall. Hugo, +having walked a short way ahead, looked back at her sharply. She was +startled. “Bother!” she thought. For there was bother behind the look. + +“Do we go on?” They walked on, but were oppressed by their lack of +objective. They met the white stare of a cottage, stared and turned. + +“Dannie Regan lives there: he shot out an eye shooting rabbits and now +he’s losing the sight of the other. I used to go out with him when +I was a boy--so high. His mother lives with him--or should still; I +haven’t heard that she’s gone. She must be a hundred and four.” + +“Do you know the man I am going to marry, Leslie Lawe? He’s a +stockbroker; he fishes a good deal. His people are in Meath.” + +“Meath?... I didn’t know you--” + +“I am really. I haven’t told the Naylors. They think my engagements +fantastic; you see, they have all come to nothing. But I ought to have +told the Naylors; it ought to have come at once, but there was that +wretched suitcase. I will say something at dinner, not lunch: please do +something to lessen the atmosphere of surprise.” + +“When?” + +“Oh, we think this winter.” + +He looked from one window of the cottage to the other. “It will make +a break in the winter,” he said at last. “I dare say you will go +somewhere sunny. Algiers perhaps--Morocco, if you are able.” + +“Yes, he is quite rich.” + +“I shouldn’t go to the Riviera.... But I thought you didn’t believe in +this sort of thing?” + +“I? Oh, I never said so.” + +Now he came to think of it, she had not explicitly said so. “I hope you +will be happy.” + +“I don’t expect I shall be much different.” + +“I think,” he said, “I must go in and talk to Dannie. He will have +heard I’m back. It seems a good time now--do you mind?” + +“I’ll talk to Mrs. Regan.” + +“She’s deaf.” + +“Then we’ll smile at each other--she’s not blind.” + +They approached the doorway that yearned up the path like an +eye-socket. A breath of peat smoke, of cold trodden earth, of the +ghostly dark of white walls came out from the cottage. Dannie took form +on the darkness, searching with his one eye. He stood with his white +beard, helpless and eager. “Well!” exclaimed Hugo. Then Dannie broke +out: this was young Mr. Hugo, wasn’t he the lovely gentleman, as fine +and upstanding as ever. And here was his wife he’d brought with him, +the beautiful lady. And, trembling and searching, he took Marda’s hand. +He declared that she brought back the sight of youth to his eyes. + + + + + XI + + +IT rained before lunch-time. Gerald heard loud drops come after him +as he went up the beech walk. Under every beech he expected to see +Lois looking round in surprise. When he heard a dog in the undergrowth +he turned, laughing with expectation. But it was the _louche_ yellow +dog from the lodge, intent on rabbiting. Soon a square black eye of +the house--three--four--looked down at him through the branches; he +came out under the whole cold shell of it, streaked with rain and +hollow-looking from an interior darkness. The yellow dog passed him, +looked back scornfully from the steps and pattered in at the door with +an air of possession. “Hallo!” called Gerald, looking about him. + +But she was nowhere; the place was cold with her absence and seemed +forgotten. The tennis party became a dream--parasols with their +coloured sunshine, rugs spread, shimmer of midges, amiable competition +of voices. Something had now been wiped from the place with implied +finality. Gerald told himself it was all very queer, quiet; that it +was disappointing about Lois. He tugged the bell, a maid appeared in +surprise, did her back hair hastily, encouraged him in with a smile and +left him. The hall with staring portraits contracted round a glove on +the table--a grey suède gauntlet strapped at the wrist--he picked up +the glove and kissed it. But the house was full of ladies, the glove +might as well be Marda’s--he dropped it doubtfully. + +A lovely mystery of feminine life: what did a young girl do with +herself in the mornings? Vaguely he pictured keyboards and pink ambling +fingers. He recollected those sage-green sexless covers of intellectual +books. He recalled the musty smell of work-boxes, the blush through +transparent paper of shell-pink needlework wrapped away hastily. You +never asked a girl what she was making. + +He listened, took off his trench-coat, stepped to the drawing-room +door. The five tall windows stood open on rain and the sound of +leaves, rain stuttered along the sills, the grey of the mirrors +shivered. Polished tables were cold little lakes of light. The smell +of sandalwood boxes, a kind of glaze on the air from all the chintzes +numbed his earthy vitality, he became all ribs and uniform. He was +aware of intrusion. But he dared not go in unasked to the library, +where Sir Richard might well look up from writing, sharp with +pince-nez. He could not again face the hall--he was shy of the glove. + +He took up the _Spectator_, read an article on Unrest and thought +of the Empire. Mechanically his hand went up to his tie. He looked +ahead to a time when it all should be accurately, finally fenced +about and all raked over. Then there should be a fixed leisured glow, +and relaxation, as on coming in to tea from an afternoon’s gardening +with his mother in autumn. He turned in thought to confident English +country, days like the look in a dog’s eyes, rooms small in the scope +of firelight, neighbourly lights through trees. He thought of a woman, +kind and palpable, who should never produce this ache, this absence.... +A door dragged forward its portière; Lois came in from the dining-room, +brushing rain from her frieze coat. He stood for a moment in a kind +of despair at her agitation, as though he were trying to take her +photograph. Then he stepped forward and kissed her, his hands on her +wet shoulders. + +“--Oh, but look here--” cried Lois. + +But she was his lovely woman: kissed. He shone at her, she helpless. +She looked out at the hopeless rain. + +“I love--” he said eagerly. + +“Oh, but look here--” + +“But I love--” + +“What are you doing in the drawing-room?” + +“I’ve come to lunch.” + +“Do they know?” + +“I haven’t seen anyone.” + +“_I_ don’t know who to tell,” she said distractedly. “They have all +disappeared; they always are disappearing. You’d think this was the +emptiest house in Ireland--we have no family life. It’s no good my +telling Brigid because she forgets, and the parlourmaid is always +dressing. I suppose I had better lay you a place myself--but I don’t +know where the knives are kept. I can’t think why you are being so +sudden all of a sudden, in every way: you never used to be. I haven’t +even done the flowers yet. I do wish you wouldn’t, Gerald--I mean, be +so _actual_. And do be natural at lunch, or I shall look such a goat. +You really might have asked me, I never mind talking things over. But +now the gong will go at any moment. And how do you know I’m not in love +with a married man?” + +“You wouldn’t be so neurotic; I mean, like a novel. I mean: do be +natural, Lois.” + +“Don’t look so, so inflamed.... Miss Norton is here; she’s a girl--at +least a kind of a girl. She’s awfully attractive.” + +“I think I met her. She’s awfully--well, not beautiful, but ... Oh, +Lois ...” + +“Do be normal: do play the piano.” + +“I can’t start playing the piano before I’ve even told them I’ve come +to lunch. I may be musical, Lois, but I’m not artistic.” + +“All right,” she said, and walked away from him round the room. So +that was being kissed: just an impact, with inside blankness. She was +lonely, and saw there was no future. She shut her eyes and tried--as +sometimes when she was sea-sick, locked in misery between Holyhead +and Kingstown--to be enclosed in nonentity, in some ideal no-place, +perfect and clear as a bubble. Or she was at a party, unreal and vivid, +or running on hard sands. “It wouldn’t have mattered so much at the +seaside,” she said to Gerald. + +“But we never are at the seaside.” + +She opened a sandalwood box and looked in: three blue beads and a +receipt of her own from Switzers: three-and-eleven for yellow velvet +pansies, worn at a dance and spoilt. “It’s not even as though we were +at a dance,” she added. + +“Lois, I’ve been thinking about you all night, up in the +mountains--right up there when you were asleep. You were wonderful.” + +“Haven’t you been to bed at all?” + +“No, you know I--” + +“Oh, Gerald-- Oh ... darling-- But you did have breakfast?” + +The gong sounded: great brass balls went bouncing about the empty +rooms. The parlourmaid looked in perfunctorily. “Lunch?” said Gerald to +Lois. + +“No one is in--and I don’t suppose lunch is even ready. Gerald, _did_ +you have breakfast?” + +“An enormous breakfast at Ballydarra.... What were you saying, Lois; +what did you call me _then_ ... before the gong?” + +But now she flushed and answered: “I’m sopping wet; I’m steaming, I +smell like a dog. I should have thought you would want me to go and +change. I should have thought you’d be--protecting.” + +“You know I’d die for you.” + +They looked at each other. The words had a solemn echo, as though +among high dark arches in a church where they were standing and being +married. She thought of death and glanced at his body, quick, lovely, +present and yet destructible. Something passed sensation and touched +her consciousness with a kind of weight and warmth; she glimpsed a +quiet beyond experience, as though for many nights he had been sleeping +beside her. + +“What _did_ I say then? Say it.” + +“‘Darling’ ...” + +But she turned away from some approach in his look. + +Lady Naylor and Mrs. Montmorency passed, in profile, under the three +west windows, pressed very close together under a green en-tout-cas, +discussing the vice-regency of the Aberdeens. Simultaneously, Mr. +Montmorency and Miss Norton were heard coming up the steps rather +breathlessly, talking about money. They must both have been conscious +of being a little vulgar, a little English, for as Sir Richard rattled +open the glass door and went out to meet them, they broke off flatly. + +“You must have got very wet,” said Sir Richard. “Marda, about that +suitcase of yours. I have been thinking it over--” + +“Sir Richard, I can’t bear you to--” + +“My dear girl, a suitcase is a suitcase--I was just saying to Marda, +Myra, that I have been thinking over that suitcase of hers--” + +“We had better have lunch at once,” said Lady Naylor imperatively. + +“Miss Norton will have to change.” + +“Hugo, how _could_ you let her get so wet!” + +“My dear, I am not an umbrella.” + +“Marda, how could you go out without a mackintosh!” + +In the drawing-room Gerald walked to a window and stared at the rain in +perplexity, stroking the back of his head, looking rather an ordinary +kind of subaltern. Lois looked at herself in a mirror, then went out to +the hall to tell them about Gerald. Every one stared, she put up a hand +to her face. “Mr. Lesworth has come to lunch,” she said deprecatingly. +“You told him he could whenever he wanted, so I suppose he thought he +might.” + +“Of _course_,” said Lady Naylor; “I suppose you have told Sarah?” + +“Well, I don’t know where to find her; she is always dressing.” + +“Of course she is not always dressing; should I keep a parlourmaid who +was? She only changes once a day, but you always go and look for her at +the wrong times. Where is Mr. Lesworth?” + +“In the drawing-room.” + +“How extraordinary! Wouldn’t he rather be in the library? Richard, +why didn’t you ask Mr. Lesworth into the library? I expect now he had +better wash.” + +Lois went upstairs: Marda came up after her and took her arm; Lois +started. She could not think of anything to say, Marda was not even +trying; they went up silently. “Some time,” Lois said as they parted, +“can I show you my drawings? They’re fearfully bad.” + +“Come up to my room after tea.” + +Throughout luncheon, Sir Richard talked to Gerald about the South +African War and the Cork Militia. He liked the young fellow. Laurence +talked to Marda about whaling, Lady Naylor and Francie continued the +Aberdeens, Lois tried to explain to Hugo about Augustus John. The rain +stopped, they agreed that it had been only a shower. Lois and Gerald +were side by side, but they did not have to speak, they simply passed +things. The side of her next to Gerald felt numb. + +“Raspberries?” she said towards the end of the meal, constrainedly. + +“Please.” _He_ was not nervous at all. Queer, she confusedly thought, +how men throw off action without a quiver at severance from the self +that goes into it. They remain complete, the action hangs in the air +of the place, above the grass or furniture, crystallizing in memory; +eternal, massive and edged to the touch of thought as, to the bodily +touch, a grand piano. She herself felt bound to all she had done +emotionally. But his kissing of her, his attack, were no longer part of +him. He concentrated upon his raspberries, crushing them, on his cream +with carmine beautifully folding through, on his flushing sugar. She +watched the work on his plate. “Magnificent,” he said to Sir Richard, +agreeing about the Cork Militia. + +Going out through the hall, Laurence offered Gerald a cigarette. +“American--extra mild.” + +“Thanks--I--” + +“How is your jazz band?” + +“Very little practising; not much time, you see.” + +“Do tell me: did you kill anybody?” + +“How much?” said Gerald, startled. + +“Anybody last night?” + +“Oh, good Lord, no!” + +“Isn’t that why you go out?” + +“We were looking for arms, really. And nights you find the most +surprising people at home. We were after a fellow called Peter Connor: +we got him.” + +“Fight?” said Laurence eagerly. + +“He was at home, in bed. These blighters think we are greater fools +than we are.” + +“Very cynical of him.... Oh, I say, Uncle Richard, Lesworth has +captured Peter Connor.” + +“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Sir Richard, flushing severely. “His +mother is dying. However, I suppose you must do your duty. We must +remember to send up now and inquire for Mrs. Michael Connor. We’ll +send some grapes. The poor woman--it seems too bad.” He went off, +sighing, into the library. + +Gerald was horrified. His duty, so bright and abstract, had come +suddenly under the shadowy claw of the personal. “I had no idea,” he +exclaimed to Laurence, “these people were friends of yours.” + +“Can’t be helped,” said Laurence. “I dare say he was a dirty dog.... +If you hate that cigarette, Lesworth, have one of your own. It seems +a long time since we have seen you. How is this war of yours really +going? Do you realize I know nothing--this might all just as well be +going on in the Balkans. I sometimes rather wish that I were a gunman. +There are one or two things I should like to ask--but don’t let me keep +you if you want to talk to anyone else.” + +“Rather not.” + +The ladies were in the drawing-room laughing intimately, putting across +the open door a barrier of exclusion. Laurence and Gerald wandered +about the hall, taking note of each other indirectly and amicably. +Laurence was by three years the younger, but imposed his own impression +of seniority. Light hair tumbling, eyes startled open and limp grey +flannels, he looked to Gerald as though he had slept through the +morning. While Gerald circled, the grey glove lay on the table, its +fingers crisped in derision. Outside, in an irresponsible burst of +sunshine, the wet fields had a metallic brightness. Gerald thought of +Lois’s shoulders, their rounded squareness, the feel of wet frieze +under his grip. He was flattered but uneasy under Laurence’s interest, +which had indeed, for the simple, the awkward menace of some one +preparing to cast a net. He pursed his lips to a whistle and shrugged +slightly. + +“For instance, what do you, personally, think about all this?” + +“Well, my opinion is--” + +“Oh, but I don’t want your opinion, I want your point of view.” + +“Well, the situation’s rotten. But right _is_ right.” + +“Why?” + +“Well ... from the point of view of civilization. Also, you see, they +don’t fight clean.” + +“Oh, there’s no public school spirit in Ireland. But do tell me--what +do you mean by the point of view of civilization?” + +“Oh--ours.” + +Laurence smiled his appreciation: the conviction, stated without +arrogance, had a ring of integrity. Gerald, embarrassed by this +benevolence, had recourse again to the back of his head, so +gratifyingly polished. “If you come to think,” he explained, “I mean, +looking back on history--not that I’m intellectual--we _do_ seem the +only people.” + +“Difficulty being to make them see it.” + +“--And that we have what they really want ... though of course the more +one thinks of it all, the smaller, personally, it makes one feel.” + +“Oh? I don’t feel small in that way. But I’m not English--” + +“Oh, no--I beg your pardon.” + +“--Thank God.” + +“Don’t understand?” + +“God may. Shall we look for the others?” + +Gerald, shocked, preceded Laurence into the drawing-room. Their +conversation, torn off rough at this edge, seemed doomed from its very +nature to incompletion. Gerald would have wished to explain that no +one could have a sounder respect than himself and his country for the +whole principle of nationality, and that it was with some awareness +of misdirection, even of paradox, that he was out here to hunt and +shoot the Irish. His alertness was blunted, while he approached the +ladies, by a slight stupor of effort; he was groping for something +Napoleon had once said, something remarkably neat and apposite that +Gerald had once copied into a pocket-book. Laurence had not hoped to +explain, but had wished that Gerald could infer, that there was a +contrariety in the notions they each had of this thing civilization. +As a rather perplexing system of niceties, Laurence saw it; an exact +and delicate interrelation of stresses between being and being, like +crossing arches; an unemotioned kindness withering to assertion selfish +or racial; silence cold with a comprehension in which the explaining +clamour died away. He foresaw in it the end of art, of desire, as it +would be the end of battle, but it was to this end, this faceless but +beautiful negation that he had lifted a glass inwardly while he had +said, “Thank God!” + +Gerald knew that no one who spoke of God in that family way could +have any belief. He had heard that Oxford was full of Socialism, of a +wrongness that was the outcome of too much thinking, and in the light +of this it did appear to him that Laurence’s conversation had been +decidedly Sinn Fein. But he liked and respected Lois’s cousin, who +made a man of one by that naïve curiosity as to bloodshed--curiosity +to which Gerald had been a stranger since the days of the _Boy’s Own +Paper_ spread on the nursery floor. Also, he could not have looked so +consistently bored at parties if he had not been, as they all said, +very intellectual. + +Lois, watching Gerald approach with an absence of smile that was almost +a shadow, was certain she must have done him injustice. His constraint +(the pursuit of Napoleon) had a rather grave beauty. Their kiss under +the high ceiling must be present and palpable to him also. Aware of +some growth of manliness in him, she wanted the feel of his lips again, +to capture what she had missed before. And a quick glance of Marda’s +from one to the other sealed their mood with a recognition. + +“Can’t we go out?” she said generally, for Gerald to take up. + +“It will rain again in a minute,” said Lady Naylor, glancing cynically +at the weather. And indeed a few drops already sparkled against the +sunshine. “Also I particularly want to talk to Mr. Lesworth. When he +comes he is always playing tennis, or I forget. But now there are some +things I really want to ask him ... I really want his point of view ...” + +She sat down in a faded bowery chair, settling herself with a rustle +of expectation. Francie, attracted, trailed her skirts and her fancy +work down the sofa; Marda, putting a new cigarette in her holder, +leaned over the back. From the constellation of eager faces Lois +wandered away. The three were no more her enemies than were her own +irresolution or the bright vicious raindrops blotting the pane. Yet +their unforeseen combination defeated her finally. She yawned at the +outlook. + +“Lois, don’t yawn,” said her aunt. “Now I want to know, Mr. Lesworth, +what Colonel Boatley really thinks of reprisals. Of course it will go +no further, though you mustn’t think I want you to be indiscreet.... +Laurence, just shut the door.” + +Laurence shut himself out. And Gerald, sitting down with a sigh, said +that of course it was all rather a problem. He caught Marda’s eye, dark +and bright with amusement, and read there the doom of his afternoon. + +“Yes? Yes? Yes? This is so interesting--you were asking me, weren’t +you, Francie, and I said we would ask Mr. Lesworth.... Marda, do +listen, dear, never mind, shake your ash on the carpet, you mustn’t +miss this. Because these days when so much nonsense is talked on both +sides I do feel one owes it to speak on some good authority--unless Mr. +Lesworth would rather we didn’t. Now please go on!” + +And Gerald, half hypnotized, consciously barren and not in his +Colonel’s confidence, repeated to them what he had read in the _Morning +Post_. As Lady Naylor said at the time, no one would dream of taking +the _Morning Post_ seriously, it was so anti-Irish, but an opinion +on it from anyone so much “in things” as Mr. Lesworth was well worth +hearing. And as she said afterwards, it was extraordinary how no amount +of experience shook these young Englishmen up. Their minds remained +cutting-books. + + + + + XII + + +AN armoured car called for Gerald at four o’clock and he was driven +away through the rain. Towards the end of the afternoon he had become +very dull, a kind of fog came over his personality; he confessed he +was sleepy. Lady Naylor remarked what a pity it was he could not stay +for his tea, that would have freshened him up again. There was still +so much that she wanted to know. The drawing-room became to Gerald +fantastic and thin like an ice-palace, and, reflected backwards +and forwards in tall mirrors, seemed like a chain of galleries at +Versailles down which, numbing with admiration, he had to advance +wearily. He did not see Lois alone any more. She kept coming in, +looking round vaguely, then going upstairs again. Upstairs, he could +hear her playing the gramophone. She came out to the steps with Marda +to see him off; they stood with arms linked, brushing the rain from +their hair. The last they saw of him was a putteed leg being drawn in +carefully. Something steel slid to; they waved, but never a hand came +out. The machine seemed already to be digesting. He was swept from them +with martial impersonality. + +At half-past five Lois went to the top of the house with her +drawing-books, paused for confidence, tickled a panel of Marda’s door. +Coming into the changed and vivid room, she tipped her drawing-books +disengagedly on to a window-seat. Marda sat on the writing-table, +engaged in manicure. Little pots, pads and bottles paraded; a chamois +leather was spread on her knee. A sweet smell of varnish, like +pear-drops, was in the air. + +“The most I can do,” said Lois, intent, “is to keep mine clean.” + +“Quite enough. It’s just this habit of making up every part of one +that’s exposed at all.... Lois, have a cigarette?” + +“Oh ... thanks. You don’t mind my coming?” + +“My dear, why?” + +“What lovely brushes! What a ... what an uncommon photograph frame!” + +“Yes, that’s Leslie Lawe.” + +“Oh? Oh yes,” Lois paused uncertainly. “How good looking! Do--do you +know him well?” + +“Very. We’re engaged.” + +“Oh, how lovely!” Lois had a shock of flatness. + +“Oh, yes; didn’t you know?” + +“Well, I thought you probably would be. Shall you live in London?” + +“I suppose we shall. I suppose we shall have to.” + +“Oh, how lovely!” + +Marda laughed and began screwing on the lids of her little pots. In the +light of her brilliant life, her deftness seemed to Lois inimitable. +One would have had to have lived twenty-nine years as fast, as surely +and wildly, to screw pink celluloid caps on to small white pots with +just that lightness of finger-tip, just that degree of amusement, just +that detachment in smile and absorption in attitude. And the pink smell +of nail-varnish, dresses trickling over a chair, flash of swinging +shoe-buckle, cloud of powder over the glass, the very room with its +level stare on the tree-tops, took on awareness, smiled with secrecy, +had the polish and depth of experience. The very birds on the frieze +flew round in cognizant agitation. + +“What a lovely dress!” said Lois, picking up the end of a red sleeve, +so that she seemed to be standing hand in hand with the dress. + +“Vienna.” + +“And, oh, what a lovely green one!... Am I pawing things?” + +“I like it. But haven’t you got some drawings?” + +“Drawings? Oh, my drawings! Oh--I’m afraid they’d bore you.” + +“I don’t expect so.” + +“Well, I did just happen to bring them along.” + +She had brought two drawing-books, cheerful in mottled bindings with +tissue between the pages. She brought them across to Marda, then turned +away. The drawings, in black ink, illustrated the Morte d’Arthur and +Omar Khayyam. They remembered Beardsley. Lois, away at a window, +heard Marda rustle the tissue paper: she watched the rain intently. +Beyond the demesne trees, a farm cart rattled along the road. Marda, +conscientious, turned back to the title page. Here she paused, for Lois +had printed out, in uncertain Gothic: + + “‘I am a painter who cannot paint; + In my life, a devil rather than saint; + In my brain, as poor a creature too: + No end to all that I cannot do! + But do one thing at least I can-- + Love a man or hate a man + Supremely--’ + + Lois Honoria Farquar: Her Book.” + +“Oh,” said Marda. + +“Browning.” + +“But can you really?” + +“I don’t see why not.” + +“And are you sure that you can’t paint? Have you ever tried?” + +“I hated two of the girls at school and I really rather do hate Mr. +Montmorency. And I can’t help getting involved with people. Personal +relations make a perfect havoc of me; my headmistress said so. Of +course I haven’t had much scope here, so far. Being grown up seems +trivial, somehow. I mean, dressing and writing notes instead of +letters, and trying to make impressions. When you have to think so much +of what other people feel about you there seems no time to think what +you feel about them. Everybody is genial at one in a monotonous kind +of way. I don’t seem to find young men inspiring, somehow. I suppose I +shall. Did you ever have any difficulty about beginning?” + +“I can’t remember. I never can see back to the other side of things +that have happened.” + +“I think I must cut that title page out. I wrote it when I was rather +young. But surely love wouldn’t get so much talked about if there were +not something in it? I mean even soap, you know, however much they +advertise ...” + +“Oh, there must be. Let me look at the drawings.” + +Marda, still on the table with crossed knees, spread out the book +briskly. But Lois, all in a glow, could not help remarking: “Somebody +told me I was neurotic.” + +“I shouldn’t worry.” + +With a brutality of which she was unaware Marda returned to the +drawings. Lois, thinking: “I do not interest her,” sat down on the +floor with her back to the chest of drawers. Over the mottled carpet +curled strange pink fronds: some one dead now, buying this carpet, had +responded to an idea of beauty. Lois thought how in Marda’s bedroom, +when she was married, there might be a dark blue carpet with a bloom +on it like a grape, and how this room, this hour would be forgotten. +Already the room seemed full of the dusk of oblivion. And she hoped +that instead of fading to dust in summers of empty sunshine, the carpet +would burn with the house in a scarlet night to make one flaming call +upon Marda’s memory. Lois again realized that no one had come for her, +after all. She thought, “I must marry Gerald.” + +But with a jump of the heart she heard every page turn over. She +received the print of each look as though her sensibility were +the paper. Reactions to Lois’s drawings were as a rule momentary +and staccato: “My dear!... They’re sinister ... what a marvellous +muezzin!... Aren’t those the seven queens?” And indeed it had come to +seem to herself that the drawings must really mean something. A glance +at them, though she had lost the power to see them, gave her the kind +of surprised assurance one might expect from motherhood. + +Marda said nothing; once or twice she changed her attitude, shifting +the book from knee to knee. Soot, dislodged by the rain, sifted sharply +on to the paper fan in the grate, startling them to an exchange of +glances. Then she said deliberately, closing the drawing-book: + +“I think you’re cleverer than you can draw, you know.” + +“Oh--” + +“You don’t mind, do you? Look--have another cigarette. Why can’t you +write, or something?” + +“That’s so embarrassing. Even things like--like elephants get so +personal.” + +“I know. I give up reading--I’m sick of their personal elephants.... Or +act? But why do you stay here?” + +“I can’t think,” said Lois, startled. + +“You like to be the pleasant young person?” + +“I like to be in a pattern.” She traced a pink frond with her finger. +“I like to be related; to have to be what I am. Just to _be_ is so +intransitive, so lonely.” + +“Then you will like to be a wife and mother.” Marda got off the +writing-table and began to change her stockings. “Jacob’s ladder,” she +explained. “It’s a good thing we can always be women.” + +“I hate women. But I can’t think how to begin to be anything else.” + +“Climate.” + +“But I would hate to be a man. So much fuss about doing things. Except +Laurence--but he is such a hog. Ought I to go to London?” + +“Ever been abroad?” + +Of course she had not, she said, because of the War, and of course she +would like to. There was Rome, and she would like to stay in a hotel +by herself.--There was just “abroad”: she always wondered how long +the feeling lasted. And there was America, but one would have to have +introductions or one would get a crick in one’s neck from just always +looking up at things. She would like to feel real in London. She had +never come out through a pass and looked down on little distinct white +cities with no smoke. She had never been in a tunnel for more than five +minutes--she had heard there were tunnels in which you could nearly +suffocate? She had never seen anything larger than she could imagine. +She wanted, she said, to see backgrounds without bits taken out of them +by Holy Families; small black trees running up and down white hills. +She thought the little things would be important: trees with electric +lights growing out of them, she had heard of; coloured syphons. She +wanted to go wherever the War hadn’t. She wanted to go somewhere +nonchalant where politics bored them, where bands played out of doors +in the hot nights and nobody wished to sleep. She wanted to go into +cathedrals unadmonished and look up unprepared into the watery deep +strangeness. There must be perfect towns where shadows were strong like +buildings, towns secret without coldness, unaware without indifference. +She liked mountains, but she did not care for views. She did not want +adventures, but she would like just once to be nearly killed. She +wanted to see something that only she would remember. Could one really +float a stone in a glacier stream? She liked unmarried sorts of places. +She did not want to see the Taj Mahal or the Eiffel Tower (could one +avoid it?) or to go to Switzerland or Berlin or any of the Colonies. +She would like to know people and go to dinner parties on terraces, and +she thought it would be a pity to miss love. Could one travel alone? +She did not mind being noticed because she was a female, she was tired +of being not noticed because she was a lady. She could not imagine ever +not wanting some one to talk to about tea-time. If she went to Cook’s, +could they look out all the trains for her, in Spain and everywhere? +She had never been to Cook’s. Was there any law about selling tickets +to people under age? + +Marda, smoothing the last wrinkle out of a stocking and fastening up a +suspender, said she did not believe this was so. + +“Of course anybody could do all that. But it would not be me.” + +“But be interested in what happens to you for its own sake; don’t +expect to be touched or changed--or to be in anything that you do. One +just watches. Pain is one’s misunderstanding.” + +The advice, fruit of her own relation to experience, unwisdom, lacking +the sublimer banality, was--as she suspected while still speaking--to +her young friend meaningless and without value. The infinite variance +of that relation breaks the span of comprehension between being and +being and makes an attempt at sympathy the merest fumbling for outlet +along the boundaries of the self. Lois looked vaguely out at the sky, +and thought how she could not possibly travel in Europe with a green +canvas trunk with her school initials. She longed for three leather +suitcases. She said sadly: + +“The thought of places without one is so lonely.” + +“Pull yourself together, my dear child.” + +“Don’t you think honeymoons are great waste of travelling?” + +“That reminds--I must write a letter. Don’t go--look, have another +cigarette. What is the date?” + +“I don’t know. Does it matter?” + +Evidently it did matter; Marda had to unpack the bottom of a suitcase +and look the date up in a pocket-book. And from this Lois immediately +concluded Leslie must be one of those keen square people who did +not care for girls of nineteen, whose eyes slid past one’s look +impatiently, who had no enthusiasms and read the biographies of +politicians other than Disraeli. She heard Marda writing with little +pauses and gushes; her shoulders and the stoop of her head took on +an appearance of obligation. Lois thought how anxious to marry Marda +must really be, how anxious not to frighten Leslie away from her, and +how all her distantness and her quick, rejecting air must be a false +effect, accidental and transitory. + +“I think,” she said, “I must be a woman’s woman.” + +“Oh yes. _Where_ are we going to tennis to-morrow?” + +“Castle Trent--but we won’t because of the rain. Is Mr. Lawe very +social?” + +“Reasonably. Of course, he likes his people nice. _What_ was the name +of the man at lunch--surname?” + +“Lesworth. Gerald is very social. He smiles all the time like a dog. Do +you think that is good in a man?” + +“I am telling Leslie he wants to marry you--may I?” + +“Will it give Mr. Lawe a good impression?” + +“Well, it furnishes you rather. And I can’t think what else to say.” + +“Don’t scratch it out,” said Lois after an interval, “but as a matter +of fact he didn’t speak of marriage. He merely kissed me. The English +have quite a different moral standard.” + +“Besides, he had been up all night.” + +“What are men one is engaged to like?” + +“Very worried and kind,” said Marda, blotting a sheet of her letter. +“Business-like, passionate and accurate. When they press you against +their chests a paper crackles, and when you sit up again to do your +face and arrange your hair, they cough and pull out the paper, all +folded and say: ‘While I think of it, I just wanted to consult you +about this.’ Dinner services come crashing through the air like in a +harlequinade. You feel you have been kissed in a shop. I cannot be +adequate. I suggested writing to those public schools for vacancies +for our three little boys, but that was not nice apparently. When you +are engaged you live in the future, and a large part of the future is +improper till it has happened.” + +“Oh ... what would happen now if you lost your engagement ring?” asked +Lois with enjoyment. + +“I daren’t wear it. Oh, look here, I am talking like a fool. I’m sorry, +Lois, but you really must not talk to me when I am writing letters. I +need Leslie. Dinner services don’t matter. If you never need anyone +as much you will be fortunate. I don’t know for myself what is worth +while. I’m sick of all this trial and error. Will you find a book or +something? Don’t go!” + +Lois did not wish to go, but thought “Why should she keep me here when +she is thinking about Leslie?” She felt deprived and unhappy. She +tried to imagine a situation in which Leslie would look ridiculous. +She prayed that the three correct little boys might never be born. She +hoped he would have five daughters, and all artistic. “One thing more,” +she said, “how is it that men are so seldom photographed in profile? Do +they have to look frank?” + +Steps coming down the gallery, relentlessly, with intention, might have +been Leslie’s but were unmistakably Laurence’s. + +Laurence tapped and remarked through the door that his Aunt Myra wanted +to know if the letters were ready. Timothy would be starting now; he +could wait five minutes, but if he did would almost certainly miss the +post. + +“Damn!” said Marda. + +“What d’you say?” + +“Oh, come in. Why did I polish my nails?” Laurence sat down on the +window-sill. He was annoyed and surprised to find Lois present. He +suspected that she had been bothering Marda, confiding, fidgeting, +asking about love and wishing to try on her hats. Probably she had +brought up a poetry book and kept coming across with a thumb on the +margin to point out the bits she loved. He wished that Lois would marry +and leave Danielstown; he could perfectly see her as a very pink bride, +later as a girl wife in the Tchehov tradition in a pink blouse, sucking +sweets audibly, prattling of girl friends’ lovers, rustling papers +endlessly. He only hoped that she might marry Gerald, who had no papers +to rustle. + +“I hope,” he said, “that Lois has been amusing you?” + +“Don’t talk,” said Lois. “I mean, she wants to finish her letter.” + +“Evidently,” said Laurence. + +“Explain Leslie,” said Marda, writing rapidly. “It will help at dinner.” + +“She is engaged,” said Lois, “to a Mr. Lawe. That is his photograph +there. His name is Leslie.” + +“Oh yes,” said Laurence. + +“He is not comic,” said Marda, leaning around and pushing the letter +away. “She makes him sound so--like ‘a Mr. Wilkinson, a clergyman.’ +Lady Naylor will like it all, but I haven’t told her. Will you help Mr. +Montmorency and Lois form a public opinion and not be surprised when +I talk about him at dinner? About the end of the fish, I thought.... +I cannot finish this letter; it will have to go to-morrow and I will +wire.” + +“And I have a piece of news for you. Castle Trent was raided for arms +last night. Of course they didn’t find any. They think the thing was +entirely amateur, nothing to do with the I.R.A. at all. They took away +some boots. The Trents think one of the raiders was a gardener’s cousin +from Ballydarra who hates the family. He left a quite unnecessary +message behind with a skull and crossbones; he sounds to me rather a +silly man. I am hoping perhaps they will come here to-night. We have +two assegais and a stiletto that Uncle Richard uses for a paper-knife.” + +“It is a paper-knife,” said Lois, “only made so as to look like a +stiletto. How perfectly thrilling; do let us all sit up.” + +“I shall sit up, but you had better go to bed. You might be insulted.” + +“Really, I am not so female as all that.” + +Laurence shrugged his shoulders. + +“At any rate, don’t tell the others. Uncle Richard’ll get fussy and +spoil it, and if Aunt Myra meets them she will keep them talking all +night.” + +“It seems so odd,” said Laurence, “that she should be my blood aunt and +not yours.” + +Marda looked at him thoughtfully over the back of her chair. She had +not realized he could be so disagreeable. If he did not take care, +he would grow up just like Mr. Montmorency. She told him so, and +added that she was surprised he did not appreciate Lois. “She is very +charming,” she said, “and very intelligent. Think of all the cousins +you might have had. It’s not her fault that you’re not in Tahiti or +Valladolid or wherever it was you wanted to go this summer. If I were +not going to marry I should ask her to come abroad with me. I have +never been less bored.” + +“It would be marvellous,” said Lois. Now that Laurence had come in +she felt more alone with Marda, and nearer; she could think of all +the things she had wanted to say. Intoxicated by being told she was +charming and by Laurence’s disapproval, she hitched herself up on to +the end of the wooden bed, where she sat swinging her legs and smiling, +all girlhood. She felt movement, a wind in her face as though she were +on the prow of a ship. With a bound, life carried her forward again. +She felt certain that Leslie would die or break off the engagement. +“Marvellous,” she repeated. + +“At any rate,” Laurence said, “you can ask her to be a bridesmaid.” +And there was Lois, forlorn in the aisle, with hot air coming up her +legs from a grating and tears dripping off her nose into a bunch of +chrysanthemums. She would keep the ribbon from her bouquet and show it +to Gerald in confidence while she unpacked on their wedding night. + +“I am thinking of going abroad quite soon,” she said to Laurence. + +“Mr. Montmorency has gone for a walk,” said Laurence. “He had to take +an umbrella. Apparently he does not usually take an umbrella, but when +he was half-way down the avenue Mrs. Montmorency suddenly said he must, +because it had never rained like this before. So she took an umbrella +and one for herself and started off down the avenue after him. Aunt +Myra said she should not have done this because of her heart and looked +round for me, but I had gone quickly into the dining-room, which is +the last place anybody would look for one between meals. So she found +Uncle Richard and he took another umbrella and ran quickly down the +avenue after Mrs. Montmorency, telling her not to run like that. When +he had caught her up he took the umbrella from her and went still more +quickly, shouting, after Mr. Montmorency, who pretended not to hear +and walked on with a back view of positive hatred.” + +“But how do you know all this if you were in the dining-room?” + +“When they were under way I went to the library window and looked after +them.... Lois, did Lesworth tell you he has captured Peter Connor? He +was in bed, apparently.” + +“Laurence!” called Lady Naylor from the end of the gallery. “Where are +you? What about Marda’s letters?... They can’t go now,” she went on, +approaching. “Timothy waited ten minutes, and now he has got to run all +the way, but he will certainly miss the post.... Oh, you are all here?” + +She looked at her nephew and niece disparagingly and sat down on the +bed. “It is an extraordinary thing,” she said generally, “the way +nobody in this house can be trusted to remember messages.... It has +been a tiring day,” she added. “Nobody could be nicer than that young +Mr. Lesworth, but certainly he is not intelligent. And since then they +have all been running down the avenue with umbrellas. And oh, what do +you think? They have been raided for arms at Castle Trent. They think +the whole thing must have been organized by their gardener’s cousin. +They took some boots away.” + + + + + XIII + + +WHEN they had all gone to bed, lamps downstairs extinguished, doors +upstairs shut with a rattle upon the last voices, Francie talked of +Marda’s engagement and said she was glad. She was glad as a wife that +the net should be flung wider. She talked, but Hugo did not answer; he +was still too angry about the umbrella to speak when they were alone. +So till well on into the night they lay beside each other under the +darkness in an intent and angry silence. Then she wept and said they +should never have come back to Danielstown. + +“It’s as though I couldn’t remember where anything was.” + +“Look here, if you can’t sleep, you’d better take something.” + +“Hugo!” + +“Oh, I suppose this place disagrees with you, too.” He had designed +an insult, he could not bear her to intrude upon his wakefulness. +Whichever way he turned in that mournful freedom--and the perspectives +of his regret opened fanwise, profound avenues each white at the end +with a faceless statue--she would come stumbling after him, hand to +heart. “Try and sleep,” he said, and sent her away angrily. + +She feigned sleep rigidly, hardly bearing to lie there. Her mind +clenched tight, like a fist, at the isolation of this proximity. She +longed to resume the life of day downstairs in the empty rooms. She +had lain awake in the South of France hearing palm trees creak in the +gritty and dry wind, hooked-back shutters rattle against the wall; she +had lain awake in town with her room a battle of lights through the +thin blinds, lights like her thoughts, flashing and crossing-- But +across this battle-piece, under the long lances, had swarmed, like +Ucello’s roses, small comforts, a kind of content at suffering, the +tenderness of imagined contact. She had wept because he was not with +her. Now a nostalgia for that solitude, for a wall so patient and +smooth to the reaching hand where there was now a sleeper, came on her, +quenching tears. He thought she slept. + +But, “I remember,” she said, about two o’clock, “a Miss Lawe. I met +her last in a tram in Dublin. I remember then she was talking of a +nephew--I wonder would that be Leslie?” + +“Did she say his name?” + +“I can’t remember; I got out of the tram.... Hugo, I’m so thirsty.” + +Sighing, he got out of bed. + +Laurence could not sleep either. There must have been something at +dinner.... He longed for the raiders and strained his ears in the +silence--which had, like the darkness, a sticky and stifling texture, +like cobwebs, muffling the senses. The rain had paused, the trees had +shed the weight of it, never a drop came through them or tapped on his +window-sill. Once he heard, he thought, a fleet of bicycles in the +avenue; he sat up propped on his palms, assembled his attitude, and +was prepared to go down and admit the party courteously. He meant to +offer them bread and apples and leisurely conversation--and jam and +whisky, but in relating the incident he would only mention the bread +and apples, he liked that smack of austerity, an Oriental graveness. +But there were no bicycles; no one knocked; all he had to say went sour +in him. It was only some cattle come up close to the house, rubbing +against the wires. They moved away. + +He lit a candle, blinked at the startled flame and blew it out again. +Darkness resumed, with a discomfortable suggestion of normality. +There seemed proof that the accident of day, of action, need not +recur. And from this blank full stop, this confrontation of a positive +futurelessness, his mind ran spiderlike back on the thread spun out +of itself for advance, stumbling and swerving a little over its own +intricacy. He caught trains he had missed, rushing out to the boundless +possible from the shining mouths of termini, re-ordered meals in a +cosmopolitan blue, re-ate them, thought of thought but sheered away +from that windy gulf full of a fateful clapping of empty book-covers. +Far enough back, in a kind of unborn freedom, he even re-made +marriages. Laura Naylor gave Hugo, scoffingly, bridal tenderness; +they had four sons and all hurried out to coarsen in Canada. Here, in +this that had been her room, Laura had lain on her wedding morning, +watching a spider run up the canopy of the bed, while Hugo made ready, +five miles off, to be driven over to take her hand at the altar by +poor John Trent, and the four young sons in excitement jiggled among +the cherubim. And it was Richard who married Francie, who came to him +all in a bloom at his first request and made a kind of a basinette of +a life for him, dim with lace. Aunt Myra enjoyed a vigorous celibacy, +while Laurence, to be acclaimed a second Weiniger, blew out his brains +at--say--Avila, in a fit of temporary discouragement without having +heard of Danielstown. Lois, naturally, was not born at all. + +But this involved a certain re-arrangement of Laurence’s character, +for not for anything would he have put a pistol into his mouth, though +he would have liked to fire a gun out of a window. This neglect of the +raiders pricked his egotism. And alarmed by the dragging tick of the +watch under his pillow, slowing down as at the mortal sickness of Time, +he turned over and thought in a fury that he could not think why Laura +should have married Mr. Farquar. The rudest man in Ulster he was, with +a disagreeably fresh complexion and an eye like a horse. Her confusion +had clotted up in the air of the room and seemed, in that closest +darkness under the ceiling, to be still impending. Here, choked in the +sweep of the bed-curtains, she had writhed in those epic rages; against +Hugo, against Richard, against any prospect in life at all; biting +the fat resistant pillows. Until once she had risen, fluttered at her +reflection, dabbed her eyes, buttoned a tight sleek dress of that +day’s elegance over her heaving bosom, packed her dresses in arched +trunks (that had come back since to rot in the attics) and driven off, +averting from the stare of the house an angry profile. Hotly, she +went up North to attract and marry Mr. Farquar. It was in her to have +done otherwise, but there is a narrow and fixed compulsion, Laurence +recognized, inside the widest ranges of our instability. + +Below, through the floor, a light drawling scrape climbed into +stuttering melody, syncopated dance music, ghostly with the wagging of +hips and horrid in darkness. Lois, child of that unwise marriage, was +playing the gramophone. Laurence listened, paralysed with indignation, +then reached out and banged a chair on the floor. She attended; the +music broke off with a shock, there was a tingling calm, as after +an amputation. He above, she below, they thought of each other with +outrage. + +Certainly, thought Laurence, there must have been something at dinner. + +But Sir Richard and Lady Naylor were soundly asleep. She was dreaming +about the Aberdeens, while he rode round the country on a motor-bicycle +from which he could not detach himself. His friends cut him; he +discovered he was a Black and Tan. But night rolled on over them +thickly and uneventfully. The others exhausted themselves to sleep. The +darkness clamped round their waking brains did not any one moment seem +to abate its insane pressure; only, within an hour of breakfast they +found themselves restored without reason to the illusion of daylight. +With a kind of fatedness, a passivity, they resumed the operation of +living. + +The morning gave birth to a disappointment. Livvy arrived just as Lois +was starting out for the village with Marda to send the telegram. Her +horse was lame so she came over on a bicycle, and certainly, thought +Lois, watching her lean the bicycle into the privet hedge, there were +many things about Livvy that were a pity. For Marda stood at the top +of the steps in a green jumper, fanning the telegraph form on the air +to dry the ink. The green, queer and metallic, cut surprisingly into +the steamy tones of the house and the morning. She would be gone in +three days. And now while Livvy settled her hat and her front and +prepared for speech, Marda, smiling, came down the steps and walked +away down the avenue, not caring. She missed nobody. The dogs went with +her: gloomily Lois’s eyes went after their wagging sterns. + +“Listen,” said Livvy, clutching Lois’s elbow. “Ah, listen, Lois: what +is the matter?--That is a natty jumper she’s got. I wonder, has she +the pattern? Of course, it’s partly her figure. I wonder now that she +didn’t marry.... Lois, will we go up to your room?” + +Lois did not believe the bed was made. Livvy blushed in her little +defined way and said she wished to be confidential. So they went into +the drawing-room--where Gerald’s kiss was hanging: all the doubts +of the night could not disperse it--and leaned on the grand piano. +Lois was surprised to notice Livvy breathing on to her breast-bone +and drawing something up on a long blue ribbon from intimate depths. +A ring dangled. “No one could be more surprised than myself,” said +Livvy modestly, averting her eyes from a finger on which the ring had +flowered. + +“Oh, well _done!_” Lois could have exclaimed with spontaneity. Checking +this, she said doubtfully: “Oh, my dear ...” + +“Who do you guess?” + +“Mr.... Mr. Armstrong.” + +“Aren’t you quick! Listen--swear that you won’t tell. For my father +doesn’t know and I think he’d kill me.” + +“How did you ... how did he ...” + +“Well, it was like this. You see, he asked me at Mrs. Fogarty’s when +would he see me again, and I said I might be going to Cork to the +dentist Thursday, and he said he might be going to Cork too. So I +thought no more of it. Think what I felt when, I getting out at the +station, I saw him there standing as large as life and watching the +train like a dog. So he asked me where was I going for tea, so I said +if I wasn’t alone I might have dropped in at the Imperial because of +the band, but that my father didn’t like me to go there alone because +of the officers. He said would I go with him, and it was raining and +my appointment wasn’t till half-past five, so I said that we ought not +to be seen together, but I turned my hat right down and we went in and +heard the band. He seemed very much confused, so I asked him was there +anything on his mind and he said there wasn’t and I said there must +be. So he went very scarlet and pulled his belt and looked up at the +ceiling and said he did love me. Then the waiter came with the tea and +I only hope he will not recognize me again. When the waiter had gone +I said he might speak lower, and he said he couldn’t because of the +band. Then I said that of course a thing like this came as a shock to +a girl, and he said did it, and I said indeed it did. I said I was not +sure if I could get accustomed to the idea of marriage at all, and he +looked very much surprised. I said when would he wish it to be? And he +said the worst of it was he had no prospects. I said we Irish were not +mercenary, and that anyway I knew he had an uncle-- It was a great +disadvantage to me, Lois, having to keep down so low under my hat all +the time--for I could see the Hartigans’ aunt, Mrs. Foxe-O’Connor, the +other side of a palm-tree, and a man my father buys cattle from kept +rising up and staring round the room. And what with this and my being +naturally very much confused, and David creaking about in his chair, +and the band, I don’t know how much he heard of what I said at all. + +“However, we thought it might be well to buy a ring, though I can’t +wear it. David looked quite wandering and I had to get him across the +traffic. And I felt pretty curious myself. You see, we have neither +of us been engaged before, though I have had two offers. Then he said +he must go to the barracks, so he put me into a tram to go to the +dentist’s. Presently I noticed it was the wrong tram, but I hadn’t the +heart to get out till it was round the corner after the trouble he’d +taken, the poor boy. But the tram kind of bolted and I got out near +the Cathedral and had to take a very expensive car. I was late at the +dentist’s--he had out two of my teeth.” + +All in a dream, it appeared, Livvy had wandered through wet residential +Cork. All in a dream she had sat and bled from the gums in a train. She +opened her mouth to show the two holes the dentist had made as though +they were wounds of love, and Lois looked into them solemnly. Had they +kissed at all? No, they had not had the opportunity. They could have +taken a cab, but Livvy did not think it moral to drive in a cab with +a man, for it roused his passions. Lois said she thought the smell +inside of a cab would put anyone off, and Livvy said that in that case +a cab would be waste of money. + +“But can he marry? _Can_ a second lieutenant?” + +“Oh, I can wait some years. But I shall go and stay with his relations +and wear a ring and all, so that there need not be any uncertainty.” + +“Why not tell your father now and have it announced?” said Lois +hopefully. She watched her own face looking up from the mottled +piano-top and felt very singular, distant and destined, like Melisande. +“I don’t think,” she said, “that _I_ should be afraid of your father.” + +For Livvy’s father seemed really a very despondent, mild man with a +yellow drooping moustache that he had always to lift up over the edge +of his teacup. It was hard to picture his chasing around after Livvy +with a blackthorn, or smiting his fist on the dinner-table so that +(as Livvy declared) the plates leaped, or going down with the half of +a tart in his hand to destroy the cook. The worst she had seen him +do, when Livvy was late, was to take his watch out and stand with his +thumb on the lid--not looking at it, as though he could not abide +the thought of Time--while two or three bubbles ran up his throat. +He was a widower: Livvy declared her mother had died of him. He was +a teetotaller: half a decanter of whisky was in his tantalus, but he +had lost the key. Lois now assured Livvy her father would be the ideal +father-in-law; she was sure that David would like him. He would come +and stay and be so absolutely unobtrusive. + +“He has a prejudice against Army officers,” said Livvy despondently. +“He wouldn’t mind if it was the Navy--but what chance have I, living +so far inland? If David was a general with gold all down his front and +spoke of marriage, I think he’d still kill him. He says I’ll get the +house burnt over his head with my goings on.” + +“But if he heard you’d been compromised at the Imperial?” + +“A girl can’t be compromised in the afternoon,” said Livvy gloomily. + +Mr. Thompson did not entertain very much, but Lois remembered once +staying to supper there, early that summer, with David and Gerald. +That was before times got so bad and the officers had to be back +early in barracks. Mr. Thompson’s dining-room looked on to trees, +that fanned little gusts of light over the table then closed again in +green darkness; it smelt of meat and there was an enormous pilastered +mahogany sideboard like the front of a temple, inside which they could +hear mice running about. Mr. Thompson was silent--from fear, they +thought, rather than disapproval--he kept drawing long black horsehairs +from the seat of his chair and laying them out on the cloth. At each +hair, David and Gerald leaned forward and opened their mouths to speak. +But Mr. Thompson went down in his collar so that they could not: they +spoke to each other. And Lois, looking under her lids, had marvelled at +this fortress of many opinions. His sister Miss Thompson was present, +but she was deaf. The dining-room was dark red, with a smoky ceiling, +and Gerald said afterwards he had felt like a disease in a liver. When +the blancmange came in it lay down with a sob and Miss Thompson frowned +at it. “Death of the cow,” thought Lois, and saved this up. Livvy kept +looking warningly at her friends, but they were all polite. Some ducks +filed in at the French window; the guests flapped with their napkins, +but Mr. Thompson said: “Oh, let them be,” and sure enough the ducks +went round the table with their usual urgent look and out by the window +again. Mr. Thompson got up and shut out the May air. “Times change for +the worse,” he said to Gerald, who agreed with him so emphatically that +David had to repeat the interchange to the anxious Miss Thompson. No +wonder Livvy found home dull. + +But the happiness of the evening, the closeness-up of the four to each +other, the tremors they all transmitted, the cramp of inside laughter, +remained with Lois, as though they had held hands tightly under the +large oppression. And--under that pressure of laughter compact to +bursting-point--a particular stored excitement of pride and pleasure, +a jump of intimacy at each other’s voices and movements. And the +awareness stayed when, afterwards, they had laughed themselves out +and were empty and solemn, tinging their interchanges with unusual +shyness. That supper marked a degree in her appreciation of Gerald--his +crystalline niceness. + +For Mr. Thompson, still with a little blancmange hanging off his +moustache, got up and left them. And later Miss Thompson stood +pulling down her skirt across her hips, when Gerald opened the door +so beautifully that she had to go out through it, to perfect an +experience. Then Livvy, to show what she thought of her family, got up +and waltzed round the table, tugged open the window, ran on to the +lawn and with unabated gentility jumped on all the croquet hoops, David +following. And Gerald turned for the first time to look at Lois, who +looked away. They poured out more barley-water and, in an ecstasy of +bad manners, bubbled into their glasses. They went out and sat on the +seat by the croquet lawn, under a bush of syringa. Waxy petals touched +Lois’s arm stretched out along the back of the seat, the air smelt of +almonds, moths came slanting out of the bush and glittered off on the +dusk. + +Miss Thompson declared it had been a pleasure, and had asked them to +come again. Lois now said: “I should tell your aunt, she has so little +to interest her; I am sure she would be wonderfully sympathetic.” + +“I always find it difficult,” Livvy said, “to open the subject of +marriage.” And as she looked down, looked significant, the word did +flower over with implications, so that it was, to Lois, at once in a +pit and upon a pinnacle that she leaned and frowned and dangled her +garnet ring. + +“If only David were more determined!” + +“But aren’t you certain he wants to marry you?” + +“Yes, but he needs to have it all arranged for him. Just because I’m +such a capable girl.... Listen, Lois: if you were to be engaged to +Gerald Lesworth it would in a kind of way set the ball rolling. Then I +should say to my father--” + +“Oh, but then I--” + +“Of course he may not ask you. But that being so, I should say to my +father--” + +“S_s_h!” + +Laurence was well into the drawing-room before he recognized Livvy’s +shoulder-blades and saw her pink reflection nodding at him in a glass. +He flushed with annoyance and bowed. There was ink on his forehead, +between the eyebrows, where he had rubbed with the tip of his pen. “How +d’you do,” he said and, to Lois: “Has Miss Norton started? Started--set +out--gone to village? Eh?” + +“Oh ... yes.” + +“Pity. Did she seem to be ... waiting about at all?” + +Livvy giggled. Lois said, oh no, she had not seemed to be waiting +about. Why? + +“Curiosity. I could have gone for her; I have nothing to do.” + +“She hadn’t got anything to do either.” + +“Naturally.” The two girls leaning shoulder to shoulder on the piano +filled Laurence with an unutterable depression. He could not leave +them. He went to a table of books, took up a book on Nigeria, looked +intently into it and blew some dust from between the pages. He felt the +only living thing had gone out of the house. He felt hungry, though it +was not yet half-past eleven. He could not go upstairs and work, or in +fact settle down to anything. He felt as though he were the weather: +“Le temps, c’est moi!” He wished he were the sort of man who would go +out to the yard and take the car to pieces. Marda was the only person +who found him amusing--but perhaps he was not amusing, perhaps they +were right. “Mrs. Montmorency did not sleep either,” he said. “Notice +her eyes this morning?” + +“Eh?” said Livvy. + +“This is a dreadful house, Miss Thompson. I should not stay to lunch +if I were you. Besides, it’s only mutton, I asked the cook. Lois, have +you any foolscap? I thought I might write a novel.” + +“Oh, _do!_ Oh, how lovely! But I have no foolscap; ask Uncle Richard. +He has some paper over from when he was going to write his memoirs.... +Laurence, _are_ you going to stay in here?” + +“Well, I’d rather not.” It occurred to him that he might do worse +than walk over to lunch with the Careys. There would be a freshness +in their dullness and dampness after the dullness and dampness here, +while his own would have a charm for them, a fertilizing strangeness. +The households had not seen anything of each other for three days. +Both families had driven over to Castle Trent to hear about the raid, +but had missed each other by half an hour. There would be the raid to +discuss, and how the Trents were taking it; also, the Careys lived +well--at the worst there could be nothing worse than mutton. “I am +going to lunch at Mount Isabel--any message to Nona?” + +“_Oh!_” said Lois. Her eyes went dark with vivid and deep +disappointment at the thought of anybody doing anything without her. +She missed everything, no one would ever care, she would never marry. +She blinked as Laurence went out and shut the door. + +“Funny thing,” said Livvy, “the way your cousin blushes whenever he +sees me.” She looked at herself in the tall glass and settled her side +hair. “Now, Lois, what I always feel: a girl is only young once--” + +“I expect,” said Lois, “that that is all for the best.” + + + + + XIV + + +“THOUGH to tell you the truth,” said Lady Naylor, circulating among the +begonia beds at Mount Isabel, “though I am in a way sorry, I am not +altogether sorry that she is going.” + +She glanced closely at Mrs. Carey’s profile, to see that her exact +shade of meaning had been taken. Mrs. Carey nodded and wrinkled up her +forehead, very profoundly. She was thinking about something else. She +stooped, pulled off three dead begonias and crumpled them into her +pocket. + +“Because if that should be what she is going to do, I should rather she +did not do it with us. For one thing, the Lawes are relations, they +are cousins to a cousin of mine by marriage. One does not know what +they might not say about influence. Though no one could interfere less +than I do, one never knows, does one, what might go round through the +family? And really I am superstitious about her visits, already this +time she has lost a suitcase. One cannot help feeling responsible.” + +“But are you certain,” asked Mrs. Carey, looking critically round this +part of her garden as though she were wishing to have it all up and +replant it again, “that she is going to break it off?” + +“I shouldn’t like to say. She has got into a kind of a nervous habit +of sending telegrams. Up and down, up and down all day to the village. +Surely that is abnormal in an engaged girl? It is not even as if they +were buying a house or anything. It’s bound to be so unintimate--unless +she does not consider the post-mistress, and I do think really she +ought to because it is our post-mistress. And another thing--I don’t +really know that I ought to speak of this, but I really cannot discuss +it with poor little Francie--I don’t think she has at all a good effect +on Hugo. You know what he’s like usually? Well, he’s quite different. +Quite _empressé_.... But I don’t expect there is anything in that +really. One so easily says too much.” + +She paused, sighed and waited. Mrs. Carey looked at her mildly. “Oh?” +she said. “Oh yes. But how do you mean?” + +“I know Francie notices; I know she is unhappy. Of course she always is +unhappy, but she’s unhappy now in a different way. Of course one hates +to say it, but one does know what Hugo _is_ ...” + +“Oh--is he really?” said Mrs. Carey, startled. + +“What Hugo needs is real trouble. Now if poor little Francie died--” + +“Is she seriously--?” + +“No, I feel that he will die first, he has just that way of avoiding +things. Look how he didn’t marry Laura.... However, I expect I am being +quite ridiculous; I hate to exaggerate--it is from having Laurence so +much in the house. Have you noticed how clever young men--? I believe +he’s worse in England; they think him amusing. Of course there is no +harm in Marda; one has known her since she was little. She’s only +wild--two of her uncles were like that. Shall you ever forget how her +knee bled that afternoon? You know, I didn’t give another children’s +party for three years!” + +Coming to the edge of the lawn, they looked down on a court where +Marda, Lois, Laurence and Nona Carey were playing tennis. The two +ladies, at peace and with the faint self-congratulation with which one +generation watches another, gazed with a statuesque remoteness over the +foreground. “She is, somehow, I don’t know ... charming,” said Mrs. +Carey, as Marda and Lois crossed and recrossed. “Shall we go round +before tea and look at the dahlias? I wanted to ask you ...” + +They turned, having cast an imposing shadow over the consciousness of +the players, and went softly, heavily over the grass to the iron door +of the garden. It seemed natural to Mrs. Carey, half dissolved in the +brightness and depth of the afternoon, that Hugo should be attracted +towards a fellow-visitor; such things came on and passed, transitory as +a summer. She did not see that there was anything one need do; she said +so to Lady Naylor. + +The fine weather was back again. Over the roof of Mount Isabel a +mountain sheathed in pink air looked gentle and distant. Light slid +over the heavy burnished trees; the cream façade of the house was like +cardboard, high and confident in the sun--a house without weight, an +appearance less actual than the begonias’ scarlet and wax-pink flesh. +Begonias, burning in an impatience of colour, crowded over the edge of +heart-shaped beds. As the four came up from the court there was silence +over the sheen of grass. Then a maid leaned out from the dark through +the drawing-room window sounding the brass tea-gong: a minor note. + +Marda perhaps was wild, like her uncles, but not inconsiderate. She +had realized, almost upon arrival, that the worst thing she could +do would be to attract Mr. Montmorency. To be loved by him would be +the culminating disaster of her unfortunate visits. The idea seemed +to her silly--she could not think of herself as fatal--but rooted +itself during a fit of extreme apprehension induced by the loss of +her suitcase. She dreaded the suitcase might not be the close of +her record; having made the acquaintance of Hugo she saw it would +not be. She might not be fatal, but _here_ she was certainly fated. +She thought: “Damn him!” with conscious injustice and drew on every +resource, all that might once have been called the arts of her sex to +repel, to annoy and to bore him. That day of the beech walk, in old +Dannie’s cottage, she had had in a flash the measure of her unsuccess. +Persistently charmless, untiring in her attempts not to please, she +had still to retreat, resentful, upon a female wariness, guardedness, +circumspection she had always despised. Her reward: at the foot of +the stairs at bedtime, a contact of finger-tips--all of himself in +the touch--as he gave her her candlestick: a startled look over the +flame. And as the four candles went up with the ladies, drawing a tide +of shadow, she and Lois had turned at a turn of the stairs to see him +still there, looking up from the staggering mounting dark. She took +Lois’s arm. + +That was the night he did not sleep, and Lois did not sleep either. + +To-day, Smith had ridden over to Mount Isabel for tea and Nona. +He stood smiling over the glittering tray, in the high dark-yellow +shadows, pleased but anonymous. He was a man whose name one could not +remember. But his appearance agitated Mrs. Carey, who recalled that he +did not eat any tea. She hoped it would all be all right. + +She said to Marda distractedly: “I am glad you are going to be happy: I +hope you will be really, really married.” + +“Thank you so much,” said Marda. “I am sure I shall be.” + +“Of course,” continued Mrs. Carey, still watching Smith, “I ought not +to congratulate him, I ought to congratulate you.” + +“I am very fortunate.” + +“Oh _no_, I don’t mean that at all. Show me your lovely ring--oh, you +haven’t got it on. But I expect you have got a lovely ring. Mr. Smith, +I hope you will play tennis?” + +But Smith, who did not feel like tennis, had not brought shoes. Tennis +was not his idea at all. He had thought perhaps a little walk in the +garden, a few plums ... And Nona got up very pink and conscious and +circulated with plates of cake. She knew that she must throw off people +like Mr. Smith because next summer she was to be presented and have a +season in London. Lady Naylor could not help raising her eyebrows at +Mrs. Carey. + +“Such a pity,” remarked Mrs. Carey, as they slid up arm-chairs to the +tea-table, “you didn’t bring over the Montmorencys. Wouldn’t they come?” + +“_He_ might have come,” said Laurence, “but as I am not allowed to +drive there was not room in the car. There were too many of us.” + +“Never mind,” said Marda. “I am going on Saturday.” + +“Oh no, you aren’t!” cried Lois, and added respectfully: “Don’t be so +silly.” + +Lady Naylor sighed. “Unfortunately, Marda must go back to England. I +don’t know what we shall do without her....” + +“Do you like England?” said Nona Carey, moving away from Smith. “Are +you really going to live there? I always think it’s so new-looking. But +of course there’s a great deal going on.... Where do _you_ live, Mr. +Smith?” + +“Eastbourne.” + +Though Lady Naylor said at once that that must be very bracing, Smith +wilted under a general commiseration. He recrossed his legs, frowned +at the toe of his shoe and said he thought sometimes of going to East +Africa. A forlorn and slighted feeling the announcement of Marda’s +departure cast over them was heightened by this proposed defection of +Smith’s. Lady Naylor remarked disparagingly that that would be rather +lonely, while Mrs. Carey, seeing Smith at once against hot African +skies in a silhouette of nobility, felt they had been unkind and asked +him to come over here on the sofa and tell her about himself. He told +her. Nona sat and twirled on the music stool. + +“Smith,” said Laurence, “you ought to stay and defend us.” And Smith +had to promise he would not leave the Army and go to East Africa till +they were all settled. + +But to Laurence and Lois this all had already a ring of the past. +They both had a sense of detention, of a prologue being played out +too lengthily, with unnecessary stress, a wasteful attention to +detail. Apart, but not quite unaware of each other, queerly linked by +antagonism, they both sat eating tea with dissatisfaction, resentful +at giving so much of themselves to what was to be forgotten. The +day was featureless, a stock pattern day of late summer, blandly +insensitive to their imprints. The yellow sun--slanting in under the +blinds on full-bosomed silver, hands balancing Worcester, dogs poking +up wistfully from under the cloth--seemed old, used, filtering from +the surplus of some happy fulfilment; while, unapproachably elsewhere, +something went by without them. + +Marda wanted more tea--but they were all distracted, an argument raged +round Smith. “You must, of course, go on Saturday?” said Laurence, +taking her cup. “Oh yes--why?” She leaned back from the bar of sun, +into the shade of the curtains. Shadow gave transparency to her +colours; its brown clarity hardened her face revealingly so that she +was exposed a moment, in her anxiety, without the defence of manner. +Her green linen dress went ghostly against the cretonne’s rather +jarring florescence. + +“Just when it’s fine,” said Laurence, banal with sincerity. + +“That is because I’m going.” + +He listened a moment and, as the uproar of argument was sustained, said +quickly: “Lois and I aren’t a good addition--the Montmorencys think +so. Is that what bored you? Nobody’s ever gone so soon. There was a +walk I wanted to take you.” He rattled the cup and saucer at her in +desperation. “I think you make a mistake, going.” + +“Oh, I expect so, but--” + +“Look at Lois, her eyes are starting out of her head. When you’ve gone, +she’ll go up and cry on your bed. It will fill her mornings.” + +“Oh, shut up, she can hear you.” + +“No,” said Laurence, “she can’t, though she’s trying to. I’m not so +sorry, but I do think it’s unimaginative of you going. Why have you got +to see Mr. Lawe? I mean, quite dispassionately, isn’t there heaps of +time for him?... You see,” concluded Laurence, “I am enraged--by all +this--past snubbing-point.” + +“I want some more tea,” said Marda, “more than anything in the world.” + +Unable to attract the attention of their hostess, Laurence leaned +over the tray and took the teapot. On his way back to Marda he +guessed from the unmoving intentness with which she was staring +out at the begonias--they gave back little vermilion flecks to her +eyes--that there was some one at the bottom of this and that it was +Mr. Montmorency. He had learnt--from leaning out of his window while +his aunt talked to Mrs. Montmorency down on the steps--that they all +thought she contemplated breaking off her engagement. Personally he +thought this improbable. Mr. Montmorency himself was the supreme +objection; but also she would be getting herself a good home and what +went with it--money, assurance and scope. He himself only wished he +could do so as easily. He now stood above her holding the cup of tea +and could have counted three before she turned round. But then--oh, the +waste of his comprehension--he saw she was laughing. + +She had laughed at a thought of the subdued surprise with which they +would come to her wedding; barely dressed as befitted because of that +unshaken disbelief in her; buttoning, till well up the aisle, their +white gloves. But the origin of their disbelief did not seem to her +funny; had acquired for her, in fact, a tragic vulgarity. So that she +did not explain the joke to Laurence; she thanked him and drank the +tea, which was all wrong. + +Out, at last, through the window, dazzled, threading and separating +between the flower-beds, the party dispersed with their cigarettes. +Large to themselves, to each other graduating from a little below +life-size to an eye from the mountain ant-like--but smaller and less +directed--or like beads tipped out. A sense of exposure, of being +offered without resistance to some ironic un-curiosity, made Laurence +look up at the mountain over the roof of the house. In some gaze--of +a man’s up there hiding, watching among the clefts and ridges--they +seemed held, included and to have their only being. The sense of a +watcher, reserve of energy and intention, abashed Laurence, who turned +from the mountain. But the unavoidable and containing stare impinged +to the point of a transformation upon the social figures with their +orderly, knitted shadows, the well-groomed grass and the beds, worked +out in this pattern. + +Driving home, tightly packed hip to hip in the back of the car between +Marda and Lois, and bumping conjointly over the inequalities of the +road, Lady Naylor told them of a discovery she had made. Mrs. Carey, +also, did not understand modern young people. They seemed, Mrs. Carey +had said, to have no idealism, no sense of adventure, they thought so +much of their comfort-- Possibly Mrs. Carey was wrong? But almost +she thought she agreed with her. In their youth, Mrs. Carey and she +would have been deeply excited by all that was happening round them. +Lady Naylor thought all young people ought to be rebels; she herself +had certainly been a rebel. But since the War, they had never ceased +mouching. She herself had had a deep sense of poetry; she remembered +going to sleep with Shelley under her pillow. She used to walk alone in +the mountains and hated coming in to meals. Mrs. Carey had noticed that +Nona would not miss a meal for anything--she was unpunctual always, but +never absent. But perhaps Mrs. Carey misjudged the girl? Mrs. Carey and +she had passed through periods of profound unhappiness. And yet their +youth was a golden period; they would not have missed it. It did seem a +pity, they both had agreed, to be born middle-aged. + +These last remarks were directed with a degree of resentment at +Laurence’s back view, in the front of the car by the chauffeur. His +ears, of unfortunate conformation, curled out semi-transparent against +the evening light. Laurence said nothing, but thought; he must write +that novel, for here lay a gold-mine (then Spain and those first +editions, a Picasso and curtains for his rooms). He would vindicate +modern young people for his aunt and her generation. Only he did +not know if he should write about cocktail parties or whimsical +undergraduates. + + + + + XV + + +HUGO was dumb, his companion inattentive to him in silence. They walked +on the turf of the Darra valley, along the edge of the water: he beat +with his stick at the gold, strident ragwort. At every flash of the +stick she glanced in surprise, but did not say: “Spare them.” Lois, +straggling behind, threw in twig after twig to the swollen, hurrying +Darra; ran a short way with each in intense excitement, lost it and +threw in another. She seemed absorbed but remotely dependent, like one +of the dogs. If she had fallen in with a loud enough splash and a cry +she might have distracted the couple ahead, but she was surefooted and +not quite certain enough of herself to fall in on purpose. + +Recollections of Laura were now wiped for him from the startlingly +green valley, leaving the scene dull. Not a turn of the rocks with the +river, not a break-down of turf along the brink, not the Norman keep +with perishing corners (where they leaned and quarrelled till Laura +had wished aloud it would fall on them) gave back to him what they had +taken of that eroding companionship. He and she might never have come +here; they were disowned. The sharp rocks breaking out from the turf, +the impassive speed of the water were naked and had to be seen as +themselves, in some relation excluding him; like country seen from the +train, without past or future. And, having given proof of her impotence +to be even here, Laura shrank and drew in her nimbus, leaving only--as +in some rediscovered diary of a forgotten year--a few cryptic records, +walks, some appointments kept, letters received and posted. + +He now guessed, in fact, he had never loved her. Shocked but with +an enlivening sense of detachment, he turned to Marda--but still +had nothing to say. She walked rather too quickly beside him, with +long steps. She was leaving to-morrow; she was to be in England +indefinitely: she seemed content. And for this, his anger released from +Laura, settled upon her. He loved her: a sense of himself rushed up, +filling the valley. The rocks again were transmuted: broken all over in +planes of light, a defeated sharpness, they were no more limestone. + +“Mrs. Montmorency knows Leslie’s aunt,” said Marda suddenly. “Do you? +It seems so extraordinary?” + +“If I ever did I’ve forgotten her.” + +“She’s so nice.” + +“I have no doubt.” + +“Let’s ask Lois to come and talk to us.” + +“She seems quite happy. Where do you go--after to-morrow?” + +“Oh, Kent. Doesn’t it seem extraordinary?” + +Having given the matter rather too marked attention, he pronounced that +her sense of the extraordinary seemed to him extravagant. She agreed +there did seem to be some disparity in their outlook. “Disparity!” +he cried out. “Everything! What a good thing we shall never need to +understand each other.” + +“I never try to understand anybody,” she said mildly. + +“No, indeed,” he replied with sarcasm. “Who is worth it?” + +At this she looked back again for Lois. She remembered Francie, +seeing them off from the steps in a pink blouse, and the look that +fluttered after them down the avenue. No wonder Francie looked like a +windflower--her husband had this unfortunate ability to be young at any +time. His unordered moods gave him the churlishness of a schoolboy; his +silliness embarrassed her. Yet anger did illuminate him becomingly: +brighter and harder, for the first time he could be conceived as +lovable. Though in this personal atmosphere generated by his temper she +was feeling least herself, most nearly negative. + +“I should like to go over there,” she said, looking across the water to +where trees began on a skyline and went down steeply, powdered yellow +with light on their tops. + +“We can’t,” he said, triumphant, “the stepping-stones are covered.” He +showed her a line of faint scars, a hesitation across the current. + +“I never thought of there being stepping-stones. I only wanted to cross +because we couldn’t. Why does one always seem to be on the wrong side?” + +“I should have thought you never were--don’t you even make rather a +point of that?” + +She was exasperated past caution. “Mr. Montmorency, what _is_ the +matter?” + +Seeing that he had overreached himself, been absurd, he raised his +eyebrows in courteous mystification--“Matter?”--did not reply but began +talking about his travels--the greenest river he knew was the Ain, +he said; had she ever looked down on the Ain?--an appointment he had +held in the North (a deterrent from travel), his five years in London +(release from the North), a business enterprise with which he had once +been connected. It had never been sound, he now saw, he said, but had +once had a chance of success. She took him as he had intended, as the +practical man _manqué_. They discussed the question of Canada, whether +he would have succeeded. She thought, emphatically, it was a pity he +had not tried. “But my wife’s health--” “Oh yes, Mrs. Montmorency ...” + +“The fact is, I have not made her happy.” + +“She would always be happy a little; she is wonderfully unselfish.” + +“Do you mean--” + +“Oh, what _is_ that? The ghost of a Palace Hotel?” + +The mill startled them all, staring, light-eyed, ghoulishly, round a +bend of the valley. Lois had to come hurrying up to explain how it +frightened her. In fact, she wouldn’t for worlds go into it but liked +going as near as she dared. It was a fear she didn’t want to get over, +a kind of deliciousness. These dead mills--the country was full of +them, never quite stripped and whitened to skeletons’ decency: like +corpses at their most horrible. “Another,” Hugo declared, “of our +national grievances. English law strangled the--” But Lois insisted +on hurrying: she and Marda were now well ahead. + +The river darkened and thundered towards the mill-race, light came full +on the high façade of decay. Incredible in its loneliness, roofless, +floorless, beams criss-crossing dank interior daylight, the whole +place tottered, fit to crash at a breath. Hinges rustily bled where a +door had been wrenched away; up six stories panes still tattered the +daylight. Mounting the tree-crowded, steep slope some roofless cottages +nestled under the flank of the mill with sinister pathos. A track +going up the hill from the gateless gateway perished among the trees +from disuse. Banal enough in life to have closed this valley to the +imagination, the dead mill now entered the democracy of ghostliness, +equalled broken palaces in futility and sadness; was transfigured by +some response of the spirit, showing not the decline of its meanness, +simply decline; took on all of the past to which it had given nothing. + +Rooks disturbed the trees, disturbed the echoes. “_Don’t_ go in!” cried +Lois and clutched Marda’s arm convulsively. + +“Come on,” said Marda, “I feel demoralized, girlish. Let’s hide from +Mr. Montmorency.” Lois shied through the gateway with more than +affected nervousness. This was her nightmare: brittle, staring ruins. +Mr. Montmorency, disgruntled, still dawdled by the river; the idea of +escape appeared irresistible. But the scene was strangely set for a +Watteau interlude. Inside the mill door, a high surge of nettles; one +beam had rotted and come down, there was some debris of the roof. + +“If he starts shouting,” Lois said, apprehensive, “he’ll certainly +bring the mill down. Oh, I can’t come in, oh, I can’t possibly. Oh, +it’s beastly here; I feel sick. I think you are quite mad!” + +“I think you’re a shocking little coward.” + +“I’m not afraid of anything _reasonable_. But I’m simply nervous, one +can’t help that.” + +“Come in through that door.” + +“But it’s so _high_.” + +Marda put an arm round her waist, and in an ecstasy at this compulsion +Lois entered the mill. Fear heightened her gratification; she welcomed +its inrush, letting her look climb the scabby and livid walls to the +frightful stare of the sky. Cracks ran down; she expected, now with +detachment, to see them widen, to see the walls peel back from a +cleft--like the House of Usher’s. + +“Hate it?” said Marda. + +“You’d make me do anything.” + +The sun cast in through the window sockets some wild gold squares +twisted by the beams; grasses along the windows trembled in light. +Marda turned and went picking her way through the nettles; there was +a further door, into darkness--somewhere, a roof still held. “Marda, +help: here’s a dead crow!” “Tchch!” + +“But it’s very dead!” Shuddering exaggeratedly, leaping in a scared +way over the nettles, Lois also made for the dark doorway, eager for +comment, contempt, consolation. She was a little idiot--appealing, she +felt quite certain, to a particular tenderness. + +In the dark of a lean-to, Marda was moving dimly. “Stairs!” she +exclaimed with interest. Then she was back in a flash and stood in +the door, barring it. She stood intently; menace contracted about her +attitude. + +“What?” whispered Lois. + +“Ssh--some one’s asleep here.” + +“Perhaps they’re dead?” She stared past Marda’s shoulder into the +darkness, and, desirous, laughed, then clapped the back of a hand to +her mouth--unnatural gesture, adequate to the drama. Gradually, she +was able to see a man lying face down, arms spread out; a coat rolled +into a pillow under his face which twisted sideways a little to let him +breathe. One fist, clenched loosely, strayed to a clump of nettles; +the knuckles must have been stung quite white. He could not feel the +nettles--one had to imagine sleep like that! Behind him, stairs went up +into visibility, to a gash of daylight. + +Ashamed, the two young women stood elbow to elbow. Marda stepped back, +some plaster crackled under her heel. + +“What’s that?” said the man softly. + +“Come away quickly--come--” + +But the man rolled over and sat up, still in the calm of sleep. “Stay +there,” he said, almost persuasively: a pistol bore the persuasion out. +They were embarrassed by this curious confrontation. Neither of them +had seen a pistol at this angle; it was short-looking, scarcely more +than a button. The man sat looking at them with calculating intentness, +like a monkey, then got up slowly: the pistol maintained its direction. + +“Don’t be silly,” said Marda. “Go to sleep again. We’re not--” + +“Are there any more of yez?” + +“One--not interested either. Better let us go now, there will be less +talk.” + +“We’re just out for a walk,” said Lois, surprised at her own voice. + +“Indeed,” said the man. “It is a grand evening for a walk no doubt. Is +it from Castle Trent y’are?” + +“Danielstown.” + +The man’s eyes went from one to the other, and remained ironically +between them. His face was metal-blue in the dusk and seemed numbed +into immobility. “It is time,” he said, “that yourselves gave up +walking. If you have nothing better to do, you had better keep in the +house while y’have it.” + +Marda, a hand on the frame of the doorway, remained unmoved, but Lois +could not but agree with him. She felt quite ruled out, there was +nothing at all for her here. She had better be going--but where? She +thought: “I must marry Gerald.” But meanwhile Marda, holding her arm +all the time, had softly, satirically pressed it. They could not but +feel framed, rather conscious, as though confronting a camera. The man, +who did not cease to regard them with uneasy dislike, asked which way +they had come, whom they had met, if they had observed any movement of +soldiers about the country. He remained dissatisfied; evidently they +had the appearance of liars. + +Meanwhile Mr. Montmorency, suspicious of merriment somewhere and +determined to humour no one, had sat down to smoke on a parapet. At its +base the bank descended; the river rushed loudly, dark with its own +urgency, under his dangling feet. The mill behind affected him like a +sense of the future; an unpleasant sensation of being tottered over. +Split light, like hands, was dragged past to the mill-race, clawed +at the brink and went down in destruction. He looked at the opposite +hill, its distinct and peaceful trees. Marda belonged there and might +be imagined composedly walking. Knocking some ash off, he leaned +forward and groaned at the intervening water--“On the wrong side”-- +He missed Francie; there welled up in him one great complaint to +Francie. She--selfless woman--would non-committally rustle; some tender +fidgeting always relieved her intentness of listening. Distressed +for her husband, she would let out little sighs. He would tell her +everything.... Yet he could not, for Marda was everywhere present, a +clear ruddy-white mask of surprise. She impinged on the whole of him, +on his most intimate sense of himself, with her cool sombre amusement. +Had she a ghost everywhere?--there was something of her in Francie. + +“It is like this,” he began to rehearse, “what I need is--” + +A shot, making rings in the silence. Eardrums throbbing, he gathered +up the reverberations with incredulity. A battle--a death in the mill? +_Whose_ death? He leapt to one thought, a flash of relief in the panic. +The front of the mill--he ran round to it--grinned with vacancy: corpse +of an idiot. He steadied himself in the door, watched his cigarette +drop into the nettles, then stumbled in over the debris. A crow’s +flight, stooping wildly among the rafters, dislodged a trickle of +plaster. He paused in the well of ruin, terrified for them all. But the +crow swerved out through the roof. + +“Marda!” + +“All right,” said Lois. They appeared in a doorway and looked at him +gravely, rather suspiciously. Marda put up a hand to her mouth--in an +incredible half-glimpse, he thought he saw blood round the lips. + +Something released in his voice, he said: “Marda--for God’s sake--” + +Lois, as though the mill were falling, went white, then crimson. +He had, distantly, some apprehension of an emotional shock. Marda, +perplexedly, continued sucking her hand. Then she took Lois’s +handkerchief, dabbed at her knuckles, wiped the blood from her +lips--where no more came--returned to her knuckles. “I have lost some +skin,” she said at last resentfully. “Just, a pistol went off--you +heard?--by accident. I seem to have lost some pieces of skin.” + +“Let me go past,” he said violently. + +“We swore--” began Lois. + +“Some one went upstairs backward, not very sensibly, not having eaten +much for four days. There was some plaster--the pistol went off, +naturally. It was silly, really. Look at my beastly hand--I was holding +on to the door.” + +“Let me get past--” + +“But we _swore_, Mr. Montmorency--” + +“_You_ deserve to be shot!” He turned in a manner terrifying to all of +them--most of all to himself--on this interruption. “You don’t seem to +see, you seem to have no conception--” + +“Then why sit there and smoke?” said Lois, trembling. “I saw you--you +and your old conceptions.” + +“Shut up,” said Marda, “oh, do shut up!” + +“Don’t stand there, let me go past; I’ll--” + +“Oh, do let’s talk about something else--” + +“We swore,” went on Lois priggishly. “There never was anybody, we never +saw anybody, _you_ never heard--” + +But nobody listened. Vaguely, he waved her silent. + +“The fact is,” said Marda, “we are neither of us good at explosions. +Perhaps if we sat down and thought it over? Perhaps if you went for a +walk--_not_ up in the trees?” + +“No more hide-and-go-seek,” he said, playful with fury. “Still +bleeding--?” + +“Not like I can--I have rather a high standard. Do you remember the +scraper? No, I might have done--_this_--on the broken edge of a slate: +it will be the edge of a slate if you don’t mind. And, being me, it was +bound to happen.” + +He was set on transgressing the decencies. “Don’t you _realize_ you +might have been--” + +Marda laughed, coming out through the door of the mill beside him. He +looked at her lips--no higher--angrily--burningly. Lois looked quickly +away. She thought how the very suggestion of death brought this awful +unprivacy. + +They took his place on the parapet. Warily, they watched him walk back +the way they had come, with effort, as though breasting a current. +Lois took up his forgotten matchbox, shook it and put it away in her +pocket. Their sex was a stronghold, they had to acknowledge silently; +traditionally, one could always retreat on collapse. Mr. Montmorency +having taken away with him any element of agitation, they were left +with a particular sort of shyness. + +“How one talks!” said Marda. + +Lois tied up the hand, she said it seemed like Providence that her +handkerchief should be clean to-day. Marda’s was coloured, that would +never have done. One had always heard that dye ran into the blood. + +“I don’t think it would,” said Marda. “It boils, it is really a good +handkerchief.... This is the worst of big hands.” + +“I suppose they are rather big.” + +“Sorry we went in?” + +“No.” + +“You are being nice to me.... One won’t be girlish again--I think, as a +matter of fact, we were being goatish.” + +“But I’ve had a ... a revelation,” said Lois. She bent forward over the +river, felt streaks of light fly over her face and felt that speech did +not matter when so much was being carried past. “About Mr. Montmorency +... he’s being awful about you, isn’t he?” + +The statement, almost a query, fluttered up at the end. But Marda’s +face was inscrutable with reflections. + +“About you. I had no idea--I was too damned innocent,” she explained +with precision--“till we all stood in there and shouted.--Hear him tell +me I ought to be shot?” + +“He was all--dishevelled. He had to be adequate.” + +“Oh, I didn’t mind. But, I mean, aren’t you rather--embarrassed?” + +“One can’t help things.” + +“_I_ was awful, I said, ‘You and your old conceptions.’ They are rather +old, aren’t they?... I mean, really: he was in love with my mother.” + +“Well, I’m going away, aren’t I?” + +“But, I mean, what is the good of this? It doesn’t make anything.” + +Marda said, inconsequent: “I hope I shall have some children; I should +hate to be barren.” + +“Once I really meant to love him, but it would never have done.” + +Marda leant against Lois’s shoulder. “You are wonderful!” + +“Not so protected as you imagine.” + +“Nothing gets past your imagination.” + +“I wish,” said Lois thoughtfully, “I had really been shot. But I +couldn’t be.” Later she added: “I’m sorry I said that about Mr. +Montmorency. What will become of him?” + +“Nothing.” + +“I’m glad he wasn’t my father.” + +“He couldn’t be anything’s father.” + +“Where shall you be this time to-morrow?” + +“In the train.” + +“Funny,” said Lois. “Queer.” Her heart thumped, she looked at her +watch. “Half-past six,” she said. “It’s harder, for some reason, to +imagine what I’ll be doing or where I shall be.” + +“A nice walk with Laurence, a nice cheerful squabble. If you want +something to talk about, talk about me.” + +“No, no, I mean ... No.” She looked up from the water. “You know,” +she said, “all this has quite stopped any excitement for me about the +mill. It’s a loss, really. I don’t think I’ll come down this part of +the river again.... Will you have to tell Leslie? I don’t think you +ought to: a swear _is_ a swear, isn’t it, even in England.” + +Nothing would have induced Marda to confirm Leslie’s opinion that +her country was dangerous as well as demoralizing. He hated to think +of even his aunts at that side of the Channel. She expected, some +forty-eight hours ahead, to be walking with him in a clipped and +traditional garden, in Kentish light. Under these influences, she would +be giving account of herself. Leslie’s attention, his straight grey +gaze, were to modify these wandering weeks of her own incalculably, not +a value could fail to be affected by him. So much of herself that was +fluid must, too, be moulded by his idea of her. Essentials were fixed +and localized by their being together--to become as the bricks and +wall-paper of a home. + +At present, the mill was behind her, tattered and irrelevantly +startling, like a dream of two nights ago. And Lois kept turning upon +her a tragic and obstinate gaze: she could sense a persistence of +Leslie upon the mental scene. Lois said, but defeatedly: “He is certain +to be suspicious.” + +“I certainly won’t tell.” + +“So it will be a secret?” + +“A perfect secret.” + +“Thank you so much,” said Lois. As though breaking a spell, she shifted +away down the parapet, put her feet to the ground, and was surprised to +feel her legs trembling under her. “Here,” she said generously, “comes +Mr. Montmorency.” + +He came: “with demurest of footfalls.” They smiled and shouted along +the bank. Yes, they could come now; yes, they were feeling splendid. +“Shan’t we be late for dinner?” + +“That is impossible,” shouted Mr. Montmorency, who was coming back to +them looking formal and pleasant. + + + + + XVI + + +MARDA was not due to leave until after lunch, but throughout that +morning they were all distressed and sympathetic, could not settle down +to anything, walked about the house. Every time Lady Naylor saw Marda +she asked her if she ought not to be packing, and while Marda packed, +with her door open, Lady Naylor kept looking in to remark how sad it +was to see her thus engaged. Francie sat and sewed in the ante-room, +looking anxiously up whenever anyone passed. The rain fell, the windows +were open, the rooms smelt of window-sills. Francie rolled up her work +with a sigh and went up to tell Marda how sorry she was about the rain. + +“You’ll have a wet drive,” she said. + +“But the hood works,” said Marda, folding together the sleeves of a +scarlet dress. + +“But rain is so sad when one’s going away. Nothing, I mean but a train +to arrive at.” + +“But I really like trains: I am always talked to.” + +“Hugo will be so sorry, he has so much enjoyed talking to you.” + +“It’s been very nice of him.” + +Sir Richard looked up Marda’s train in a May time-table and was worried +because he could not find it. Had she really any proof, he came up to +inquire, that it had been put on since? Would she not be wiser to +catch the 12.30 and have plenty of time for dinner in Dublin? Also, +what was he to do about her suitcase if it ever turned up? But he +almost feared now it would never turn up. He sighed and went back to +the library. + +Laurence sat in his room with a book with the door open; he could see +across the landing into Marda’s room. Evidently she could not make +up her mind which hat to travel in: she tried on three and looked at +herself in each. He did not care for her looks or her clothes, really; +both were over-assured. But then he could not recall whose looks or +whose clothes he did care for. Finally, he went across to say he did +not want _South Wind_ back, she could keep it to leave in the train, or +simply pack it. + +“Oh, thank you,” she said; “do write my name in it.” + +He recoiled at this awful suggestion. + +Her room had all come to pieces--dresses swirled on the bed, hats +perched everywhere; she had lost the wedge from the mirror so that it +wagged right forward, showing its blank side. She was taking more from +the house than herself and her luggage. + +“You will have a wet drive.” + +“The hood works,” said Marda mechanically, throwing some rolled-up +stockings out to make room for some shoes. + +“Hasn’t Lois been up?” + +“I don’t think so.” + +“What can she be doing?” + +“Last time I saw her she was bouncing a tennis ball on the dining-room +wall between the portraits. She says she has not much to do at present.” + +“Anything I can--” + +“Oh, if you’d write my labels--” + +“I will indeed, but I hate block printing--need they--?” + +“Well, I’m afraid I would rather--” + +“Remarkable orange labels,” said Laurence, taking the packet from her +politely. + +“Here is Livvy Thompson,” he added, looking out of the window. “She +must have ridden over to say good-bye.” + +“But I don’t know her.” + +“She doesn’t know that: you have met.” + +Marda leaned out and called her good-byes to Livvy, who waved and +shouted up to her that she would have a very wet drive. Marda withdrew, +shutting the window abruptly. + +“I am sorry,” said Laurence, “that our young men will not have a chance +to say good-bye to you.” + +“I’ve only met one of them--Gerald.” + +“Oh yes, you weren’t here for our last party. What a very short time +you _have_ been here.... I hope you’ll come back again soon--with your +husband?” + +“Thank you, it’s very kind of you.” + +Laurence bowed and went away with the labels. + +When Lois heard Livvy’s voice on the steps she fled to the back of the +house and hid in a box-room. Sir Richard had to tell Livvy he did not +know where she was; last time he had seen her she had been sorting out +some packs of old playing-cards in the drawing-room and seemed very +busy. Livvy was much disappointed; however, she took her horse round, +then sat in the hall to wait. + +Lady Naylor--who had spared her attention to Marda with difficulty: +this was a busy morning--was agitated by this development. She stood at +the foot of the stairs, calling Lois. + +“She doesn’t seem to be anywhere,” Francie at last called helpfully, +from the ante-room. + +“But Livvy Thompson is sitting in the hall.” + +“Ask Hugo to find her.” + +“I can’t find him either.” + +“Perhaps they have both gone out to the garden?” + +“Not in all this rain.” + +Lady Naylor sighed, gathered up two of the kitchen kittens that were +trespassing on the stairs and plunged away through a swing door. It +was twenty to twelve: extraordinary how one’s mornings went! Lunch was +to be unnaturally early because of Marda’s departure: evidently, Livvy +would, remain for it. She looked reproachfully into the library. But +there Sir Richard was engaged with the herd, discussing the Darramore +pig fair. + +Meanwhile Lois was very melancholy in the box-room. The window was dark +with ivy, she could not see out. The room was too damp for the storage +of trunks that were not finished with anyhow; mustiness came from her +mother’s old vaulted trunks and from a stack of crushed cardboard +boxes. On the whitewash, her mother, to whom also the box-room had been +familiar, had written L. N.; L. N., and left an insulting drawing of +somebody, probably Hugo. She had scrawled with passion; she had never +been able to draw. Lois looked, and strained after feeling, but felt +nothing. Her problem was, not only _how_ to get out unseen, but _why_, +to what purpose? + +She did not really know Marda well; to go up and offer to help her +pack would surely appear unnatural? Or worse, one might seem to be +taking advantage of yesterday? One had been passingly intimate under +the pistol’s little acute, pig eye--but one had not spoken again of +it. If she were free, she could search the rooms for something that +looked plausibly Marda’s--a magazine, a handkerchief--and bring it up. +But then Livvy was unavoidable, varnished up to the height of a shine +with love and bursting open with confidences like a cotton-pod. She was +appalled by these thoughts of Livvy. + +But Livvy was privileged. If she chose to announce her engagement even +Sir Richard must stop and listen. It was a passport at any frontier, +that kind of announcement. Spurred by an impulse she did not examine, +Lois picked up two cardboard lids and with infinite breathlessness +crept from the box-room. Through the back-stairs banisters she peered +and listened. Lady Naylor had given up calling, but could still be +heard complaining to some one in the basement that she did not know +where Lois was. + +Marda had finished packing, but felt it would not be decent to reappear +so soon. Especially when weather did not permit of the “last walk,” +a formal parade of the grounds with her host and hostess before +lunch-time. She was pleased to see Lois appear in the doorway. + +“I brought up some cardboard in case you were packing photographs.” + +“But I haven’t got any photographs.” + +“And you’re packed ... Would you like me to sit on anything?” + +“No, I think they will all shut.” + +“What about Leslie?” + +“Oh, he is in talc--unbreakable.” + +“I say, I have never seen your engagement ring.” + +“Oh yes, we must see the ring,” called Laurence, from over the landing. +Surprised by a sudden stillness inside the whirlwind, he had been +settling down to a half-morning’s work. But he came across and breathed +on the ring with Lois, in an imitation of reverence, then returned +to his work, shutting the door loudly. Lady Naylor was heard on the +stairs again, talking to some one below as she came up. Lois uttered +an exclamation of despair and dashed behind a window curtain. Lady +Naylor came in with some cake in a cardboard box. She said she did not +believe the train had a tea-car, but that Marda should be able to get a +tea-basket at Ballybrophy. “But I am sure you won’t care for tea-basket +cakes, we none of us do.” + +“Thank you _so_ much--” + +“My dear,” said her hostess, “it is really a terrible pity about your +hand. Especially as it’s the left hand, as I’m afraid you will have to +be conventional and start wearing your ring again, now you are going to +England. It is extraordinary, Marda, the way things happen to you.” + +“We must be thankful,” said Marda, “that nothing worse has happened +this time.” Both thinking of Hugo, they looked at each other +benevolently, brightly and blankly. “At least she has not thought of +_that_,” they both thought. + +Lady Naylor looked with surprise at Lois’s feet. “If you are hiding +there,” she said, “it is simply silly. I have been calling you +everywhere. Livvy is waiting for you down in the hall.” + +“But I don’t want to see her.” + +“But she is waiting for you in the hall.” + +“I’ve got nothing to say and I’m sick of always having to keep on +saying it.” + +“I can’t help that, she is your friend. And I thought her feelings +seemed very much hurt.” + +“She will stay to lunch, you know,” Lois retorted. + +“How fickle girls are!” said Lady Naylor, sitting down on the +window-sill. Her manner of sitting and waiting most strongly encouraged +an exit. + +Lady Naylor was more than busy, but could not resist this last +opportunity to discover, before the veil of an international marriage +descended, what Marda really thought of the English. For nothing of +Leslie was Irish except his aunts. + +“Of course really,” she said, “you are very adaptable. I dare say we +all are, but with some of us it does not have to come into play. I dare +say you’ll be very happy indeed. Where did you think of living?” + +Leslie had thought of London, Marda confessed an omission on her part. + +“Of course that is hardly England,” said Lady Naylor, encouraging. “And +of course it will be lovely for you being able to go abroad so easily; +you will be so much nearer everything. And you will have no neighbours, +one never has, I believe.” + +“Demoralizing ...” + +“You could certainly never be happy living like Anna Partridge. She has +an unnaturally sweet disposition: I often pity her.... I always find +the great thing in England is to have plenty to say, and mercifully +they are determined to find one amusing. But if one stops talking, +they tell one the most extraordinary things, about their husbands, +their money affairs, their insides. They don’t seem discouraged by not +being asked. And they seem so intimate with each other; I suppose it +comes from living so close together. Of course they are very definite +and practical, but it is a pity they talk so much about what they are +doing. I can’t think why they think it should matter: supposing I came +up here and insisted on telling you what I had been doing the whole +morning!” + +Marda, feeling how true this must be, pulled open an empty drawer and +looked into it, much depressed. + +“Though I don’t think it is fair,” pursued Lady Naylor, “to say +they have no sense of humour, and of course they are anxious not to +appear conventional, and they are kindness itself once they have +‘placed’ one.... Marda, surely you are not going to travel in that +thin coat? Well, for heaven’s sake do not develop a cold till it can +be obvious that you haven’t caught it here. How very unfortunate you +have been in your weather! Just that one fine day at Castle Isabel +and yesterday evening when you went for your walk. Before you came it +was brilliant--such a pity you missed our last party--and as I was +saying-- Why, Hugo ...” + +He did not seem pleased to be with them. He was nonplussed at finding +the door open, having prepared to tap on it inexpressively. Francie had +insisted on sending him up with some eau-de-Cologne. She expected that +Marda, being so modern, would not care for eau-de-Cologne, but wanted +to give her some little token for the journey: this was all she could +think of. To the idea of this present he offered surprising resistance. +Or could she not take up her present herself? Her large eyes of protest +reminded him--their plan of life must eliminate stairs for her; +already, she had been up to the top once. So here he was, prepared to +recede three steps when Marda should come to her door: he was of that +school. + +He stood back from the door, looking past with surprise at the room’s +non-committal features--the chairs, the window--as though he were +specially struck by there being a room at all in this part of the +house, and especially this room. Some tree-tops fidgeted under his +scrutiny. Where had he been all the morning, his hostess wanted to +know; no one could find him. Indeed? They could not have looked far: +for he had been in the dining-room, down at the dark end, taking out +those old _Illustrated London News_, old bound volumes he remembered +since he was a boy. There was that Tsar being bombed by Nihilists: very +interesting. + +“I can’t think how any of those Tsars had any confidence,” said Lady +Naylor gloomily. + +He looked doubtfully at the bottle of eau-de-Cologne; Lady Naylor +asked at once what he had there, was told, and exclaimed at Francie’s +imagination. + +“There is nothing like eau-de-Cologne at the end of a crossing, when +one is trying to look like something again. Of course, it may not be +so bad to-night: at present I don’t like the look of those trees. Our +inland weather does sometimes go by contraries; it may be surprisingly +calm when one gets to Kingstown. I often wonder if living on an island +does not make one more deeply religious--the French, for instance, +could never have our sense of dependence--though of course they have +railway accidents. But I shouldn’t think of it, Marda, that’s much the +best way. I am sure one is often sea-sick from nervousness.” + +“I don’t know what Miss Norton’s friends will think of her hand,” said +Hugo. “Their worst suspicions will be confirmed; they will think we +have been shooting at her. Her stumble was most unfortunate.” + +“I ought to have brought back that piece of slate from the mill.” + +“I hold you responsible, Hugo; you should not have let her go climbing +about. Never mind, it will give them something to talk about.” + +“You must draw on your imagination,” said Hugo to Marda. “Don’t let +them suspect how tame we all are. They will expect you to be a bit of a +heroine; you must tell them everything that might have happened.” + +Marda, finding a place for the bottle of eau-de-Cologne at the top of +her dressing-case, declared: “That would be inexhaustible.” + +“They may think it odd that you should have cut the _back_ of your +hand....” + +The three closed suitcases had a look of finality. Marda wished to +go down and find Francie and thank her, they all three crossed the +landing at a high pitch of affability. Laurence gripped the hair over +his temples in larger handfuls and crouched lower down over his book. +His thoughts, tight with concentration, were darkened by a wave of +malignance. Marda’s door, which no one had shut, remained flapping and +clicking. + +In the yard, under the dripping chestnuts, Lois and Livvy walked about +in their mackintoshes. This afternoon, Lois intended to wash the dogs; +they might anticipate the occasion by disappearance, so she thought it +better to go down now--they had had their dinners--and shut them up in +the stables. They had gone up and looked for no reason into the loft, +at the chaff and the dead swallows. They went back slowly, listening in +vain for the gong. + +“It seems odd,” said Livvy, “she should be going away; she seems to +have only just come. I generally get so accustomed to your visitors. I +have said good-bye to her once--I had no idea I should be staying to +luncheon. However, I don’t suppose she will remember, she seemed rather +flurried. Laurence was up there with her; it seems odd to me to have a +man in one’s bedroom even in the morning, but I dare say she is rather +cosmopolitan.... It does seem a pity, Lois, you forgot to ask her about +that jumper pattern.” + +“Do you remember those Black and Tans on the Clonmore road? They always +remind me of her.” + +“Why?” said Livvy. Then with her holy look, which Lois had up to now +managed to keep in abeyance, she added: “That was a memorable day for +me, naturally.” + +“Why?” said Lois crossly. + +“David and I decided to go to Cork.” + +“I thought you said that was just chance.” + +“It was predestination. Now I must tell you, Lois--” + +“Things that have come just before people seem like part of them.” + +“How you do talk ...” + +“No, I don’t.” + +“Lois,” said Livvy sagaciously, “I hope things are not going wrong +between you and Gerald?” Since her engagement, she spoke of all young +men by their Christian names and made motherly little impulsive +advances in all directions, like Mrs. Vermont. + +Hugo wished to return to the _Illustrated London News_, but the +parlourmaid was laying the table and looked at him in surprise. In the +hall the two young girls, hair damp from their excursion, were playing +left-hand catch with a tennis ball. So he had to go into the library +where his wife and Marda were still talking about eau-de-Cologne--Marda +against the mantelpiece, bright and hard-looking in her coat and skirt. +Eau-de-Cologne wasn’t scent, Francie summed up; she hated scent for it +seemed a kind of advertisement. Sir Richard joined them; they all four +talked in an eager, unnatural way, as though they had just met for the +first time. + +Indeed, the unfamiliarity of the moment made them strange to +themselves, though it now seemed to have been waiting ahead of them +like a trap into which they had stepped with a degree of naturalness. +Sir Richard, the least affected, thought the Montmorencys unduly +animated and deplored departures. Visitors took form gradually in his +household, coming out of a haze of rumour, and seemed but lightly, +pleasantly superimposed on the vital pattern till a departure tore +great shreds from the season’s texture. Francie rubbed the palms of her +hands lightly on the tapestry of the chair-arms. She knew that life +was unkind and that Marda must have begun at least to suspect this; +she wondered how much Marda had understood from the eau-de-Cologne. +Marda, turned half-away from them, tapped a tune on the edge of +the mantelpiece, laughed at every shade of a silence and felt how +resolutely Hugo did not look at her now. There was to be no opportunity +for what he must not say to be father painfully not said. Hugo wished +there had been a fire: the room was cold with rain and branches went +restlessly up and down beyond the windows. Her face and figure, at +which he dared not look, compelled his imagination with ghostly +sharpness. + +“You will have a very wet drive, I’m afraid,” said Sir Richard finally. +To Francie, the remark had a faint echo. Had it been what she was going +to say, or had she once said it? + +Outside in the hall, Livvy skidded over the edge of a rug and came +down heavily, knocking over a wicker chair. The tennis ball bounced +away, Lois shrieked her condolences. They all made a movement of +consternation and were delighted. + +Livvy came into luncheon fragrant with Pond’s Extract, a shiny patch +on her chin. She kept putting up a finger and feeling the bump: David +must “kiss it better” for her to-morrow. David should have witnessed +her courage: he seemed increasingly struck by her moral qualities; he +had never observed these things in a girl before. Yesterday he had +taken her over to tea at the Vermonts; at her suggestion, they had +“told” the Vermonts, in confidence. It had been a success: she had been +made to feel at once she belonged to the regiment. She had had no idea +Mrs. Vermont was so jolly; she had taken Livvy off for a real little +chat in her bedroom; they agreed what a rag it would be if the regiment +went to China. Livvy looked voluptuously from Sir Richard to Lady +Naylor, thinking what a surprise she had here for them both. She ate +two helpings of fricasseed chicken, in absolute silence, designing her +trousseau dressing-gown; and old Mr. Montmorency, who sat beside her, +did not speak either. + +“I like lunch at one,” said Lady Naylor, surprised. “It shortens the +morning, but gives one so much more time in the afternoon. I can’t +think why we don’t have it always.” + +“I see no reason why we should not, my dear,” said Sir Richard, who, +unlike an English husband, was not conservative in these matters. + +The car came round twenty minutes too early, but Sir Richard said the +chauffeur was quite right. He could hardly bear to let Marda drink +her coffee and was but slightly mollified when she burnt herself. Mr. +Montmorency sugared his coffee twice over, to Livvy’s delight. They +drank coffee out in the hall, standing up; it was like the Passover. +Marda went upstairs and came down in her travelling coat. Hugo stood at +the foot of the stairs, in the back hall, tightening the screws of his +racquet press. + +“Good-bye,” she said. “Thank you for being nice to me.” + +“Oh,” said he, looking blindly at her with his pale eyes, “have I been +nice to you? Good!” + +“Good-bye.” + +“Good-bye--Marda.” + +“Don’t come on to the steps--” + +“No, I’ll finish this press--” + +They both half-turned, heard the pendulum of the clock swing once: she +went on into the hall. Everybody was there but Lois. + +Lois stood behind the door in the drawing-room, waiting. “Marda,” she +said through the crack. “Hullo?” said Marda. She came round the door, +pushing it a little way to behind her. They kissed. + +“Marda, I can’t--” + +“Never mind.” + +“_Darling!_” + +“Be good!” + +“Happy journey!” + +“Oh yes.” They parted. + +Marda came back to the hall, not looking at anybody in particular, +putting her gloves on. Lady Naylor asked her if she had packed the +cake. Sir Richard patted her arm and said she was a good girl and must +be sure and be happy--then looked very much abashed and startled at +what he had done. Laurence looked bored, so bored; she was sorry for +Laurence. She said: “I am really going.” “I’m sorry you’re going, I +don’t think it’s--” They shook hands, he immediately turned--rather +rudely, his uncle thought, and walked into the library. + +After all, there were only Sir Richard and Lady Naylor and Francie to +wave Marda off from the steps and watch the car up the avenue into a +veil of rain. Rather few, they felt, considering what a dear she had +been and how they had come to love her. Wondering why and where the +others had gone, they tried to present the broadest possible expanse +of smile and flutter. And of this effort the flick of Marda’s gloved +finger-tips round the hood conveyed the friendliest, the most satirical +recognition. + +“Well, that’s that,” said Livvy, at last discovering Lois in the +drawing-room. “Partings make me ever so sad. Now listen, Lois--” + +“I’m afraid I’m not well, I’ve eaten something,” said Lois. “I’m +sorry--” She clapped her handkerchief to her mouth and fled from +the drawing-room by the other door, stumbling over the _portière_. +Livvy went a little way after her, talking, then came back: “It is a +disadvantage to a girl,” she reflected, “that kind of stomach.” + +Lois found in the empty spare room a piece of paper that crept on the +floor like a living handkerchief. Through the defenceless windows came +in the vacancy of the sky; the grey ceiling had gone up in remoteness. +More wind came through, flowers moved in the vases, the pages of a book +left open beside the bed turned over hurriedly. The pillow was dinted, +as though half-way through packing Marda had lain down lazily. Or as +though since last night the pillow had not forgotten the feel of her +head. + + + + + THE DEPARTURE OF GERALD + + + + + XVII + + +CAPTAIN and Mrs. Rolfe of the Gunners were giving a dance in their hut. +Denise Rolfe and her dearest friend Betty Vermont of the Rutlands had +been more than busy the whole morning. Flustered and happy, they darted +about the hut, cutting sandwiches, scattering floor powder, pinning +draperies round the walls. They masked the electric lights with pink +crinkly paper to produce the desired enchantment. Every now and then, +one would collapse on to what remained of the furniture and, catching +the other’s eyes, burst into delighted laughter. It was all such a rag. +They smoked cigarettes and ground the ash into the floor to enrich the +polish; they tried the new records over again and again till Mrs. Rolfe +declared that the needles would give out and snapped down the lid of +the gramophone resolutely. + +Mrs. Rolfe’s Colonel disapproved tacitly; Colonel Boatley did not think +the dance was a good idea either. Entertainments in barracks had been +given up long ago. But it was not easy to veto what ladies described +as “a little fun in the huts.” Married quarters in barracks were +limited; as the army of occupation was reinforced, lines of hutments +began to extend up the hill at the back of the Gunner barracks. There +was nothing to beat these hut dances; for one thing, the floors were +so springy. And the fewer the couples, the more intimate the occasion. +Denise and Betty both thought with contempt of the Rutlands’ official +dance in the barrack gymnasium, full of majors waltzing, where you were +nearly blown off the floor by the regimental bassoon. + +“All the same,” said Betty, rubbing a board with her toe, a shade +despondent, “I wish this would polish _more_. You’re certain it won’t +be sticky?” + +“Nothing could be stickier than the C.O.,” said Denise wittily. “If it +wasn’t for him, we should be keeping it up till breakfast.” + +“It’s these wretched patrols and things,” said Mrs. Vermont. + +“It seems odd being short of girls. I do feel I should be getting my +sister over.” + +“There will be heaps for to-night,” said Mrs. Vermont, who thought +people’s young sisters rather a bother. The ladies of the neighbourhood +had praised Mrs. Rolfe’s kind intentions, but said that they feared +the roads were not fit for their girls these nights. But their girls, +meeting Mrs. Vermont at the tennis club, had told her they would be +certain to come. “In fact, if they all come,” said Mrs. Vermont, +apprehensive, “I may have to telephone down to the mess for some more +of our boys.” + +Captain Rolfe came off duty at lunch-time, and during the afternoon +friends kept dropping in, by twos and singly, with offers to help. + +“But don’t _look!_” shrieked Denise every time, flinging herself +against the wall to conceal the draperies. “It’s all a surprise for +to-night.” The subalterns, after a hasty look round, prepared to be +perfectly blind. They began to slide industriously, buffeted on the +head by the Chinese lanterns which Betty had hung too low. Tubby, Mr. +Simcox, sat down on a mat and was whisked round the room by his friends +to perform the functions of polisher. + +“Really,” volunteered some one, “we ought to be rolling the floor with +champagne bottles....” + +Girls who succeeded in coming over for the dance had arranged to be +“put up” in Clonmore, or in married quarters. The two Miss Raltes from +Castle Ralte in the Tipperary direction looked in about four o’clock, +pink from a twelve-mile drive and parental opposition. Father, in fact, +had been more than difficult. “He says,” said Moira Ralte, looking +beatifically round at the decorations, “that the whole proceeding is +not only criminal but lunatic. He says he can’t understand the C.O. +allowing it, with the country the way it is. We really did think, till +we got past the gates, he was going to stop us.” + +“But we came,” said Cicely. Every one laughed. The Miss Raltes had +been cast as wild young Irish and rather liked themselves. But they +exchanged glances, uneasy. It had not been quite the thing, perhaps, to +have laughed at Father. + +“It takes two to make a war,” said Mrs. Rolfe wisely. “_We_’re not +fighting.” + +“More’s the pity,” said a Mr. Daventry of the Rutlands with violence. +“_God_, if they’d--” The Miss Raltes, unaccustomed to swearing, +looked down their noses. There was a moment of slight discomfort, of +national consciousness. + +“Wouldn’t it be a rag,” said Moira, relieving the tension tactfully, +“if they tried to fire in at the windows while we were dancing?” + +“_I_ shall draw the curtains!” cried Mrs. Vermont. + +Cicely glanced at the gramophone, hummed a fox-trot and tapped her heel +on the floor, looking most unconscious. But the subalterns continued +to slide violently, rebounding against each other, and dancing was not +begun till the D.I.’s niece came in. The D.I.’s niece came in with +a flourish and was greeted with uproar. She was priceless. She had +light-red hair fluffed over her forehead, a wide smile punctuated by +gaps in her teeth and tireless repartee in a Cork accent. Denise and +Betty adored her. She was a Catholic, it seemed so queer to think that +she worshipped the Pope. The Miss Raltes hardly knew her. As she came +in, Daventry opened his arms, she ran into them with a gurgle and they +began to dance. The gramophone spurted hoarse music; other couples +followed the gramophone. + +Mr. Daventry, the senior subaltern, elegant, tall and a shade satanic, +was “taken,” obviously, with the queer little person. She could talk +and dance at once with an equal skimmingness and she did. Daventry +shook her, murmuring: “Do shut up!” He whispered into her hair that she +danced like thistledown and that he hated to have it spoilt. + +“Like how much?” shrieked the D.I.’s niece above the music, bobbing her +face up at him. + +Mrs. Rolfe, as distracted hostess, allowed herself to drift into the +arms of the adjutant, who had looked in for a moment or two. He spoke +of himself as a busy man, but she knew this to be a pose. She danced +remotely and kept repeating: “Glasses for claret cup ... Glasses for +cider cup ... Cigarettes ... Cover the washstand ...” + +“Washstand?” said the adjutant, solicitous. + +“They will have to sit out in Percy’s and my bedroom. Do you think it +will matter?” + +The adjutant took a firmer grip of Mrs. Rolfe, an ethereal girl with a +habit of drifting just out of one’s reach like a kite. He gulped, and +said rather too genially: “It will be no end of a rag to-night. We--we +must make the most of it; it may be the last for a bit. As it is, we’re +doubling the guards. The C.O.--” + +“Pig!” said Denise, looking deep into the adjutant’s eyes. + +“Mum,” said the adjutant, blinking. “And another thing: I’m afraid you +won’t have Dobson of the Rutlands, I’ve just met him--he’s to be out on +patrol.” + +“Oh, but he _said_ he’d get out of that! Oh, but he promised me--” + +“He’d no business to; he’s been due for patrol for ages. Their C.O.--” + +“He spoils everything. Captain Dobson is one of my best dancers.” She +stopped short and turned off the gramophone. “Listen, Percy! They’re +sending Captain Dobson out on patrol at a moment’s notice. _Now_ I’d +like to know what I’m supposed to do? I’d calculated the numbers +exactly.” + +“But, Dens,” said her husband, conscientiously. “We had four men +spare. And you’re certain of Lesworth and Armstrong.” + +“_He_ won’t count!” They all laughed: Betty had told a few friends in +confidence ... + +“And for a matter of that,” Denise still clouded, complained to the +adjutant, “Mr. Lesworth won’t count much either. He’s awfully keen on +the Farquar girl.” + +The adjutant thought: “These attachments!” His C.O. did not like these +attachments, either. The gramophone in a perceptibly minor key began +again, they went on dancing. + +“Suppose,” said the D.I.’s niece, during an interval, “all we girls are +left sitting to-night and nobody comes to dance with us?” + +“Dance with each other,” said Cicely Ralte firmly. + +“But I wouldn’t care to dance without men,” said the D.I.’s niece, +frankly languishing. She had hoisted herself on to the cabinet that +held the records and sat swinging her legs in their shiny stockings and +pulling her dazzlingly checked skirt over her knees. Her green eyes +roamed round, returning attention confidently. + +Daventry, a hand on the edge of the cabinet, stood leaning with his +back to the wall’s art-muslin draperies. He kept shutting his eyes; +whenever he stopped dancing he noticed that he had a headache. He had +been out in the mountains all night and most of the morning, searching +some houses for guns that were known to be there. He had received +special orders to ransack the beds, and to search with particular +strictness the houses where men were absent and women wept loudest and +prayed. Nearly all beds had contained very old women or women with +very new babies, but the N.C.O., who was used to the work, insisted +that they must go through with it. Daventry still felt sickish, still +stifled with thick air and womanhood, dazed from the din. Daventry had +been shell-shocked, he was now beginning to hate Ireland, lyrically, +explicitly; down to the very feel of the air and smell of the water. +If it were not for dancing a good deal, whisky, bridge, ragging about +in the huts, whisky again, he did not know what would become of him, +he would go over the edge, quite mad, he supposed. He opened his +eyes: afternoon light lay in bars on the smoky air. The flash of his +partner’s legs in their glassy stockings exasperated him, he gripped +one of her ankles--harshly, as though it had been a man’s. She kicked, +and a high-heeled slipper went rocketing through the air. A forest of +hands went up. The D.I.’s niece looked down complacently on the compact +and plaited backs of the subalterns. The other girls tittered and hung +on the outskirts. + +“Oh, take care,” wailed Denise, “mind my draperies!” She freed an end +of the muslin and, as no one listened, began with angry laughter to +pepper them all with floor-powder. The D.I.’s niece looked at Daventry +queerly and suddenly: their eyes were now on a level. His eyes, dark +with fatigue and nervousness, were set in too close together, like a +good-looking shark’s. + +Cicely Ralte yawned slightly; the struggle did not abate. “We shall all +be tired when it comes to to-night,” she said to the adjutant. + +But he said: “Here comes Miss Farquar, looking as fresh as paint.” + +Lois came to the door with David Armstrong. Livvy would not come up +to the hut till this evening, she would be confused, she feared; she +didn’t know how much they knew. She was down in Clonmore now, buying +sophisticated-looking black pansies to wear in her dress. She and Lois +were spending the night in Clonmore, with the Fogartys. Lois was dazed +still from her long drive under the strained white sunless sky. Sir +Richard and Lady Naylor had viewed her departure with the gloomiest +apprehensions, but Francie had insisted she would enjoy herself. It +must be flat for her these few days, Francie said, after Marda had +gone. And she had slipped a sachet of Californian Poppy into the top of +the suitcase, with Lois’s green tulle dress. + +Lois and David looked through the door at the young men all in a tangle +with a sensation of helplessness, as though it devolved on themselves +to unwind them. Then they stepped in and shook hands with Mrs. Rolfe +and her girl friends. Lois, pleasing the adjutant by her freshness, +wore a light-blue felt hat and a blue cardigan. She suspected she +should not be walking about the camp without a chaperon, but could not +see how to avoid this: she had come up here to look for Mrs. Vermont. +She went pink from the heat of the room and felt Mr. Daventry look +at her--then shut his eyes again. There was a desperation about Mr. +Daventry she could have loved. But he apparently craved relaxation: she +had found out she did not relax Mr. Daventry. + +Gerald was not here--she guessed from the eyes of commiseration. He was +a serious dancer and did not care to tire himself by sliding. Possibly +he was on duty, possibly would be waiting at Mr. Fogarty’s. Now, she +could remember nothing of him but the leg he had drawn so tenderly into +the armoured car. She had heard nothing of him from that moment; he +might have been sealed up permanently in tin, like a lobster. Did he +regret the kiss?--he had not added a word to it. + +Mr. Simcox, the fattest and sweetest of all the Gunners, started +the gramophone with an eye on herself and came to ask for a dance. +He looked so hot, she said she would rather wait till the evening. +“Remember,” said Mr. Simcox, spreading a hand on his heart. And by +some mysterious evocation, the hut, lit up, vibrated; the air was warm +like smoke on her cool arm, and she went throbbing along with Gerald, +feeling his hand on her back through her thin dress--too near to see +each other--his lashes reverent by her hair. She thought she need not +worry about her youth; it wasted itself spontaneously, like sunshine +elsewhere or firelight in an empty room. + +She thanked Mr. Simcox and said she would keep number six and would +not lose count. Mrs. Vermont, looking peevish suddenly, said it was +tea-time now and shooed the young men out of the hut like chickens. +They dispersed through the mud in the tired, wise light of the +afternoon. + +That evening a wind came up. Lois and Livvy dressed in Mrs. Fogarty’s +spare room, stumbling round the edge of the large bed. They took turns +at the looking-glass; in the intervals of their toilet they ran to +the window to look out. It was strange and pleasant to Lois to be in +a town again. The square, where some crisp leaves whirled autumnly, +was pervaded by an excitement. Though only twelve couples had been +invited to Mrs. Rolfe’s dance, all Clonmore seemed to know of it. +People kept coming out quickly through the swing doors of the Imperial. +Some one played half a waltz and broke off, discouraged; two commercial +travellers clapped one another on the shoulder. Livvy pinned the +black pansies under her bosom and turned to invite admiration. Lois +thought the pansies looked common, but, knowing they must have cost +four-and-six, said they were most original. Lois’s green tulle dress +slipped over her head like a cataract. She shone, coming out through +the top of it. If only Marda could see her ... It was half-past six: +she had promised herself to think of Marda. + +They were dressing early, they were to dine with a Mrs. Perkins up +in the huts. Mrs. Perkins could not promise there would be much for +dinner, but after all this was Ireland and it would be rather jolly. + +Captain Vermont was to call for them: they buttoned their over-coats +over their ball-dresses. Mrs. Fogarty kissed them half-way downstairs, +and warned them not to break hearts. She would see them later, she was +coming to watch the dance. + +Since the acquisition of Betty, Captain Vermont’s stock of conversation +to pretty young things had given out naturally; biologically the time +was past for it. They walked rather silently up past the barracks and +picked their way over the mud between the huts. A chill of darkness was +coming down on the air. The wind came, knife-like, down through the +lines of huts from the mountain, over a gulf of land where the farms +were dark--apprehensive, the young girls patted the whorls of their +hair. The Perkins’ hut exposed a flank to the wind; it was chilly, one +slipped one’s bare arms out of one’s coat reluctantly, going to table. + +The dinner was not so jolly as Lois had feared. Mrs. Perkins looked +distraite and had a whispered argument with her husband about a +tin-opener. Mrs. Vermont could talk of nothing but poor Denise (“As +though,” said Livvy, “she were having at least a baby instead of only +a dance”). Captain Perkins and Captain Vermont apologized repeatedly +to the girls for being old and married; their wives told them not to +be so silly. Their wives said the girls could perfectly well see there +was no room for young men here; already their six chairs grated against +the match-boarding. The girls would have young men in the course of +the evening. Lois agreed politely, but Livvy wished they had stayed +to dinner down in Clonmore where one could have at least watched Mr. +Fogarty drink. She sat squinting, watching the wasted powder flake off +her nose. + +A bottle of white wine was divided among the ladies with depressing +impartiality; the men drank whisky. Mrs. Perkins’ pince-nez glittered +with more animation. But the wind like a lunatic fidgeted with the hut, +frames creaked, doors rattled, a shudder went down the walls; a gust +through a crack set the lights dementedly swinging. During a strained +little silence, between two gusts of the wind, Mrs. Vermont observed +that an angel must be passing over the house; she wanted them to listen +for its wings. They listened; they thought of empty country blotted +out by the darkness. “Quiet here, isn’t it?” said Mrs. Perkins. + +“Better not circulate too far between the dances,” said Captain +Perkins, “and don’t go down to the wires. It’s dark, for one thing; we +don’t want any of these girls lost.” + +“Grandpa!” said Mrs. Vermont. Livvy noted, there seemed some communal +feeling between the married: any wife could be faintly rude to anyone +else’s husband. “I don’t go for walks between dances,” said Livvy, +bridling. + +“You don’t know what you’ll do _now!_” said Mrs. Vermont, and they all +laughed. + +Lois was anxious, there was a tight little ball in her throat; she +could hardly swallow. She was always “strung-up” before a dance. But +to-night it was worse; she had not the expectation of being claimed: +she was really doubtful. She had not had a word from Gerald; he +hadn’t been round to the Fogartys’. Was she not nice to kiss; was he +disappointed? Her green frock glinted under the light; she kept looking +down at her breast, and into her lap, where the folds ran off in shadow +under the table. If he were not there when she came, if she did not see +him before he saw her (as she came uphill in the dark) standing full in +pink light by the door, staring eagerly on to the slab of darkness that +was to give her up--she should die, she thought. For this morning she +had written to Viola that she intended to marry Gerald. + + + + + XVIII + + +THE Rolfes’ door swung open and shut; bursts from the gramophone came +downhill like somebody coughing. As the Perkins’ party stepped up from +the duckboards Gerald spun past the door with the D.I.’s niece, in a +nimbus of gauze draperies. The room was sticky with strawberry light, +unlit lanterns wobbled between the electric light cords; the dancers +seemed to be moving slowly in jam. A group of young men stood by the +door, coughing. But one hadn’t yet made one’s official appearance: +Lois blinked and began to tug out her silver shoes from her pockets; +somebody pulled her on down a passage to change. + +In what Denise called the kitchenette at the end of the passage the +five spare men were smoking, looking into their glasses of whisky and +wishing to play bridge. Lois looked in and they all waved to her, but +Livvy pulled her away quickly: she said that must be the gentlemen’s +cloak-room. Lois met, with surprise, her own eyes of interrogation in +six inches of mirror between the coats. + +David came to claim Livvy, Betty went swooning off over the chalky lake +of the floor with Mr. Simcox, Mr. Daventry stared at the passage door +with severity, balanced his cigarette on the rim of the gramophone and +came up to Lois and frowned, without speaking. He opened his arms +slowly. They danced; she had no idea she could dance so beautifully. At +the end of the record Mr. Daventry impassively moved back the needle +again. “Tiring day,” he said. + +“Oh, I don’t think so.” They went on dancing. + +The D.I.’s niece picked off ends of her tangerine draperies from +various parts of Gerald and walked away with an aquiline-looking +gunner. Over Lois’s temple Mr. Daventry’s jaw moved slightly; his neck +muscles strained. Again he revived the gramophone. Lois, breathless, +said: “Isn’t there going to be an interval?” “Not necessarily,” replied +Mr. Daventry. Meanwhile, one wall of the hut seemed propped against +Gerald’s rigid, resentful back. + +“What a crowd ...” + +“I beg your pardon?” + +She did not speak again. Anxiously dancing, she merely constituted +Mr. Daventry’s revenge. Mrs. Vermont, going past Gerald, said: “Oh, +diddums?” She asked Mr. Simcox if he had noticed, nice-looking boys +looked their nicest sulky? Mr. Simcox, looking round so carefully that +he missed a step, said he would not call that _sulky_ ... More worried. + +“Nonsense, Tubby, what’s he got to worry about?” + +“You never know.” + +Mr. Simcox was a bit of a philosopher, because he was so fat. He gave +up Mrs. Vermont with a sigh to another young man and went across for +somebody’s young, shy sister. “No luck?” he said on the way, to Gerald. +And Gerald looked at him candidly, with despair. + +The evening “went” with a rush, with a kind of high impetuousness out +of everybody’s control. Every one looked and spoke and danced close up +with a kind of exalted helplessness; intimacy tightened the very air. +Sandwiches were ambrosia, brightening the eyes; rims of plates went +electric where fingers touched. Mrs. Rolfe laughed all the time, you +would have said with despair. She climbed past couples very close up +at the darkest part of the passage, she entered the kitchenette with +a shriek and swept some cards from the table. The spare men danced +with each other. She ran in and out of her bedroom, shaking a plate of +chocolates at the couples sitting out on the chest-o’-drawers and on +the washstand covered with Turkish cushions. If the hut had risen and +soared up into the air, so that some one stepping out at the door had +to step back dizzily, she would hardly have been surprised. Indeed, two +subalterns running down to the mess for more siphons did leap to the +mud as from a great height. + +The room was hot; they drew the curtains back and opened the windows, +then were stared in at oddly by hard little squares of night. Couples +went out for walks, to cool their faces. Livvy was kissed twice and +went off to powder her chin. “Of course, this is post-war madness,” +said Mr. Simcox, standing beside a window. + +“Oh yes,” agreed Lois. + +“Awful, really.... I expect _you_ understand what I mean?” + +“Oh yes.” Wishing Mr. Simcox were not intrigued, she put her two hands +out of the window, as into a well, to feel wind cold on her wrists. +Gerald came up behind her. + +“Mine next,” he said, as though they had just parted. “What a row!” he +yelled. + +“This jazz,” said Simcox. “They ought to have let me bring my band,” +complained Gerald, “it wouldn’t have taken up much more room than Mrs. +Fogarty.” + +Mrs. Fogarty had indeed come in and sat at the end of the room in a +purple tea-gown. Her circumference was enormous, her feet stuck out +beyond it--but she was such a darling. Every time a couple stumbled +over her feet she beamed and nodded in the friendliest way. She had +just whispered to Gerald, who brought her a glass of lemonade: “Here, +where’s _your_ girl?” And her eyes had rolled at him, dark with worry. +Gerald could not have borne to disappoint Mrs. Fogarty. + +Gerald did not dance silently. His hand supported her wrist, cool and +familiar. Lois felt she was home again; safe from deserted rooms, the +penetration of silences, rain, homelessness. Nothing mattered: she +could have gone to sleep. But he woke her. + +“Look here: what have I done?” + +“How--?” said she, quite inadequate. + +“You _know_. But why are you--why must we--?” + +“Gerald--oh, do be--sssh!” + +A couple sheered off from them. + +“I didn’t think you’d be cruel,” he said to her hair, almost +confidentially. + +“But it’s you who’ve been cutting me.” + +“But how? When? You’ve never once looked--Lois, you’re lovely, but +you’re so--” + +“Look here, we can’t talk and dance.” + +“Which does that mean you _don’t_ want to do?” + +She looked at a button of his mess coat. “Talk,” she said after a +little contented interval. He slid his hand up her wrist, they danced +on. The D.I.’s niece trailed past them, laughing at Daventry: they +had a pool of space to themselves on the crowded floor. The pink room +melted round, beatific and syrupy. He was closer than ever under the +lovely compulsion of movement. + +“You do dance divinely.” + +“What?” he said, like the ghost of Daventry. Some one stopped the +gramophone, they looked at each other, shocked. Something had made him +absurdly unhappy: she would have liked to have comforted him. + +“Let’s go out.” + +“Won’t it be cold for you?” + +“Gerald,” said she, discouraged, “don’t be an aunt.” + +The wind whipped round the edge of the hut, ran through her hair at the +roots and stung her ears--a sinister energy in this fixed and angular +world, for one could not see anything moving. Gerald walked, unknown, +beside her, up in the dark. “At one time,” said Lois, wrapping her wild +skirts round her, “a girl would have died of this.” + +“Cigarette?” + +“Oh--will it light here?” + +“I can light one most places.” So she bent over his hands, a cup of +fire. There were two bright specks in his eyes.--Then the match whirled +off and died on the dark. “I can’t think what you think has gone +wrong,” she said. + +“You were so queer that Thursday. You’d been like part of me, the night +before; then everything seemed--wrong. I dare say I was a brute; I +oughtn’t to have--though as a matter of fact I’ll never be sorry.... If +you’d been just angry or anything ... But you seemed to go right away: +I didn’t know where I was. All lunch you were like a girl at a tennis +club. Then you left me down there with them all to talk rot and went +off with that beastly gramophone.” + +“_That_ was not my fault--did you want me to listen to you talking +rot?--Gerald, I didn’t realize you were resentful; I didn’t think you +could be.... I was waiting for you to write.” + +“I began so many letters, I used half a box of note-paper. I couldn’t +think what to say.” + +“Still, you might have written.” + +“But how?” he said candidly. + +She could not remember, though she had read so many books, _who_ spoke +first after a kiss had been, not exchanged but--administered. The two +reactions, outrage, capitulation, had not been her own. “You were +hoping I would write?” she said, seeing light suddenly. + +“You see, you had always been so understanding.” + +“But, Gerald, I should have thought you’d have been shocked if I’d--” + +“Oh?... Perhaps I would. But I wanted something to make things natural. +I shall never forget what I felt in that armoured car. You will always +be connected up in my mind with the smell of oil--Lois, do you think I +am terribly introspective?” + +“You know, you were tired.” + +“Perhaps it was that,” he said, puzzled. “But bumping along back to +barracks, and you going in again with that girl to that topping house +...” + +“Do you think it’s a topping house?” + +“It seems so to me.” + +This new version of the changeable afternoon was a shock to her. It +had gone on for him, too; doors that she had not thought of shutting +and windows opening, the drone in the drawing-room, rain with a +different importance. Might she perhaps have thought more about Gerald +and wondered less? Splashing along the brown road to Clonmore she could +now see the armoured car diminish--with Gerald its only nerve. But she +thought of the empty spare room and how it avenged him. + +“Marda’s gone, you know.” + +“But she had just come to lunch, surely?” + +“_Gerald!_... Can’t you feel any difference between some one to lunch +and somebody staying?” + +“She hadn’t a hat,” said Gerald after consideration. + +“She went two days ago: she’s in Kent now.” + +“I’m sorry,” said Gerald civilly. Feeling a strained, fierce pause, he +added: “She seemed awfully nice, I thought.” + +“Don’t you wonder at all if I miss her?” + +“I expect you must. I always miss visitors, though they’re a bother +beforehand.” + +“She hadn’t any beforehand--that seems so odd now.” + +“Lois ... you aren’t angry, then?” + +“Oh?” Recollecting herself, she looked round the darkness vaguely. A +couple were coming towards them; she put a hand on his sleeve to make +him be quiet, his other hand came over it. They heard Daventry’s angry +laugh, his partner’s feet ran stickily on the duckboards. Gerald and +Daventry passed in the dark with, it seemed, a queer silent interchange. + +“Mr. Daventry seems old to be a subaltern.” + +“It’s absurd that he should be--all this peacetime bother. He had +a company in France in 1916, later on he was acting major. He’s a +splendid fellow, I’m sorry you haven’t seen more of him. He won’t go +about much, outside barracks. The fact is,” he added apologetic, “he’s +sick at being over here. It doesn’t seem to agree with him.” + +“Do _you_ really like it?” + +“Oh, well, it’s a job. Though I rather see Daventry’s point--it doesn’t +seem natural.” + +They had come to the end of the huts--the foot of the steep slope a +wall, the top heavily wired. Under the wall a sentry inhumanly paced +like a pendulum. The country bore in it strong menace. Gerald looked +out at it, his face blinking in and out of the dark, faintly red with +the pulse of his cigarette. She nursed her bare elbows, unconsciously +shivering. He seemed at once close and remote, known and un-personal; +she understood why, up to now, she had searched for him vainly in what +he said. He had nothing to do with expression. She put out a hand +to where he was, shadowy and palpable. He threw his cigarette away, +turned--and said nothing. The sentry passed. + +They went back the way they had come, between the huts. + +“Gerald, I _wasn’t_ angry ... at what you did....” + +“No, you were wonderful all the time.” + +“Don’t you understand?” she said sharply--“_Gerald?_” + +“Understand?... _Lois!_” + +While they kissed, she heard, in the silence of their footsteps, some +one moving about in a hut up the lines. The sound was a long way off, +at the other side of a stillness. + +“Your arms are so cold.” + +“I’ve been so lonely.” + +“They’re so _cold_.” He kissed them, inside the elbows. Later: “I like +the back of your head,” she said with exploring finger-tips. + +“I never thought you looked at me.” + +“Gerald, I’ve been so ... vacant.” + +“I never thought you wanted me.” + +“I--” she began. The soft sound of her dress in the wind became, by +some connection of mood, painfully inexplicable to her--the pain was +its own, from not being understood. “Gerald, your buttons hurt rather.” + +“My darling--” He let her go, but still, above consciousness, held +one of her hands, solemnly. “Shall you really be able to marry me?” + +“I don’t know till you’ve asked me.” + +“Don’t laugh--” he cried. + +“Can’t you _hear_ I’m not laughing?” + +“Lois--” Something more was coming; she waited, hearing him draw a +breath. “Let’s go back and dance,” he said almost religiously--“shall +we?” + +The hut was compact with movement: she stood back in alarm, as before a +revolving door in destructive motion. Now it was gone, she remembered +sharply the smell of earth.... David Armstrong leaned from his partner +wildly and struck Gerald over the head with a red balloon. + +Mrs. Rolfe had had an idea that the dance might well finish up with a +cotillion. She was vague about cotillions, but towards this end she +had distributed balloons, whistles that ran out long tongues when +you blew them, and streamers from striped cardboard batons with which +dancers might hit one another over the head. Mrs. Vermont thought these +things went better with fancy dress, but Denise said a rag was a rag +at any time. Girls ducked and shrieked and waved their streamers over +their partners’ shoulders. Denise, radiant in black with a trail of +nasturtiums, was waltzing--affair of prolonged “hesitations”--with +Betty’s husband. She bit off a streamer, spat out a mouthful of paper +and said, with a shiver of happiness: “Isn’t it marvellous, Timmy? I +can hardly believe I’m awake!” + +“Ra-_ther!_” replied Captain Vermont, with blurred enthusiasm. He was +being buffeted by Mr. Simcox and somebody’s sister. + +“Betty’s been just too marvellous,” went on Denise--“Oh, Timmy, do have +a shot at Reggie Daventry--there, with the girl in scarlet. He looks +just too refined!” + +But Timmy failed to find Daventry. “Betty’s _tons_ the prettiest here,” +cried Denise, ecstatic. + +“Oh, come!” expostulated Captain Vermont, squeezing her waist. It gave +him a warm, tender feeling to think how fond she and Betty were of each +other. + +“Tell me,” said Denise, as nearly as possible snuggling, “are we +terribly reckless? Would this annoy the Irish?” + +“They won’t know.” + +“They have heaps of spies.” + +“I say, _sssh_, Denise, there are heaps of them here to-night.” + +“Spies?” + +“Irish--the Raltes and Co.” + +“They’re different.” + +“Still, they’ve got feelings.” + +Denise sighed. “I could go on like this for ever.” But Captain Vermont +rather thought he would like a drink. A balloon exploded. “Glory!” +cried Mrs. Fogarty. So they burst four more to keep her amused. + +“Is this like a bombardment?” asked Moira Ralte. + +“No,” said Mr. Simcox. + +If they were not careful, they would knock over the gramophone. Mr. +Daventry thought it was time they did. It was time something happened. +He danced the D.I.’s niece down the passage and kissed her with her +head pressed back in the coats. She struggled, futile, slippery as a +weasel. As he kissed again her face went stiff and she shut her eyes. +When these opened, they were as shrewd as ever: still he did not know +what she thought. The drums in his temples were now insistent; he could +not forget them even while he was dancing. She had dabbed herself over +with White Rose. Her frizzy hair tickled his mouth as he bent close to +her. + +“Do you get kissed a lot?” + +“Englishmen never could keep their mouths to themselves.” + +“You won’t know yourself when we’re gone!” + +“You should get back home while you can, the lot of you.” + +“What would become of Uncle?” + +“Did you like your whisky?” She put a hand up rudely to shield herself +from his breath. This reminded Daventry, who let go of the common +little hell-cat abruptly and walked away to the kitchenette, where he +heard a siphon. Lois stood in the door, waiting while David got her +some soda-water. But wouldn’t she try a little something? Just a little +something to dance on--no? Daventry, standing back and tilting his +drink about in his glass, stared at her feet with owlish ferocity. + +“Sorry about your silver shoes, Miss Farquar.” + +“There are some beautiful walks round here,” said David, grinning. + +“Miss Farquar should float, not walk; she looks like a water-lily,” +said Daventry, looking over her green frock with his discomforting +eyes. “Come on and dance,” said David, taking her empty glass. Lois +began to say she was keeping the next for Gerald. But: “Miss Farquar +and I are hungry, we are going to find a sandwich,” said Daventry. + +In the box of a dining-room plates of dishevelled sandwiches sat in +unmasked electric light. There was no one there. Mr. Daventry, looking +hard at her, put the palm of his hand to his left temple with a +curious, listening air, as though to see if a watch had stopped. + +“Chicken and ham,” he said, “tongue and turkey; they’re all cat, they +say.” (“What shall I say?” thought Lois.) He looked at a chair with +contempt, then sat down on it. “I don’t think I’ve met you before,” he +continued. + +“Perhaps you didn’t notice.” + +“Dear me,” said Mr. Daventry, looking into a sandwich. “No, I don’t +think it could have been that.” + +“Then it can’t be explained,” said Lois, and (she felt) glittered +excitedly. He suggested the army of Wellington; buckskins. Looking +up thoughtfully, he directed upon the wall just over her head his +strained dark look that was almost a squint. “You live round here?” + +“More or less--” She was startled to meet the dark look on a level. +Hers was, he said, a remarkably beautiful country. + +“I am afraid _you_--” + +He affably shrugged. Did that matter? He stared at her arms, at the +inside of her elbows, with such intensity, she felt Gerald’s kisses +were printed there. Was this a bounder?--She knew she had no criterion. + +“Have a nice walk?” he inquired. + +“Did you?” she countered. + +“I expect so,” said Mr. Daventry, after consideration. “As a matter +of fact, I am not quite at my best.” They looked hard at each other. +“Nothing,” he said, “appeals to me.” She moved her arms nervously on +the silk of her dress. For she saw there was not a man here, hardly +even a person. + +“How do you mean ‘more or less’?” he said suddenly. + +“Well, I don’t live anywhere, really.” + +“I do: I live near Birmingham.” He put the half-eaten sandwich down, +with distaste, on the edge of the cloth and pulled up a plate to cover +it. She felt she was quite finished with. Suppose, she thought, they +were all like this! Should she go? She made a movement, he did not see; +she was disappointed. He put the hand to his temple, again listening. + +“Tired?” + +“Oh no,” he said, with irony. + +“I’m going back now.” + +“Such a pity. Anyone so charming ...” + +“Well, I’m bored,” she said. + +“It’s a pity you don’t know about my head, it’s a most curious head, +it would interest you.... How shall I keep you? Look here, seriously, +about Lesworth--” + +“Oh?” she inquired, suddenly cold inside. + +“About our young friend--” He pulled up his chair close; she had a +feeling like gates shutting. “Tell me this--” + +But the roar of merriment, solid and swerving evenly as a waterfall +past the door, splintered off in a crash. Silence came, with hard +impact. “Thank God, _they’ve upset the gramophone!_” Daventry smacked +his knee, remotely, as though rehearsing the gesture. His look +decomposed in laughter. “Done in,” he said, drawing life from the +thought. Simultaneously, a universal shriek went up: it was smashed, +finished. “Really,” she thought, “you laugh like Satan!” + +“Well, well,” said Daventry, tilting his drink about, “it’s been a +pleasant evening.” Here they all came--a stampede in the passage. She +was glad of them, for under the storm of his mirth that swept their +island, disarranging the interlude, she had sat cold and desolate. A +gramophone passing, a gramophone less in the world, it was not funny. +But between bursts of laughter she had felt him look at her lips, +at her arms, at her dress, like a ghost, with nostalgia and cold +curiosity. About their young friend?--she wasn’t to know. + +Mrs. Vermont seemed broken also, she leaned on the adjutant. “Stay her +with sandwiches,” called out somebody, “comfort her with--with--more +sandwiches!” Moira mopped her eyes with a trail of her dress, but +nobody noticed. They jostled about the table. Plates rang, shunted in +all directions. “Sitting in here?” cried Gerald, exalted, “splendid!” +Somebody waved a mouth-organ: could one dance to that? More and more +squeezed in at the door: the room would burst. The cracks of the +walls that had been straight a minute ago like bars now seemed to +bulge out visibly: light glared down on the resolution of backs and +pink, reaching arms. “_Our_ young friend, our _young_ friend, our +young _friend_,” thought Lois, and watched Gerald. Though she watched +wherever he went, she could not see him. There was nothing, in fact, +to which to attach her look except his smoothness and roundness of +head, which seemed for the first time remarkable. She looked for his +mouth--which had kissed her--but found it no different from mouths of +other young men who had also been strolling and pausing between the +huts in the dark. The page of the evening was asterisked over with +fervent imaginary kisses. And one single kiss in the wind, in the +dark was no longer particularized: she could not remember herself, or +remember him. + +As he came up, she looked quickly away. She looked at an empty plate +down on the floor, at a thin disk of cucumber flaccid against its rim. +“What have I done?” she thought: she looked at the plate with dread. +And: “Oh, sandwich?” said Gerald, turning to bring up some more. “... +Or perhaps it will seem natural to-morrow?” Nothing could keep her from +having to eat a sandwich. “Darling ...” he whispered, brushing against +her shoulder. + +“Tired?” asked Mr. Simcox, seeing her face. + +“Oh no,” she said, with Mr. Daventry’s best irony. + + + + + XIX + + +MR. and Mrs. Montmorency were sitting on the steps as Lois drove up the +avenue. Francie waved, Hugo looked warily round the _Spectator_. “Well +...?” cried Francie, as Lois came into ear-shot. Above, twenty dark +windows stared over the fields aloofly out of the light grey face of +the house. The trees had rims of light round them; everything seemed a +long way away. With a sigh, Hugo put down the _Spectator_ and came to +lift Lois’s suitcase out of the trap. + +“Well ...?” + +“Oh, marvellous.... But what _do_ you think: we broke the gramophone!” + +“Oh, the poor gramophone!” + +“It was the Gunners’ gramophone.... Where are the others?” + +“We have no idea.” + +The Montmorencys now felt certain it must be a tiring day: even Lois +looked pale. They had been having an intimate conversation about the +future, both with a sense of courage as from sweeping aside some +decency. Why not, Hugo had said, build a bungalow somewhere? “With no +stairs?” Francie kindled at the idea, slipping a hand under Hugo’s. +“And live there always?” Certainly--why not?--they would un-store the +furniture. And at the thought of their tables and sofas coming again +out of limbo, Hugo’s face was illumined by a look of defiance. + +“But where would we build?” said Francie, wrinkled up with delightful +anxiety. Hugo said they would motor round for a bit and no doubt some +idea would suggest itself. “We could choose the view,” said Francie. +But at this point, for some reason, he had taken up the _Spectator_. + +The man came round for the pony: Lois sat down on the steps and began +to chatter. It was surprising, really, how much had occurred. And +fancy, the Colonel had been furious.... Even Hugo listened with some +attention. “Dear me,” he said when they heard about Mr. Daventry. +Francie expected it must be a great relief for a man in that state of +mind to meet a girl to whom he could really talk. “But he didn’t talk; +he really was most extraordinary. Of course, he was once a major.” +Francie wished she had seen her go off in that green frock--all, how +should she say? like a poppy, only a different colour. Would Lois put +it on for them all to-night? + +“It’s not really a frock one sits in,” said Lois discouragingly. +Francie said it was almost a pity in some ways that Laurence was so +intellectual. “I know, we’ll make Hugo waltz with you, he waltzes +beautifully.” But the thought of Hugo waltzing--as Hugo suspected--made +Lois melancholy. + +Laurence, disturbed by her voice, shut an upstairs window. His +industry nowadays was remarkable. He dragged at his hair and stared +at the trees through a flawed pane, across which Laura Naylor had +scratched her name with a diamond. At his elbows, books were in +toppling stacks; movement produced an avalanche. A wasp hung round him, +tentative, scrawling Z’s on the air. “Go away,” he muttered, “you are +superfluous.” Finally, he was obliged to open the door and shoo the +wasp out of it; it undulated across the landing and in at the half-open +door of Marda’s room, as though it had an appointment. Though he did +not care for the wasp, Laurence went in after it, to see if she had +not left _South Wind_ behind. She had indeed--which was like her. The +wasp dithered above the looking-glass in triumph; he took aim with the +book and almost hit it. An eight-day clock still ticked; it was five to +four, it would soon be tea-time. + +As he came out, Lois appeared at the top of the stairs, carrying a +suitcase. + +“Hullo! what have you brought _that_ up for?” + +“Oh yes,” she said, putting it down in surprise. “I meant to have left +it half-way.” + +“Well--?” + +“Really,” she cried, unreasonably, “this house is nothing but +Montmorencys; they are an absolute state of mind.... I only wanted to +see if you were here.” + +“Well, I’m not, practically: I’m working.” + +“Oh--why do you work in the spare room?” + +“I was dealing with a wasp.” + +“Laurence, I had a marvellous dance.” + +“Splendid!” He turned to his door, but she, in tremendous need of his +un-sympathy, brought out, imploringly: “They were all there, every one. +And, my dear, the wind; I thought the hut would be blown away. And we +broke the gramophone. There was a most sinister man called Daventry, +with shell-shock ...” + +“Good,” said Laurence, “and _you_ look sleepy!” + +Lois, lamblike under the force of suggestion, leaned back against the +banisters, yawning. “Livvy kicked all night, she will be a horrible +wife.... Laurence, I wish you would tell me something to read.” + +“I should go to sleep.” + +The idea seemed grateful: she thought of her room with the high +ceiling, the foreign touch to the cheeks of afternoon pillows, +the delicious crime of crossing one’s stockinged ankles over the +rucked-back quilt and the slow recession of fact down a long tunnel +till the windows stretched and faded. But, pulling at her fingers, +she said impatiently: “But I want to begin on something; I do think, +Laurence, you might understand. There must be some way for me to begin. +You keep on looking into rooms where I am with silent contempt--what do +you think I am for?” + +He leaned against the frame of his doorway, looking at her with +surprise and a degree of humanity. To-day four weeks, Term would have +begun again; he did for a moment stretch to an effort of comprehension: +there was nothing for _her_ to go on with. The vacancy, more than +negative to him, which had succeeded Marda made the natural claims of a +life on his young cousin. With that concession to fancy one makes for +the doomed or the very weak, he suggested she should go on with her +German. He gave her two grammars, a dictionary and a novel of Mann’s, +which she took from him doubtfully. When he was back at his table, his +door ajar, she went across stealthily to the door opposite. + +“There’s a wasp in there,” called out Lawrence. + +“Oh, I just thought I’d see if ...” + +But she went downstairs, defeated, forgetting her suitcase. + +She had not seen Gerald again this morning, though all contracted +with apprehension she had waited in Mrs. Fogarty’s drawing-room--the +multiplicity of the photographed young men’s faces, candid and +vigorous, further appalling her. An orderly had come down with a +note from barracks. The crested envelope, handed in with its air of +a claim on her, had austerity, like some limb of an institution. She +lost her last sense of Gerald, she felt committed. Fumbling open the +envelope, asking: “What have I done?” she wondered what had become +of that last lonely disk of cucumber on the plate. After “My darling +darling”--she was reprieved, provisionally; Mrs. Fogarty, coming in +in a wrapper--greatly worn, she said, after last night’s gaiety--had +insisted that if she would not drink port she must drink milk--it was a +long morning--and eat some of this nice sponge cake. + +And: “_I_ know who has been breaking hearts!” said Mrs. Fogarty, +knifing the sponge cake which was moist and eggy and “gave” to the +knife deliciously, like an eiderdown. + +The ante-room chairs, now looking at Lois askance, knew also. What she +had done stretched everywhere, like a net. If she had taken a life, +the simplest objects could not more have been tinged with consequence. +The graded elephants on the bookcases were all fatality. She went into +her room hurriedly. “All the same,” she thought, looking round with +patronage at the virginal wall-paper, “it _is_ something definite.” And +with curiosity, with complicity almost, she looked at herself in the +glass. + +Gerald’s straight, round writing had--to her imagination--a queer +totter, like some one running for life in tight shoes. + +“--I have so much to say to you, though there is all time now there +seems to be no time. Lois, when I am with you you make me awfully dumb +with your darling wide-awake eyes, and when we are apart you seem so +close I feel you must understand, so why try to explain when I am so +stupid? So I won’t try to say what I feel; all that matters is that you +are beautifully beautiful. Sometimes, till now, I have felt you must +think me awfully stupid and introspective and dull; I have wondered so +much what you did think about all the time: it seems unbelievable now +that I am really to know. You seemed so complicated, it was cheek to +associate you with the sort of person that I am, and now you are lovely +and simple and all mine. Last night doesn’t seem like part of my life +at all--I can’t believe it was me who danced and drank whiskies and +tinkered about with the gramophone--and yet it’s the reallest thing +ever. And what I am doing this morning seems so important--although it +keeps me away from you--because I am doing it _for_ you. It is awful +to think of you here in Clonmore and not to be able to get to you, and +yet it is wonderful to think of you waiting, and of who you are waiting +for being me. Lois, your dear cold arms were so lovely, I mustn’t think +of them now. All your life I am going to keep you and wrap you up and +protect you and never let you be cold again. It is awful to think you +have ever been lonely and sad--you are so brave, you know, and I never +guessed--and yet I am almost glad of that, because it makes some reason +for me. Darling, I kiss the thought of you and feel so terribly humble. +I must not write more now. If you can, leave a letter for me at the +Fogartys’. Does she guess? I thought perhaps you might like to confide +in her. But of course I will tell nobody, as you wish. Good-bye, my +most beautiful woman; I cannot write how I love you. + + “Gerald.” + +Folding the sheets again in their order, she thought: “It is you who +are beautiful,” and later: “If this thing is so perfect to anyone, +can one be wrong?” An escape of sunshine, penetrating the pale sky in +the south-west, altered the room like a revelation. Noiselessly, a +sweet-pea moulted its petals on to the writing-table, leaving a bare +pistil. The pink butterfly flowers, transparently balancing, were +shadowed faintly with blue as by an intuition of death. Lois bowed +forward, her forehead against the edge of the table. + +Steps in the ante-room; she slipped the letter under the blotter and +turned round consciously. “I hear you are back,” said Lady Naylor, +entering. “I hear it was such a success that they broke the gramophone. +Now I want to hear all about it.” She sat down. + +“Well, to begin with--” + +“One moment--have you unpacked your frock?” + +“Oh! I left my suitcase.... I went up to Laurence to borrow a German +grammar.” + +“Oh, I shouldn’t go on with German,” said Lady Naylor, “it still +offends so many people; Italian is prettier and more practical. I could +lend you _Il Piccolo Mondo Antico_, or Dante-- However, tell me about +the dance.” + +“Well, first of all--” + +“--By the way, I’ve just heard from Marda. She has arrived quite +safely, I’m glad to say. She says Kent is dull, which I dare say it +would be, but of course she is glad to be with Leslie.” + +“Did she say so?” + +“She naturally would be. You can read it; I’ve got the letter +downstairs.... Who broke the gramophone? I hope you weren’t anywhere +round when it happened: these things are always remembered. Were the +Raltes there? Did they look pretty? I wonder, really, at their mother +allowing them; she professes to have them in such control. However, I +dare say this will be the last of these dances.” + +“Oh, why?” + +“If you had heard what we heard at the Trents’.... There was a man +there from Kerry. He really made us feel quite uncomfortable. Though, +as your uncle said afterwards, one knows what the Trents’ friends +are: everything happens to them. However-- Were the Vermonts there? +_She_ would be quite in her element. And Mr. Armstrong? I have heard +he and Livvy were seen in Cork together at the Imperial, by Mrs. +Foxe-O’Connor. And the young man who was here to lunch, who talked so +much ... in the armoured car ... oh--Lesworth?” + +“Yes, he was there.” + +“I am surprised at them all having time,” said Lady Naylor. “However, +if they danced more and interfered less, I dare say there would be +less trouble in the country. It appears that in Kerry ...” Her voice +became colder with inattention and dwindled away. Lois was certain she +eyed the pink blotter. This zigzag approach to Gerald, this ultimate +vagueness, were sinister. Lady Naylor, after some moments of odd and +oppressive silence, observed that the sweet-peas were dying. “The water +must be unhealthy, it’s going green. In fact, all the flowers need +doing. Perhaps after tea-- How would you like to go to a school of +art?” + +“Marvellous,” said Lois after reflection. + +“Francie was very much struck by your drawings. And Marda said you +certainly needed an interest.” + +“Oh. Was she discussing me?” + +“We were all saying that girls needed interests and I thought she +seemed to agree particularly. _She_ has not made much of her life, so +far--though of course if she marries Leslie--and I’ve always thought +that music or drawing, or writing a little, or organization of some +kind--” + +“Did Marda say what she thought of my drawings?” + +“She seemed to think they were nice.... A quarter to five!” exclaimed +Lady Naylor reproachfully. “The tea will be cold.... You look sleepy, +Lois. Did you hear the Montmorencys are going to build a bungalow?” + +“Here?” + +“Don’t be silly-- Besides, according to that friend of the Trents, +it would be blown up or burnt in a month or two. Certainly,” added Lady +Naylor, looking out at the sky, “I call this a tiring day.” She got up +with a sigh. + +Later that evening Lois, half-way up to the garden with scissors +and basket, overtook Mr. Montmorency walking all by himself up the +shrubbery path. Pulling leaves from the laurels he shredded them +carefully. + +“I hear,” he said, as she came up alongside, “you are taking up German?” + +“Unless Italian might be more practical.... I hear you are going to +build a bungalow?” + +“Oh, I don’t know; that is chiefly Francie’s idea.” They walked in +silence, she dragging her basket against the laurels. They had not been +alone since the drive from Mount Isabel. She remembered how once she +had hoped so much, and how he had been infinitely disobliging. Now she +had a tenderness for him, devoid of attraction, as though they had been +a couple of widows. + +“No stairs would be nice.” + +“But it would be certain to have other disadvantages.” + +“Apparently,” she said with effrontery, “Marda arrived quite safely.” + +“It should be a surprise to us all,” said Hugo, sarcastic, “that she +has not fallen out of the train. Even she cannot think of anything +better to say to a hostess. And the information, I always feel certain, +leaves hostesses cold. Once one is clear of their gates, interest ends +with responsibility.” + +“And she says Kent is dull.” + +“I cannot believe _she_ finds it so.” + +“She is frightfully philosophic. Perhaps she was dull here.” (She +thought: “Even now, shall we never be natural?”) + +“Have you seen her letter?” + +“No ... have you?” + +“No, your aunt has lost it.” + +He pushed open the door, then followed her into the garden which, deep +in its walls, seemed impossibly large, for one could not see to the end +of it: it was crossed by espaliers and crowded with apple-trees. Down +the borders, the September yellow and scarlets were metallic in unsunny +light. Dahlias, orange and wine-coloured, blazed and gloomed. He turned +down one path, she kept to the other; they silently parted. Here she +had come with Marda--never with Gerald--they had sat on the green seat, +pressed blisters out of the paint and spat out their plum-stones into +the box border opposite. Entered to-day, the usual breath of the garden +was cold to her face. The branches were quiet as though in anxiety, +the flowers appeared to be clamouring vainly, forgotten. Coming to +the hedge of sweet-peas she began at the purple end, diligently. +“Though myself,” she could not help saying, “I do not care for purple +sweet-peas.” + +When she reached up to the top of the hedge her sleeves fell back from +her arms and she thought of Gerald. She felt him looking at her through +the thinning stems. The sweet-peas were practically over, and indeed +she was glad, she thought, snipping and tugging with blunt garden +scissors. In yesterday’s dusk the Square with its flitter of leaves +had been all autumnal; smoke was blue in the air and, later, the dark +where they kissed had a sharp intimation of autumn. She loved in +autumn a stronger, more shadowy keen spring, sweet shocks of good-bye, +transition. Summer meanwhile stayed on inside these walls, forgotten. + +The fact was, that though one determined to-night to sit under the +lamp and learn verbs, her Italian or German would not dispose of last +night, which remained, like the tear in her green tulle dress, to be +dealt with practically. After an anxious glance at the possible, a pain +so sharp that it seemed her own forbade recantation. It was inevitable +that she should marry Gerald. Mrs. Montmorency at least--she thought +with relief as she came to the red sweet-peas--would be infinitely +sympathetic and pleased. The unbelievable future became fixed as the +past under the flutter and settling down of a flock of comments, which, +as she turned in imagination back to the house and steps and saw lips +forming themselves in unconscious readiness, seemed already uttered. +And as Mr. Montmorency came up a path at an angle, with the two garden +kittens toppling after him, she was surprised he did not repeat: “Well, +I hope of course that you may be happy. And decision of any kind is an +excellent thing in your mother’s daughter.” + +Instead, he came to the other side of the hedge and, picking off some +bleaching tendrils, observed that the sweet-peas would soon be over. +The house flowers must keep her busy, he added. And taking out his +pocket-knife he cut three sweet-peas, with precision. Having made this +gesture of sympathy, he continued to move with her down his side of the +hedge. + +“It is extraordinary,” said Lois. “I feel as if I had been away for a +week.” + +“Yet you find us going on much the same?” He looked at her through +the stems ironically but without intelligence. And she could not try +to explain the magnetism they all exercised by their being static. +Or how, after every return--or awakening, even, from sleep or +preoccupation--she and those home surroundings still further penetrated +each other mutually in the discovery of a lack. + + + + + XX + + +LADY NAYLOR, who wished for a clear steady light these lengthening +evenings, saw to the lamps personally. In big yellow gloves she +accurately trimmed the wicks, between the morning’s head-lines and a +thorough talk with the cook. But the smell of oil was repugnant to her +and now she said with some sharpness: + +“You have no conception of love-- You are in my light.” + +Lois moved from the lamp-room window. “I really have,” she said, +“really.” + +“Nonsense,” her aunt said, looking round for a rag. Lois began to slide +a matchbox about, and her aunt, taking the matches away mechanically, +thought how hard it was that a woman like this, who could bring the +matter on to an intellectual plane at once, should have to do lamps at +all. Anna Partridge, whose brain was all shreddy with rabbit-combing +and raffia, had had electric light for years, just from living in +England; even the Trents talked of harnessing their waterfall. + +“When I was your age I never thought of marriage at all. I didn’t +intend to marry. I remember, when I was nineteen I was reading +Schiller.” + +“I don’t think about marriage, I ...” + +“Then you can have no conception ...” + +“I read,” said Lois, with dignity. + +“Girls nowadays do nothing but lend each other these biological books. +I was intensely interested in art.” + +“But, Aunt Myra, young men are quite usual.” + +“It all comes of dancing and all this excitement.” + +“But Gerald is not excitable; he was in love with me the other day +before lunch.” + +“He was half asleep,” said Lady Naylor. “At the best of times he has +not much conversation. Of course, I rate brains so highly; perhaps I am +wrong. But remember, you cannot hope to be always in love, and then ...” + +“But you said I had no conception ...” + +“There you are, in my light again.” + +Lois moved further away from the window. She wished she had not started +this explanation. She had felt, somehow, that it should be less +embarrassing in the lamp-room. She thought of Gerald’s unquestioning +shoulder, where she would lean her head. “But I can’t explain,” she +said; “I never heard of a girl being asked to explain. I always thought +...” + +“Real feeling explains itself,” said Lady Naylor and polished some oil +off the base of a lamp triumphantly. + +“But if he comes to tea ...” + +“Oh, we cannot help that, of course.” + +“But if he spoke to Uncle Richard ...” + +“Your uncle would be very much worried. Really, Lois, I do think you +might be more sensible and considerate.” + +Lois saw this point of view only too perfectly. She wrinkled her +forehead. She did not want to be hard on her Uncle Richard and she +could not help sympathizing with Aunt Myra, who had so much to organize +as it was. Feeling did seem to her out of proportion with life, and +that this disproportion should be so evident generally, that her aunt +should think she was making an irrelevant fuss, strongly discouraged +her. But she reassembled herself; she had been led to understand that +love ... + +“But surely love ...” + +“You have no conception of love,” repeated Lady Naylor, and thought +again of electric light in Bedfordshire. + +“But shall I never do anything?” + +“Go to a school of art.” + +“Where?” + +“It could be arranged.” + +“But I don’t think I really draw well.” + +“That is no reason why you should marry.” + +It was, of course, no reason; acknowledging this, and seeing light from +the barred window fall so coldly on the oilcloth top of the lamp-table, +Lois felt quite at a standstill. + +“However ...” said Lady Naylor. She looked with her brilliant eyes +dubiously, almost shyly, at the door behind Lois’s head. She swept the +rags and the lamp scissors into a drawer, shut the drawer on their +malodour, and pulled off her gloves, sighing. She saw life, perhaps, as +a shuffle of setting to partners, then a drawn-out, coupled but somehow +solitary curtsying, to him, the other, the rest of the eight. “However +...” she said. And the qualification committed herself and her niece, a +shade alarmingly. Lois knew that Gerald might come to tea. + +“You do see,” said Lois, and stared at her aunt’s ringed hands which +reappeared from the gloves, “that I didn’t want to be clandestine?” + +“Oh, of course you were quite right,” said Lady Naylor without +enthusiasm. She went down to talk to the cook. + +Kathleen, the cook, who resembled her mistress in personality so +closely that their relation was an affair of balance, who had more +penetration than Lady Naylor and was equally dominant, inferred much +of the situation from her mistress’s manner. Herself, she had felt +this was bound to occur. For an hour or so, they had countered each +other amiably in the lime-washed gloom of the kitchen, over a basin +of green-pea soup. Lady Naylor announced with unusual deprecation, +there would be an officer coming over to tea. Kathleen, refolding her +hands royally, asked, would she slap up a sally-lunn? On the whole, +Lady Naylor thought drop-cakes. Kathleen immediately placed the +officer. Strolling down the yard in the course of the afternoon to +execute a couple of chickens, she watched dispassionately from under +the chestnuts Gerald crouch on his motor-bicycle up the avenue. Lois, +standing about with the dogs, went down to meet him. For tea, Kathleen +sent up an unaccountable iced cake, ironically festive. + +Francie was glad Mr. Lesworth was coming to tea. For the day strained +with ominousness, as though it were going to burst. Hugo, pacing about +on the avenues with _The Conquest of Mexico_ under his arm, disparaged +repose. “By the way,” he said once, coming up, “if you should be +happening to write to Marda Norton ...” + +“Oh, but I shan’t be; not till I send her our little present. Besides, +I have nothing to say.” + +“She might write to you about the eau-de-Cologne.” + +“Oh no, she thanked me.” + +“There was a point I wanted to clear, about Metternich--you remember +that argument? I’ve just come on a book--I suppose I had better write +myself.” + +“But no one knows her address; Myra lost the letter.” + +“Ah yes, of course.... That settles it.” He smiled--one would have +said with relief. Francie, looking down in despair at her blouse as he +walked away, saw that the jabot was crumpled. She could not understand +how a woman who travelled with suitcases could look as _smooth_ as +Marda. But then, she was all outlines: detail seemed to collect and +obtrude in the middle of Francie. She went up to change, glad that +Gerald was coming, sounding with some attention the silence under the +avenue trees. For the fact was, life attenuated to the snapping-point; +in Gerald’s continuity, in Lois’s, she must invest her own. + +Gerald propped up his motor-bicycle, looked up carefully at the closed +windows--in one, from behind a blot of light, Francie was nodding--and +said that he should not really have come. Troops had been fired on +coming back into Clonmore, near that level-crossing. The situation was +tightening; there was a lot to do. + +“Oh. Then it is a pity you came,” said Lois. + +Gerald said nothing; his ears faintly coloured. + +“_Clonmore!_” said Lois with indignation, and thought of the little +friendly town with its tennis club. + +“So it happened,” said Gerald, looking at her. “It might have been +anywhere else.” He whistled and greeted the dogs, her dogs. + +“Then ... it was dangerous coming?” + +“Oh no, not to speak of.” + +The house so loomed, and stared so darkly and oddly that he showed a +disposition--respectful rather than timorous--to move away from the +front of it. They walked to the tennis courts and round one court in a +circle. “_Lois_ ...” She veered off quickly, Laurence was working up +there in his window. Gerald waved, but had no response. “Doesn’t he +concentrate!” he said wistfully. + +“I suppose so.... Does Laurence matter?” + +“You know _you_ ...” + +“Gerald, you are the frightfully concentrated person, really.” + +“But I can’t read.... Where can I ... where could we--?” + +“--Here comes Mr. Montmorency.” + +Hugo, coming up to shake hands with Gerald, said it seemed a long time +since they had met. The young man, by his way of standing and looking +clearly and being positive, strongly connected himself with Marda. With +an unexpected and crooked stab of nostalgia, Hugo thought of the trees, +the morning mountains, the tinkling and knocking stream. Of all of her +he had kept and had never had and must try to regain appeared most +sharply the moment of that encounter: irrelevant moment, when, outside +something, he had watched light run down her hair as she stooped for +Gerald to light her cigarette. The quality of their silence, their +separation after Gerald had left them--pressing on up to the house to +look for Lois--now seemed the very ground of his closest approach. But +he knew how the scene was perishable, how having drawn up into itself +for life, like a plant, any reality that there was in him, it would +die of his barrenness. Until finally, by even the same conjunction of +mountains and light and trees, it would not be evoked again. + +“No shaving under a hedge this morning?” he said genially. + +“Oh no,” said Gerald, surprised. Why should there be? + +Lois, encouraged to find that by some growth of womanhood in herself +her attitude was already a wife’s, at once proud and deprecating, +stood there watching Gerald, most grateful for the repose of this +interposition and willing that Mr. Montmorency should be detained. +She knew, from a glance they both gave her, that she must have been +startled by some sort of consciousness into beauty, and a particular +placidness, a sense of being located, warmed her surroundings, the +smooth lawn and heavy trees. Balancing, foot behind foot, on a line +of the court faint from rain, she constructed a life in China--most +regimental, alert and pleasantly surfaced--from Japanese prints she +had ignored in shops, an idea of odd, angular archways and some strips +of vertical writing. He must no doubt some day be a captain, and +“captain’s lady” had a ballad-like cadence. She almost took Gerald’s +arm. + +“You find us diminished,” said Hugo, “and a good deal quieter. Miss +Norton has gone.” + +“Oh?” + +“_Marda_,” she hastily prompted. + +“She was awfully nice and amusing,” said Gerald, beaming out like the +sun from behind a moment’s perplexity. “I’d have loved to have met her +again.” + +She explained to him afterwards, taking him off through the +shrubberies, how things were at present with Mr. Montmorency: he was +a ruined man. Gerald went rigid, something shut like a door on his +sensibilities--the thing reeked of adultery. He produced an appalled +silence. But about Lois’s mother, he brought out finally, hadn’t one +heard he had once been ...? + +“But a thing _can’t_ be final,” said Lois. “Not while one’s alive.” + +Was this what she read? “But there’s _Mrs._ Montmorency....” It seemed +fixed here, the Montmorencys’ conjointness, among the stately furniture +and long mild meals--earth to Lois’s roots. + +“But one can’t arrange oneself; one doesn’t altogether live from +inside: Marda just happened.” + +“And did _she_ ...?” cried Gerald, appalled. Above this extraordinary +undercurrent, it seemed to him his Lois was poised too perfectly. + +Lois, in pink linen, perfectly sophisticated and cool, said: “No. She +was just regretful. Also, she is engaged, you see.” + +“_Is_ she? I should never have thought ...” + +“... Her engaged? Well, how ought she to look? Like a kind of hen bird, +all dim?” + +“She was all herself. Doesn’t love kind of finish people off ... with +something that isn’t them, in a way you can feel?” + +She understood him, but did not know how to agree. What must one then +be for him? She was shy of his uncomprehension of a particular notion +of living she seemed only now to have formed. Did she give out an +untrue ring to his touch? Where was the flaw? Or was Gerald, sublimely, +the instrument of some large imposture? + +“Complete--you mean finished?... Perhaps she is not really in love.” + +“But surely she isn’t that sort ... she wouldn’t just marry?” + +“I don’t think what Marda does matters; she simply _is_.” + +He looked desperate suddenly, as though she were behind bars. “Look +here, no one matters. Don’t let’s talk ... I mean ... don’t let’s talk. +Lois, there’s so little time now, I’m desperate. I don’t see when I am +going to see you, ever. Lois, this miserable waiting; even happiness +never lets one alone. When shall we be quiet?” + +“But, Gerald, we’re quite young.” + +“I want nothing to happen but you. You are everything. I want so much +of you.” + +She stood, perplexed, at the edge of the path; he kissed her with +frightened violence. The laurels creaked as, in his arms, she bent back +into them. His singleness bore, confusing, upon her panic of thoughts, +her physical apprehension of him was confused by the slipping, cold +leaves. Her little sighs elated then alarmed him. + +“What’s the matter?” he said, his lips close to her face. + +“I don’t like the smell of the laurels. Let’s come out of here.” They +went back, she put up anxious hands and asked him about her hair. “Is +it twiggy and awful?” “Lovely.” She wished that he were a woman. As +they approached the steps where her aunt and uncle and Francie composed +an abstracted group, she told him: “Aunt Myra wants me to go to a +school of art.” + +“Oh ... Can you draw?” + +“_Gerald_ ...!” + +“Darling, I’ve never seen them. How could I know?” + +Lady Naylor exclaimed how delightful it was that Gerald had come over. +Now they would hear some real, _real_ news, she said: they always +relied on Gerald. Sir Richard, taking his pince-nez off in amazement, +could hardly believe it was Gerald again; he still thought subalterns +came in rotation. Surely, he said candidly, it was yesterday they had +had that interesting talk about the Militia? Gerald was given a chair +of such voluptuous depth that his chin came barely above the edge of +the tea-table. They congratulated him on the Rolfes’ dance. In fact, +they united to carry off the situation with such brilliance that Gerald +might well have been a dun or a tax-collector. Then, at a moment when +talk seemed precarious and Marda obtrusively absent and Lady Naylor sat +eyeing Lois’s hair, the Trents arrived unexpectedly. They brought over +another friend, this time from County Clare, to whom still more had +happened. Gerald went into joyous eclipse; the Danielstown party sat +breathless--hardly a chair creaked--the Trents looked at their friend +complacently while the Trents’ friend curdled the tea in one’s mouth +with tales of assault and cattle-driving. + +“Well, I suppose _we’ve_ a certain amount to be thankful for,” smiled +Mrs. Archie Trent as their friend, having been put through his hoops, +settled down to tea. And she told Lois that she was looking remarkably +well, and they hoped they would see her out with the Ballymoyles this +winter. And meanwhile, what about cubbing? + +“Lois is going to a school of art,” said Lady Naylor. + +“That seems a pity,” said Mrs. Trent. + +The friend, finishing his tea, said all the Irish art schools ought to +be searched. He wouldn’t say for certain, but he had a pretty shrewd +suspicion what you would find there. If it came to that, he said, casts +were hollow and you could keep a good deal inside the Venus of Milo. +Sir Richard looked vaguely offended. + +“I should go to the Slade,” said Lois. + +“Oh,” said Mrs. Archie Trent, “not Rome, I suppose? Well I shouldn’t do +anything of that sort in a hurry.” + +“Art is long,” said Laurence, who liked conversation of this sort. +The Trents’ friend asked him how he liked Cambridge; he himself had a +nephew who hoped soon to be going up. Laurence said he had heard that +Cambridge was very nice. + +The Trents’ friend took Gerald aside after tea, to explain to him where +the Army was going wrong. Mrs. Trent at once drew closer up to the +teapot and said, in a loud voice of confidence, she had heard Livvy +Thompson was really engaged to that young Armstrong. “Nonsense,” said +Lady Naylor. + +“But they were seen in Cork having tea, and the aunt denies it too +vigorously. After all, it would be something for the Thompsons.” + +Lois, who was unfortunate, blushed; both ladies looked hard at her. +“To begin with,” declared Lady Naylor, “these young men are not at all +marriageable. Besides, to tell you the truth ...” + +“But I don’t see what else the girls are to do. I mean, look at the +Hartigans.” + +“There’s a future for girls nowadays outside marriage,” said Lady +Naylor inspiringly. “Careers--how _I_ should have loved one. One reads +so much about ...” She was an advanced woman: Mrs. Trent, who did not +read, paused in respect but preserved an honest, bright-pink expression +of incredulity. She pictured those indoor women with clutched little +bags getting hurriedly into the Dublin trams. It was no life. Her +friend seemed, moreover, unwisely persistent in encouraging art for +Lois: this, for young girls, often resulted in worse than spinsterhood. +“All the same,” she said, returning, “Livvy seems set on the young man. +And she has a great deal of character.” + +“Well, if I were her aunt and her father, I’d never hear of it.” + +“Dear me,” cried Mrs. Trent, kicking the table cheerfully, “we’ve made +Lois blush at the very idea.” + +“Lois knows better,” said Lady Naylor. And she gave Lois one of her +rarest, most charming, direct and personal glances. + +And indeed what a friend, thought Lois, going out to the steps to +escape them all, if one had only just met, might Aunt Myra be. + + + + + XXI + + +A CLOUD slid over the sun; the stream went opaque as tortoise-shell. +Then, startling Hugo, the water suddenly flushed with light as the +cloud moved east. Minnows, disturbed like thoughts, darted shadowy over +the clear yellow stare of the stones. He dipped his stick in the water, +then, drawing it out, thoughtfully looked at the shining end. At this +point: eighteen inches; the stream, divided in two deep channels by the +island of turf where he stood, went hurrying to the Darra. In its fold +of the Darra valley, the high white mill would remain sardonic. He was +swept by an irresistible anger back to that affair of the pistol. For +Marda had written: her hand had healed; no one had asked any questions +or wondered, she said. + +She had written to Lois, sending Hugo this message. It had pleased both +the girls to underline his exclusion. She wrote also, Leslie had given +her a dog--a correct dog, Lois expected, like all that was best in +English country house life. Marda could not think what to do with the +dog till she married; she would have to leave it in Kent.... And what +else did Marda say, Francie had wanted to know. But Lois, who seemed +to have swallowed the letter, postmark and all, could not remember. +Later, she did seek out Hugo and offer to show him.... But he had put +up surprise. “Oh? Was there any particular--?” No, he did not think +on the whole he would trouble her.... Would the child see, he wondered, +that the little oblique snub was not intended to stop at _her_, but +to go past? His look now fell empty, reflective, on the tawny glass +sliding water. + +The child, having seen, went upstairs to describe his behaviour to +Marda. Her unreticence was immoderate, though she was sensitive for +him. She wrote scrupulously, with an affect of hardness. + +“He is terrible, and, as the end of everything, they are to build a +bungalow. _She_ has it all her own way now; I don’t know if he still +even brushes her hair. Since you went, it has been the same time all +day: three o’clock, after a long lunch. We all talk about my future (by +common consent I am about nine now, very distracting and sunny; they +like to have me about). It is to be a school of art, certainly.--Why +did you never tell them I couldn’t draw?--But we can’t decide where. +London, in view of my age, is supposed to be too large. In Dublin, +a man who came to tea yesterday said there might be high explosives +inside all the casts with capacious figures. In Cork I might pick up +an accent, and Paris they will not hear of--my wretched virtue. But as +a matter of fact, I have no future, in their sense. I have promised to +marry Gerald.” + +Here she paused, for from now on it was all obscure ahead of her. +Reading back, she was surprised at the woman she was. She took this +merciless penetration for maturity’s. But when she looked for Gerald +there seemed too much of him. He was a wood in which she counted from +tree to tree--all hers--and knew the boundary wall right round. But how +to measure this unaccountable darkness between the trees, this living +silence? So she turned back to Mr. Montmorency, adding a paragraph. He +had, this morning, snubbed her. + +She would have been surprised to have seen him, at this same moment, +step across to the island and stand there rootedly. And he, his +whereabouts even so much as guessed at, would have been quite at +her mercy. For to have followed the stream to this loneliest reach, +beyond the plantation wall, where the meadow’s hedge trailed unknown +blackberries over the water, was not to have walked, to have strolled +even, but to have betrayed oneself in an emotional kind of straying. +Further down, stepping-stones had been displaced by last winter’s +flood, there was a ruined cottage; nobody came here. Even Lois had +given up, since her eighteenth birthday, coming to lie on her stomach +along the bank, weep out a bottomless despair at nothing and look at +herself in the stream. And this wildness within the demesne boundaries, +within sound of the farmyard bell, had a particular desolation. + +Hugo was pleased with the place; here he seemed to have stepped +through into some kind of nonexistence. And here, divorced equally +from fact and from probability, he set up a stage for himself: the +hall’s half-light. Marda’s hand is on the wide scrolled curve of +the baluster rail: he touches her still and electric hand with the +deliberation of certainty, all the senses running into his touch. She +stares recognition fixedly, darkly back.... For though in actuality +she had had only one mood for him--cool and equivocal--he, now frantic +with this power disconnected from life, could command her whole range +imaginatively: her very features became his actors. And if this were +not love ... + +He was pleased with the place. They must all, he expected, be looking +for him: it produced the faintest vibration behind the solitude. This +morning, Myra was driving into Clonmore to lunch with the Boatleys; +she had asked him to come, he had said he would see. He had intended +by this “Good God, no,” and if she were fool enough to interpret it +otherwise there was a rightness about her delay in starting. Francie +would certainly go; she was painfully fascinated by military society. +She would now be standing out on the steps, grey net veil strained +elegantly over the tip of her nose, looking at her gloves in despair, +persisting: “He must be _somewhere!_” + +“How many of us do they really expect?” said Francie at last, getting +into the car disconsolate. + +Lady Naylor had not the slightest idea. “But they are accustomed to +Ireland. She was a Vere Scott. And they know that I usually fill the +car.” + +“You’re not taking Lois?” + +“Lois goes into Clonmore quite enough,” replied Lady Naylor. + +For Lady Naylor had further reasons for going into Clonmore. She had +an assignation with Gerald at half-past three, in Mrs. Fogarty’s +drawing-room. Fridays were Club days, Mrs. Fogarty would be “up at the +tennis,” and her drawing-room, disembarrassed for once of her large +personality, remained at the disposition of friends. Lady Naylor, +though she deplored Mrs. Fogarty’s taste in beads, her husband, her +stays--which stuck out half-way up her back in a frill--and her too +overflowing maternity, had fallen into the general habit of using +her house as a kind of Ladies’ Club, dropping in there at all times +to leave parcels, wash her hands or meet friends. And she had the +impression, always, that the maid who admitted her ran upstairs at +once to put Mr. Fogarty under lock and key. Still, one knew that one’s +coming gave pleasure and gratification: she would enter the little +drawing-room, even when empty, with her queenliness at its full. + +Gerald, questioning but elated, turned up a little before time, much +braced in and polished about the belt. He had never been given an +assignation so directly. For she had said (this now divinely probable +aunt of his): “I may be at the Fogartys, resting, about half-past +three. If you should be passing--though of course you may not be and +I do not want to keep you away from the tennis--you might look in and +have a chat. For it has been too bad to-day, I have hardly seen you. I +have missed our usual talk. There is still so much ... But I dare say +you won’t be passing.” Her look, a special point to its wide-pupilled +eagerness, transposed this to the imperative. The vigorous arch of +her eyebrows insisted strongly. He, feeling himself ordered like +a taxi--better still, like a nephew--had flushed with pleasure. +_Rath_-er; he’d make a point--(would she then call him Gerald?). “Of +course, I may not be there; we may not even come in; it is all quite +uncertain,” said Lady Naylor. + +Riding home, the intoxication of Gerald had mounted. He guessed that +she never rested, rarely leaned back in a chair, never pushed up her +hat with a sigh or stretched tender feet out, unbuttoning shoes. She +would remain imperious, even in Oxford Street. So she was contriving +for him; a special tribute. + +Lady Naylor, coming in to the Fogartys’ soon after four, was annoyed +to find Gerald before her. She had now, instead of being discovered, +to manœuvre more or less openly for position. Disregarding the chair +Gerald trundled up with its load of cushions, she placed herself +(unaccountably, it would have to appear) on the narrow window-seat. +Thus, she conceded no more to the room than an imposing silhouette +of hat and boa, while Gerald, glancing round pessimistically at +the chairs, remaining with elbow planted among photo-frames on the +mantelpiece, was exposed to her full in the strained green light coming +over the bushes. + +“Such a day,” she sighed briskly. “We have lunched with the Boatleys. +What a delightful Colonel he must be! _She_, you know, is Irish; a Vere +Scott. We must seem ridiculous to you, over here, the way we are all +related.” + +“Topping, I think,” said Gerald. + +“Oh, I don’t know! Now you lucky people seem to have no relations at +all; that must feel so independent.” + +“I have dozens.” + +“Indeed? All in Surrey?” + +“Scattered about.” + +“That sounds to _me_, of course,” remarked Lady Naylor, pulling her +gloves off brightly, “exceedingly restless. But you all _came_ from +Surrey, didn’t you?” + +“More or less,” said Gerald, who was not sure. The Boatleys had +not been sure where he came from, either; her day so far had been +unsatisfactory. + +“Now I do hope I’m not keeping you from smoking?” + +She was. He smiled and lighted a cigarette. “You don’t ...?” + +“Oh dear me, no, I am quite old-fashioned. Now tell me--you know how +I hate all this gossip in a garrison neighbourhood, but there is +something I must set right. What is this nonsense I hear about Livvy +Thompson? You know she’s a friend of my niece’s and comes a good deal +to our house, and I do feel I ought to refute these stories about her.” + +“Oh?” said Gerald, alarmed. “I had no idea.” + +“Hadn’t you,” said Lady Naylor. “Well, you are a friend of the young +man Mr. Armstrong’s, so I felt I’d come straight to you. It appears +they were seen in Cork having tea rather intimately and in consequence +there are all sorts of rumours. Now it doesn’t seem fair to a young +girl, at the beginning of life, having her name coupled.” + +“I should have thought,” said Gerald rather stiffly, “anyone could see +Miss Thompson was entirely straight. And as for Armstrong-- They are +engaged, as a matter of fact.” + +“Oh, nonsense,” said Lady Naylor pleasantly. + +“Oh yes,” he nodded, then with his rather engaging childishness looked +at her under his lashes. “But they don’t want--” + +“To begin with, the Thompsons would never hear of it. And they would be +quite right. Of course, poor Livvy is motherless--” + +“But many people are,” said Gerald, faintly aggressive. “Lois is.” + +“Oh, naturally we should never consider a marriage like that for Lois. +The point would not even arise. But even for Livvy-- And then think +of the young man’s career: these early marriages ruin careers, and +engagements are nearly as bad. I know Colonel Boatley feels-- No, +what you should do, I think, is: have a straight sensible talk with +your friend Mr. Armstrong. I know how much you young men will take from +each other. I think as a friend you should say to him--” + +“But look here--” began Gerald, and paused. “Look here, Lady +Naylor--” He stopped dead and looked round the room, which was +darker since she had come in: the afternoon was clouding over. He was +disengaging himself with some anguish of illusions which he had brought +here and which during the first minute or so of their talk had been +fortified. When they came to Surrey, he had thought she was hoping to +meet his mother. Crossing his legs, he rubbed the side of one shoe on +the other with a slight creak at which she, betraying her tensity, +started. Standing with lowered eyes, with an air of heaviness and +confusion, he noted this movement, a tremor of light round the edge of +her boa. With unusual calmness and virility he said: + +“As a matter of fact, I love Lois.” + +“Oh yes. But I’m afraid, you know, that she doesn’t love you,” said the +aunt equably. + +He overruled this without comment, simply by maintaining his attitude. +For all his physical lightness and vigour, there was a quality in him +she would describe as stodginess. “Then I gather she’s told you we--” + +“Oh, she’s naturally pleased that you like her. And at her age, with +her temperament, of course it is nice to love anyone.” + +“But you’ve just said she doesn’t--” + +“Not as I understand love.” + +“But so long,” said Gerald, with the particular urbanity of an approach +to rudeness, “so long as she and I both mean the same thing.” + +“But you don’t,” said his friend in her kind, social voice. “That is +what I am trying to make you see. With her temperament--” + +“_I_ haven’t noticed her temperament,” said Gerald loyally, as if a +temperament were a hump. + +“Now that alone,” exclaimed Lady Naylor, waving her gloves in a rapid +gesticulation, “would make a marriage quite fatal.... Mr. Lesworth, I +don’t want to have to imagine you miserable. I have no sons of my own, +you know, and Laurence being so intellectual-- And there is another +thing ...” She paused, and with unusual nervousness, with a movement +almost of Francie’s, touched her boa, her jabot, two carnations pinned +in the lace. She had now to tilt straight at indecency. There was this +question of money--a subject the English made free with, as free with +as what was below their diaphragms, but from which her whole modesty +shrank. “You may think me dreadful,” she said, “but there are things +in life one must face. After all, I am Lois’s aunt....” + +Gerald, blushing, stood agonized to attention. + +“There is money,” she brought out at last. “I mean, you haven’t any, +have you? Of course, I don’t see why you should have. But two people +must live, though it’s all rather sordid. However, this need not arise. +But I just want to show you--” + +“I know she’s got a beautiful home,” he said glumly. + +“However ... You see, it’s impossible every way. But first and last, +she does not love you.” + +He was forced into the position which he would have described to a +friend as bloody, of asserting she _did_. “Though I cannot think why.” + +“Oh, but so many girls would!” she cried earnestly. “But for Lois I +do think--we all think--a school of art. She cares for her drawing +intensely.” + +“She never speaks of it.” + +“Ah, that just shows ... Lack of sympathy!” said the aunt with mournful +complacency. “And it isn’t simply your age; it would be the same thing +if you were a captain or even a major. Now I do think you ought to be +sensible. It can all pass off so quietly. Nobody knows except me. Now +what I suggest--” + +“--She might have told me she’d told you!” He stared round the changed +room bitterly. + +“That was just what I didn’t encourage, to tell you the truth. Oh, the +child was most honest. But I thought you and I should approach this +quite fresh and unprejudiced.” + +“Did we have to?” + +“Oh, Mr. Lesworth!” she cried, disconcerted. She resumed, firmly but +with inspiration, something between a hospital nurse and a prophetess: +“The less talk, the less indirect discussion round and about things, +the better, I always think.” + +While she considered her gloves and with gathering satisfaction +prepared to put one of them on, he stood half-turned away from her, +stubborn but indecisive. An unusual pendulum swung in him, he was +ruined--resolute--ruined. He was dark with perplexed anger, from which +his invincible “niceness” stood, in deprecation, aside. She blasphemed, +and yet he had to admire her four-square propriety, her sound sense, +the price she set on his Lois. And love, meanwhile, did not so much +lie bleeding as sit back stunned, bruised, a little craven from shock. +Gerald drew in his chin, swallowed, put a finger inside his collar as +though to loosen it. + +“Then I understand you don’t like this: you’re going to stop it?” + +“--Now, my dear Mr. Lesworth, do think: would I ever ‘stop’ anything?” + +“--You’re going to stop it because I’m too young and too poor and not +‘county’ enough--or whatever I ought to be?” + +“You have entirely misunderstood me,” cried Lady Naylor, hurt. + +“You don’t have to tell me I’m not good enough: that’s what I’ve +battered my head against ever since--” + +“We all think you’re charming--the Montmorencys, every one! You know +we’re delighted to see you--” + +“Oh, I’m all right for tennis,” said Gerald without rancour. + +“There is no one I’d rather--as far as that goes--” began Lady Naylor +warmly. + +“You feel it’s up to you to stop it,” he summed up. “And I can see +that from your point of view you’re quite right. But there are some +things you can’t stop. God knows, I’ve got little enough for Lois, and +she ought to have everything, straight off, now. But I swear I’ll see +that she gets it. I’ll give up the Army, anything. I _know_ I’m going +to work things out. If it were only what _I_ want-- But she loves +me--I dare say she’s pretty mad--but she does love me; I’ve looked at +her eyes, I know. If she hadn’t seemed--if I hadn’t felt--if it hadn’t +been just the only thing for us both, I’d never have said a word--I +swear--I’d have died sooner.” + +“But she agrees with every one,” said Lady Naylor, taking off the glove +again in despair. “She is extremely keen to go to this school of art.” + +“Where?” he said violently. + +“Some good school.” + +“Do you expect me not to trust her?” + +“I should have a straightforward, sensible talk.” + +“You’re not going to stop me seeing her?” + +“I don’t know what sort of girls’ mothers and aunts you’re accustomed +to,” she said, nettled, “but how could you expect me to do such a +preposterous thing? It would be not only unkind but exceedingly +foolish. To begin with, she is not my own niece at all. It would be +for her uncle to decide. But Sir Richard is very easily worried: I +particularly do not wish-- You know we are always delighted to see +you at any time ...” + +She paused. “It’s most awfully kind of you,” said he, by reflex action. + +“In these days of frank unsentimental friendship between young people, +I do not see why you two should not have a perfectly friendly, sensible +talk. Of course there must be _no_ ... I mean, I know I can trust you +... I mean, you do quite understand you are not engaged, and not being +engaged there can be no question of--?” + +“I promise I won’t kiss her.” + +Lady Naylor was much embarrassed. She laughed impersonally and arranged +her boa. She expressed some envy of this generation, its frank +friendships. + +“I don’t think I am very modern,” said Gerald flatly. + +“Now Laurence is too modern: he does not seem to care about girls at +all.... For the present, I’d leave love out of the question--” + +“But I thought that _was_ the question!” + +A shadow went past the window. “Here comes Mrs. Montmorency,” said +Gerald. And he touched his moustache and blinked and looked round, +wondering which chair to offer. + +“That is too bad! I sent her up to the Rectory.” + +“Perhaps they were out.” + +“I told her to wait; there would be plenty to read in the +drawing-room-- Well, you do understand, don’t you?” + +“I’m afraid I--” + +Francie was shown in. “Oh!” she cried, “what a lot of cushions! +Kittens! Fancy sitting on them, I should feel like a cannibal. No, I +don’t mean-- Mr. Lesworth! Isn’t this nice! Are those photographs +of your regiment? I had no idea there were so many officers.... Myra, +I remembered a little something I had to get at the chemist’s, so I +thought I’d call in here and save you that climb up the hill. They were +all out.” + +“Well, that was very sweet of you, Francie,” said Lady Naylor. + +“Oh, how patriotic!” cried Francie, knocking two cushions covered +with Union Jacks off the sofa. “She’s a Catholic, isn’t she? Oh, Mr. +Lesworth, don’t bother; I’m so clumsy.... I had no idea we were going +to meet you. Isn’t it a pity now that we didn’t bring Lois? Myra, isn’t +it too bad Lois didn’t come too.” + +“Yes, it does seem a pity,” said Lady Naylor. Still faintly regretful +she got up, looked at herself in a mirror, arranged her boa and pulled +down the brim of her hat. Then she shook hands with Gerald warmly, +saying how much she had enjoyed their talk. + + + + + XXII + + +“I SHALL never forget,” continued Francie, through the open +dressing-room door, “the way he picked up those cushions.” + +“Which?” said Hugo, searching irritably among his collars. The feudal +system was weak at some points, he reflected--this Danielstown laundry. +The laundress’s father had helped to defend the house in the troubled +’sixties. Nostalgic, he thought of these neat democratic blue vans +labelled “hygienic” that called on Mondays. “Well really,” said he, “I +may just as well go to bed. I haven’t a collar left fit to dine in.... +Which cushions?” + +“Oh, horrors. But then they say the Fogartys are so kind.--Never mind, +Hugo; Richard’s and Laurence’s collars are just the same.--You know how +alive he is generally: well, that was all gone. It was like seeing a +waterfall stand still. You know, Hugo, it may be horrid, but I don’t +trust Myra sometimes. She says things aren’t, and then she turns and +makes these curious little dabs at them. She dislikes the Clonmore +rectory people, she says they are breath-y, she knows I don’t know them +and yet she insisted on my going up. And when I came down again she was +charming; I knew I must have annoyed her.” + +“My dear Francie, life is too short for all this.” (Though that was +not the matter with life, really: life was too long.) Hugo frowned, +chin up in front of his glass. “It’s a good thing the evenings are +drawing in,” he said, with reference to his collar. + +“Now what I should have said ...” resumed Francie, “though ideally, +really, I shouldn’t have said anything....” + +“Talking of evenings,” said Hugo, “where do we go next? We’ve got to +fit in the Fitzgeralds before October. Oughtn’t you to be writing to +somebody? And oh, Francie, you might post some of these collars to the +Terenure laundry, if you can get the parcel out of the house quietly.” + +“I shall miss here,” sighed Francie, looking out at the trees. + +“You miss everywhere.” They both thought of the bungalow which, an +eternal present for them, would be never able to shine in retrospect. +Throughout dinner, Francie was distraite. She was making out in her +mind a little letter to Gerald. But, of course, that would never do. + +“Hullo!” said Laurence, earlier, looking at the letters put out for +next morning’s post on the hall table. “Lois has written to Marda. I +thought no one knew her address.” + +“She heard from Marda this morning,” explained his uncle, bending to +study the envelope with melancholy interest. “I understand that it was +about a dog. I shall be relieved when Marda is married. I wonder will +the young man be able to look after luggage.” + +“I ran into Mr. Lesworth this afternoon,” Lady Naylor told Lois. “He +came into the Fogartys’ while I was resting there. Really, she keeps +quite a home for those young men--though nothing would ever take the +gloss off those cushions. He seemed very cheerful, he was on his way up +to the tennis.” + +“He never goes to the tennis on Club days.” + +“Oh, well, he seemed to be on his way up to the tennis. He told me of +that young Armstrong’s engagement to Livvy Thompson. It seems quite a +_fait accompli_, though secret, of course. How things do get round in a +garrison town! You knew, I suppose?” + +“Well, Livvy did tell me.” + +“What a bother for you!” said Lady Naylor. “It is a comfort to have +outgrown one’s friends’ engagements. I suppose _you_ couldn’t very well +tell her it was preposterous?” + +“Well, I ...” + +“Mr. Lesworth thought it a pity, in view of the young man’s future. He +expects Mr. Armstrong will not stand well over this with their Colonel +at all. I think he can’t understand his friends not being keener on his +career. I suppose it will end by their just going out to one of those +coffee or orange places in Africa. But, of course, Livvy is used to a +dull life.” + +“But I don’t see ...” + +“And there isn’t much else for her. I can’t see poor Livvy at a school +of art, though she might typewrite.” + +“She would do for a model,” said Laurence, who had been listening with +interest to this conversation from his side of the table. “They should +be either voluminous or very spiky.” + +At this point, the candles were brought in--Lady Naylor had been +delayed in Clonmore, they were dining late. The sharp flames shivered, +every one blinked; the dahlias became theatrical. + +“Autumn,” pronounced Sir Richard. “There should be less of this +ambushing and skirmishing and hey-fidaddling now that the days are +drawing in.” + +“But as an English friend of mine pointed out,” said Hugo, “this Irish +fighting is not cricket.” + +Laurence maintained that this way of fighting was consistent, efficient +and very natural. Why, he asked, be high-toned about a war? + +“Oh dear,” said Francie, “you sound just like a pacifist!” + +“What else did Gerald say?” Lois wanted to know. + +“I really cannot remember,” said Lady Naylor; “he was as pleasant as +ever, but, of course, not original. He seemed in a hurry to be getting +up to the tennis.” + +Lois, dissatisfied, blinked gloomily in the candlelight. + +About half-past ten, Francie--having been taken up to her room by +Myra, with a suggestion of having been put away for the night--crept +out again to the ante-room, listening. Her candlestick, wobbling with +indecision, brushed the ceiling with shadows. Wires twanged where some +cattle rubbed on a fence in the damp darkness. Francie went across and +tapped on Lois’s door. + +Lois turned in alarm from the dark window where she stood holding her +elbows, not quite thinking. Her heart thumped as the crack of the door +widened, letting in foreign light. “Damn,” she thought with annoyance. +She had been up here for more than an hour and had not begun to +undress. To look more natural she undid her frock and stepped quickly +out of it. + +Mrs. Montmorency, yellow under the chin, appeared deprecatingly. +She had just thought, she said, of a little chat. She looked round +hopelessly, she could not think where to put down her candle. This +decided--a little table presented itself--her difficulties seemed to be +over. She said at once: “The young man, Lois, seems so unhappy.” + +“But we’re engaged,” said Lois, tying her dressing-gown firmly round +her hips. + +“Oh ... Are you certain? Because ...” + +“What did he say?” said Lois, at once defensive. + +“My dear, I was up at the rectory. I am sure your aunt meant everything +for the best.” + +Lois went to the glass and took down her hair distractedly. Shaking it +over her face she said, muffled: “You mean she has interfered?” + +“Well, I wouldn’t say she’d done _that_. But it seems a pity ...” + +“Really,” cried Lois, glad of the hair because her anger did sound to +herself faintly academic, “she is as designing as ... a cardinal.” + +“As I said to Hugo, you have enough sense, you are so modern ... and +after all you will only be young once.” + +“Oh. Were you all there?” + +“My dear, I tell you, I was up at the rectory. But from the way he +picked up the cushions ... I can’t bear lives to go wrong.” + +This came out so vehemently, with such an effect of passion that Lois, +surprised, said: “Neither can I, really.” And looking round, she +found the shadows exaggerated with solemnity; the thin candle-flames +stretched up anxiously: a predicament must have become noticeable, even +to the room. Impressed by strangeness, by this pressure of emergency, +Lois plaited her hair in two plaits instead of one and felt herself a +different woman. + +“What they never see,” she said rapidly, “is, that I must do something.” + +“I should write at once,” said Francie, “I’m not sure that I shouldn’t +even telegraph, if it were not for the post-mistress. I should say ... +Well, I don’t know really: I do wish Marda were here!” + +“If I learn German they say, why not Italian? And when I learn Italian +they take no interest.” + +Francie picked up the evening dress that Lois had just stepped out +of, stared, and remarked to it, almost with incredulity: “Love is +everything!” + +“At least Gerald is definite. He, I ...” + +“I _know_ love is so important.” + +“At least it may get one somewhere.” + +Francie, raising her voice to a scared note, as though she must make +quite certain what they were really talking about, cried: “There are +such mistakes!” + +“I wouldn’t mind being properly tragic....” + +“If one’s not quite certain, one never knows where one is.” + +“--It’s just that I feel so humiliated the whole time.” + +“But the young man ...” persisted Francie. They looked at each other, +or at where the other had been. Francie, deserted at once by the +conspiratorial courage that brought her in, dolefully put a finger over +her lips, as though betrayed irrevocably by what had come out of them. +She visibly shrank with misgiving. + +“You seem very intellectual, Lois. Do--do you not love him?” + +“I _must_,” said Lois. She put her hands up to the back of her neck, +fumbling open the clasp of her corals. She could feel the bright girl +she had been for Mrs. Montmorency disintegrate: much that even she had +taken to be herself went with the illusion. + +“I just thought I might have helped,” said Francie, in a spent, remote +little voice, as though they were both coming back from a funeral to an +imposingly vacant house. + +“Oh, you have indeed,” said Lois. And she stood there vacantly and, she +felt, rather gruesomely smiling, weighing her coral beads up and down +in a hand, trying to remember what they had both said, what they had +meant, what it had been about. + +Francie took up her heavy candlestick and looked about for the door. +She sighed and said it had been a tiring day. She could not bear to +feel she was not missed out after all, had not been passed by because +there was nothing to pass her. It was late at night for so fundamental +a disappointment. There seemed some difficulty about getting her back +to her room, though they both desired this. Lois opened the door; they +heard Sir Richard and Hugo arguing up the stairs. Francie shielded her +candle-flame with her hand and wavered out round the door like a shadow. + +Lois, hot with retrospective embarrassment, slipped from her clothes +and blew out the candles quickly. The dark was gratefully positive. She +lay on her side with knees drawn up to her chin, blankness snowing down +on her till, quite snowed up in blankness, she was asleep. + +Next day, mist lay on the fields like a blanket, muffling sound so +that the postman arrived unexpectedly. He brought a letter from Gerald: +“For God’s sake see me.” She meant to go out to meet Gerald, bright and +matter of fact, but this miscarried: when he came, in the evening, she +was half-way down from the garden, fighting with Laurence over a snail. +He had walked on the snail on purpose. + +“Ough--you fool ... you beast, Laurence!” + +“Well, I didn’t mean to be kind to it.” + +“Just because it had no mentality.” + +“Not at all.” + +“Ough, it’s all over the path.” + +“It’s scrunched ... I dare say,” said Laurence, pleased, “I am +pathological.” + +“Great fat feet!” + +As a matter of fact, he was sorry about the snail; he had thought it +was just a shell, but he wasn’t going to say so. “Little mother,” he +said unpleasantly. + +“Laurence, you’re insane. Ough, you’re wiping it off everywhere. I +shall be sick!” + +“Do.” + +“Well, I won’t then.” + +“I had no idea you were so fond of animals,” he said as offensively +as possible. But he was not feeling up to much this evening and could +not think what else to say to her. He turned and walked briskly away +towards the avenue, conscious of having no objective. An unusual +evening, however, awaited him. In a boreen in the Castle Trent +direction he met three armed men coming out of a gate. They made him +put up his hands and march smartly down the boreen ahead of them. +He discovered that under these conditions the mind works fast but +unfruitfully; he noted details sharply and then forgot. When they came +to the wall of the graveyard he was embarrassed, but they only asked +for his shoes and the loan of his wrist-watch. Placing him with his +face close up to the wall they advised him for life’s sake not to look +round or stir for twenty minutes. “How shall I know?” said Laurence, +“you’ve got my watch.” But they did not care and went away with his +shoes. Laurence remained with his forehead against the stone for fifty +minutes, horse-flies biting him through the socks. Then he limped home +to dinner and an audience, considerably cheered. Three days after, the +watch was posted back to his Uncle Richard: it was in excellent order +and ticked as it was taken out of the package. “Which just shows,” said +Sir Richard, holding the watch to his ear with satisfaction. But that +was a day of confusion; nobody listened. + +As Lois ran down from the garden, swollen about the personality with +annoyance, she saw Gerald waiting at a turn of the path by a holly +tree. He looked intently at her advancing, without comprehension, as +though she had been a picture. Though they were alone, he did not put +out a hand or move towards her. He stood there with the vigour, grief +and indifference of a tree that cannot help growing. + +“Gerald?” + +“What’s the matter?” he said, impassive. + +“Oh, Laurence walked on a _snail!_” + +“Bad luck!” + +“My dear, he liked it.” + +“Queer,” said Gerald, finding the word with difficulty. + +“Where shall we go?” she asked, while something in her stopped like +a clock with foreboding. The encounter, uncoloured by surprise or +passion, left her quite at a loss. Unkissed, her mouth and cheeks felt +a touch of ice. + +“It seems now,” said Gerald, impersonally, as though delivering a +message, “that we can’t ever be married.” + +“Why? When?” she cried angrily. + +Gerald looked at her under level eyelids. She remembered saying: “I +wish you wouldn’t keep looking so pleased the whole time.” Now his look +and silence were cold with a doomed expectancy: she nearly hated him. +Dumbly, in happy-seeming physical agreement like a pair of animals, +they wheeled off down the path together, crossed the yard rapidly and +came into the plantation ribbed with shadow and lanced across with +light about the eye-level. He told her her aunt agreed he was not good +enough, it would never do at all, her aunt had said. Looking angrily +up the tree-trunks, she exclaimed that her aunt was mad. She repeated +this with vehemence and confusion, pulling at her fingers. He listened +to her in silence, wounded, wounded. She wished they had not come +down--overruling possibly in each other some desire for space--to +the plantation where, constricted by firs, thought and movement were +difficult and upright shadows emphasized his severity. “She advised +me,” Gerald concluded, “to have a frank talk with you.” + +“Is this the frank talk now?” + +“She was certain you didn’t love me.” + +“_Gerald_--why weren’t you furious?” + +“I ... I don’t know,” he said, surprised by the question. She saw him +standing confused, like a foreigner with whom by some failure in her +vocabulary all communication was interrupted. Her mind halted and she +wanted to run away. “Gerald, come back. I’m wretched. Why do we have to +talk?” + +“I thought you liked that....” Outside himself with passion he cried: +“I’d rather be dead than not understand!” + +“But don’t you _know_ I ...? Gerald?” + +If he did not know, it would be quite over. She watched with agony what +seemed to be his indifference. They were each waiting for the other. +_He_ watched her hand, on a tree-trunk, pick like a bird at the scaly +bark. Her hand, which immediately centred her consciousness of him, +paused and became quite rigid, fingers spread out. When he saw her hand +so quiet, he would have to be certain. And he immediately said with his +usual little resigned inflection: “You see, you are everything.” + +“I know,” she said, impersonal. + +“I suppose you are what I mean by life.... Do you understand at all?” + +“You sometimes make me.” She wanted to add: “Touch me now:” it was the +only way across. In her impotence, her desolation--among the severe +trees--at not being compelled, she made a beseeching movement which +he--remote in a rather sublime perplexity that transcended pain--either +ignored or rejected. From the stables, the six o’clock bell sent out +relief in a jerky, metallic passage of sound through the plantation. +She wanted something to look at, to follow: a train curving past in a +rush. With an exaggerated movement, she put up her hands to her ears. +Gerald’s face, in a band of light, remained impassible. + +“Gerald, you’re making us lose each other!” she shouted above the bell. + +“But I mean to say: what would _you_ lose?” + +“Everything.” + +“Do you _mean_ that?” A light ran almost visibly up inside him. She saw +now where they were and why he had come. + +She thought of going, hesitating with delight, to the edge of an +unknown high-up terrace, of Marda, of getting into a train. “No,” she +cried, terrified, “why should I?” + +“Then we don’t mean the same thing.” + +“Why don’t you make me ... like you?” + +“I thought I could. I know I can--when I’m not with you.” + +“Damn, damn,” said Lois. “I do want you!” Gerald said piteously: “Then +why can’t it all be simple?” + +“But it’s our being so young,” she said, too eagerly, “and then, money. +I mean, we have got to be practical.” + +He explained to her, wide-eyed: “It isn’t anything practical that makes +all this--like death. What _she_ said was; that if you loved me ...” + +“It’s like a nightmare that even you should begin to talk. I thought +you were a rock: I was safe with you. Gerald, really, this is all like +a net; little twists of conversation knotted together. One can’t move, +one doesn’t know where one is. I really can’t live at all if it has +all got to be arranged. I tell you, even what I think isn’t my own, +and Mrs. Montmorency comes bursting into my room at nights. Even +Marda--nothing we said to each other mattered, it hasn’t stayed, she +goes off to get married in a mechanical sort of way. She thinks herself +so damned funny--it’s cheap, really. All that matters is what _you_ +believe--Gerald, you’ll kill me, just standing there. You don’t know +what it’s like for a snail, being walked on....” + +“I don’t understand you,” he cried in agony. “Who is a snail?” + +“I didn’t ask you to understand me: I was so happy, I was so safe.” + +Gerald noticed a change somewhere; the light was gone from his face, +moving down the trees it had disappeared. He looked at his wrist-watch. +They had been a short time together, almost twenty minutes. “When were +you happy?” he said accurately. He would have liked to be sure of this, +and of several other matters: she was not collected enough to explain. +He eyed the incredible wood, the path, her unchanged figure in the +cheerful blue woollen dress. Something struggled free in his brain and +said, quite apart from his numbed self: “My darling, don’t, don’t rack +yourself. You know this will be always the same for me. Whatever’s +impossible, you will always be perfect. I know we’re different about +things: if that didn’t hurt you it would never matter to me. I mean, +don’t let’s be disappointed. You know I’m not giving you up, I could +never have done _that_. But it’s just that, you see, you never ... I +suppose things can’t come out what one wants.... I suppose it would +hardly do....” + +“But, Gerald, where are we?” + +He said, “Don’t worry.” They were both, he knew, entirely lost. + +“But what have I _done?_ What have I _not_ done?” After a minute, +during which she heard him finger his belt--his fingers slipped on the +leather--she shut her eyes and said, “So you’re certain I don’t love +you?” + +No answer. “Oh, leave that belt alone, Gerald!” + +Still no answer, as though he were asleep. And indeed he felt, as at +the approach of sleep, an immense indifference. She, tortured by the +loneliness of insomnia, had to cry out: “Won’t you even just try--won’t +you just kiss me?” + +“I don’t think ...” + +“All right.” + +“Look, I must go now.” Vaguely, he saluted and began to go up the path, +towards the beech walk, towards the house. + +“Good-bye?” she said. + +He only half paused. “No, don’t let’s ...” “Where did you leave your +bicycle?” + +He was well up the path; he called back: “Against the hedge. You know, +under the tennis courts.” + +She knew; she remembered him pulling leaves from the privet hedge, +scattering them on the grass and throwing them over her. She remembered +that Mrs. Boatley was a Christian Scientist. It seemed a good thing +summer was practically over; there might not be more tennis parties. +But at this the incomprehensible glare of summer blinded her, bringing +tears to her eyes. “Gerald!” she called. + +But by this time he seemed to be out of ear-shot. + + + + + XXIII + + +ANOTHER thing Lady Naylor had noticed about the English was, a +disposition they had to be socially visible before midday. Soon after +ten, she had heard, Mrs. Vermont and her friends were to be seen about +the streets of Clonmore--from behind the still decently somnolent +blinds of inhabitants--with gloves buttoned tight at the wrists, +swinging coloured baskets. Before eleven, they would be seated behind +the confectioner’s window, deploring the coffee. Mrs. Rolfe had once +had Moriarty’s shutters taken down for her specially--and she wishful, +Moriarty said, to purchase the one pair of stockings only. A Mrs. +Peake, of the Gunners, demanded attention at the hairdresser’s before +ten. These unnatural practices were a strain in the town’s normality; +the streets had a haggard look, ready for anything. Really, as Lady +Naylor said, almost English. She thought of the south of England as a +kind of extension of Brighton, the north serrated by factory chimneys, +the middle a blank space occupied by Anna Partridge. Only Danielstown’s +being out of dropping- or popping-in distance from Clonmore +deprived her, as it transpired, of matutinal visits from Mrs. Vermont +and her friends. + +Mrs. Vermont, however, overcame difficulties, hired a Ford and had +herself driven over one morning about eleven o’clock. She brought +her great friend Mrs. Rolfe; they were on their way to lunch at the +Thompsons’. This she explained before they were out of the car; _she_ +knew what Mondays were, she did not want to alarm Lady Naylor--being +so much with Mother had made her considerate in these matters. Lady +Naylor, as a matter of fact, would have minded them less at lunch-time; +one didn’t notice people so much at meals, she discovered. When news of +the dropping in came down to the kitchen, she groaned: “My morning!” +Nothing could have been worse. + +Francie was lying down with “a head”; Hugo was talking over old times +with the coachman, who had been pensioned off and brooded all day in +the harness-room, much at a loss. Lois, indirectly responsible for the +outrage, was not to be found. She had not been herself at all, these +last few days. Her aunt, after Gerald’s departure, had made a point +of saying: “Well, I hope, of course, you have not made a mistake. But +we all have to settle these things for ourselves, you know.” Francie +never failed to inquire if she were getting on nicely with the Italian; +her uncle agreed it was high time she went to that school of art. This +morning she seemed to be nowhere; shouting did not produce her. + +Laurence, always unfortunate, was surprised on the steps with Locke. +“Oh God,” he said as the Ford came round the bend of the lower avenue. +He turned, too late, to escape; the girl wives were already shouting +and waving. + +Betty said: “Denise, this is Mr. -- (Oh dear, how awful!) This is +Mrs. Rolfe of the Gunners; my great friend, you know.” + +“Good,” said Laurence. Denise glanced up, apprehensive, at all the +windows. Laurence stood looking at them with resignation; he forgot to +open the door of the car though they brimmed out over it. + +“_May_ we get out?” asked Betty, tittering up at him in the friendliest +way from a perfect swirl of furs and red crêpe de Chine. On their +knees, two little pairs of hands curled like loose chrysanthemums over +their kid pochettes. He let them out and they ran up the steps shaking +out their dresses. “_Oh_, what a brainy book!” cried Betty, pouncing. +“--My dear, just look what he’s reading--oh, you have got a brain! I +mean, fancy reading ...” + +“You’re at college, aren’t you?” said Denise, fluttered. + +“Sometimes,” said Laurence accurately. Opening his mouth very wide he +shouted for Lois. They shrieked and covered their ears. “I expect,” he +said finally, “I had better go in and look for--” + +“Don’t go! I’m sure they will all come out.... I did want Denise to see +a lovely old Irish home.” + +“Yes, we are quaint, really,” said Laurence, considering. “And you +oughtn’t to miss the Trents; has she seen the Trents?” + +“Well, I hardly know the Trents. Here, we always feel that Gerald is +such a link.” + +“Missing or otherwise,” Denise added. + +“Exactly.” Betty smiled at him sidelong, but all the same, it did +seem a pity it should be Laurence that they had dropped in on with +unintended accuracy. _This_ was not at all what she had led Denise +to expect. Laurence’s not quite rudeness was, in fact, rather +international--she supposed, Oxford. She said: “I have a boy cousin +at Reading University. That’s quite near Oxford, isn’t it?” Denise, +plaintive, said that a wasp was bothering; she wanted to go indoors and +see the reputed ancestors. Betty flapped with her pochette and the end +of her fur. “She’s _terrified_ of wasps!” + +“So am I,” said Laurence, backing, “absolutely _terrified_. I think I’d +better go and--better get a--” He disappeared through the glass door, +shutting it. + +Denise said: “Well, I do think people are extraordinary.” They both sat +down and yawned. All these trees; it was quite extraordinary. “Is that +Lois’s cousin?” + +“More or less.” + +“Well, I always did think she was an odd girl.” + +“Ssh, there’s Sir Richard writing in the library--Denise, _just_ look +through, sideways. He’s such a type.” + +“O-oh ... yes. Is he a knight or a baronet?” + +“Well, I don’t see how he could have been knighted.” + +“My dear, ssssh!” + +“He’s deaf. Oh, darling, look at those little teeny black cows. Those +are Kerry cows. They farm, you know; they have heaps of cattle.” + +“I always meant to ask you: _are_ there Kilkenny cats?” + +“Really,” said Mrs. Vermont, annoyed, as her friend yawned again and +she felt her own jaw quiver, “when one thinks these are the people we +are defending! I wonder if they’ll offer us any coffee. What I think +about Irish hospitality: either they almost knock you down or they +don’t look at you. Or I tell you what, we might go out to the garden +and get some plums. Only I would like you to see the drawing-room. I +wish these were Livvy’s people; the boys say her house smells--I hope +you aren’t bored, darling?--I mean, what I mean about Livvy; she does +grow on you. I can’t think what Gerald sees in this family, I must say. +It isn’t even as if Lois--” + +“Of course, I always did think she was an odd girl.” + +At this point Sir Richard, who was not deaf, came out in despair. He +said this was too bad; he couldn’t think what could have become of +Lois. “We might shout,” he said helplessly. + +“Your nephew has been shouting.” + +“Still,” said Sir Richard, and shouted again. “How are you all getting +on?” he said kindly, when he had recovered his breath. + +Betty said with dignity: “There may be going to be an offensive.” + +“_Sssh_,” whispered Denise, pinching her elbow. + +“Though I ought not really to tell you.” + +“Never mind,” said Sir Richard, “I don’t suppose it will come to +anything. Besides, now the days are drawing in-- But this is too bad +really, most unfortunate that my wife should not be here to receive +you. She will be most distressed.” + +“Oh, but we just dropped in. As I said to Denise, what is the good of +being in Ireland if one isn’t a bit unconventional?” + +“She will be most distressed.” + +“Don’t bother! We’ve been admiring your darling cows.” + +“I’ll just go in and inquire,” said Sir Richard firmly and disappeared, +shutting the glass door. + +Denise said she would get the giggles: a seizure did seem to be +imminent. “Well, I must say, Gerald is well out of this family.” + +“But, my dear, _is_ he?” + +“Something’s happened. He’s _black_--even Timmy noticed. I said to +Timmy: ‘You _must_ find out’--’Cause I think, don’t you, that when men +get together ... You see, _I_ can’t--though I can’t bear to see the boy +suffer.” + +“But I thought you said you--” + +“Well, I’ve seen him in the distance and he didn’t look like himself at +all. But he hasn’t been near us, or to the Club, or into the Fogartys’. +And as I was saying to Mrs. Fogarty--” + +“It seems to me he’s been treated rottenly. If it were one of our boys, +my dear, I should be fur-rious.” + +“All the same, I do want to _see_ Lois....” + +“What he sees in her, I cannot imagine. She’s what I should call rather +affected--” + +“Sssh--Oh, hullo, Lois!” they cried in unison. + +Lois, unbecomingly bright, came up from the beech walk. + +“Oh, hullo,” she said, “splendid!” + +“We’ve just been talking about you.” + +“O-oh. _Can’t_ you stay to lunch?” + +“No can do; we’re off to the Thompsons. My dear, aren’t you thrilled +about Livvy and David! Isn’t it marvellous?” + +“Thrilled, it’s absolutely marvellous. _Do_ stay to lunch--I mean,” +she said agitatedly, “do come back to tea? Oh no, we shall all be +out. Oh, how rotten. Or come to tennis--no, I believe there won’t +be any more tennis; Laurence is going back to Oxford and the rain’s +washed all the marking off the court. Perhaps we could have a dance or +something--” + +The two young wives eyed her lightly and curiously; their looks ran +over her form like spiders. They were so womanly, she could have turned +and fled back down the beech walk. “Donne ch’avete intelletto d’amore,” +she thought to herself wildly. And the pause, the suspicion of some +deformity that these ladies produced in her became so acute that she +smiled more widely. She buttoned her cardigan up to the top, then +unbuttoned it. + +“Oh, but don’t go _now_,” she said, but looked at their Ford, longingly. + +“Oh, we must, we have been here hours, watching your darling cows.” + +“I’m afraid they’re very much in the distance. Does Aunt Myra--?” + +“Oh, we’d hate to disturb her. Unless we might all run round the +garden--?” + +“It’s locked and I’ve lost the key. I feel quite an outcast. That’s +what has been the matter the whole morning. Do have something to +eat--have some biscuits?” + +“Unless we just come into the drawing-room for one moment?” + +“I always think drawing-rooms in the morning are so depressing.” + +Denise said she did not see how the same room could be much different, +but it was no good; Lois seemed determined to keep them out. From the +way she shifted her feet and stared round, you would have said she was +expecting bad news momentarily: she talked so much that they hadn’t a +chance to express themselves. She went in for a tin of _petit beurres_ +and offered it with an odd air, rather propitiatory. Lady Naylor called +from an upstairs window that this was too bad, that she was so much +distressed, she would be down immediately. “She spends whole mornings +with the cook,” said Lois. “I cannot think what they do. I believe they +fence verbally. More biscuits?” + +“No, we shall spoil our din-dins. Denise, we _must_ come. I hear old +Mr. Thompson is a terrible ogre. Any messages in Clonmore, Lois? Any +messages to Gerald?” + +Lois thought she must blush, but did not; even her blood stood still. + +“_I_ should ask him,” said Denise, “why he didn’t send _you_ a message. +_I_ think it was odd of him; I should be fur-rious.” Lois saw, with +interest, a ripple of light down their dresses; they nudged each other. +There must be something odd about her, really, if they had noticed; she +must clearly be outside life. + +“How is the gramophone?” she said enthusiastically. + +“Don’t _ask!_ Gerald is going to Cork to bring back a new one. We +thought we might all go too, it would be a rag.” + +“Marvellous!” + +“Look, I’ll just run Denise in to have a look at the drawing-room.” + +“I shouldn’t, really. I haven’t done the flowers.” + +“Gerald says all your looking-glasses make him feel sleepy. He’s a +funny boy, in a way,” said Betty innocently. “You don’t think we ought +to wait till we’ve seen your aunt? She won’t be offended?” + +“I shouldn’t really; she’s probably been delayed.” Lady Naylor did, in +fact, arrive on the steps in time to utter exclamations of despair as +they drove away. “Too bad, _too_ bad!” she called, waving after them. +“You must come again soon!... Really, Lois, you might have found them +some fruit or something. Fancy puffing them out with biscuits at this +hour.” + +“I tell you what I think it is about Lois,” said Betty cosily, nestling +down in the car as the trees rushed over them. “I think he’s left her.” + +Denise agreed. “A boy needs keeping, if you know what I mean.” Betty +also told her what she thought about the Naylor family: they were going +down in the world. “I should not be surprised if they never used that +drawing-room,” she said viciously. “It smells of damp. Myself, I do +like a house to be bright and homey.” + + * * * * * + +The world did not stand still, though the household at Danielstown and +the Thompsons’ lunch party took no account of it. The shocking news +reached Clonmore that night, about eight o’clock. It crashed upon the +unknowingness of the town like a wave that for two hours, since the +event, had been rising and toppling, imminent. The news crept down +streets from door to door like a dull wind, fingering the nerves, +pausing. In the hotel bars, heads went this way and that way, quick +with suspicion. The Fogartys’ Eileen, called by a friend while she was +clearing away the supper, cried “God help him!” and stumbled up to Mr. +Fogarty’s door, blubbered. Mr. Fogarty dropped his glass and stood bent +some time like an animal, chin on the mantelpiece. Philosophy did not +help; in his thickening brain actuality turned like a mill-wheel. His +wife, magnificent in her disbelief, ran out, wisps blowing, round the +square and through the vindictively silent town. + +Barracks were closed, she could not get past the guards; for once she +was at a loss, among strangers. She thought mechanically “His mother,” +and pressed her hands up under her vast and useless bosom. Trees in the +square, uneasy, shifted dulled leaves that should already have fallen +under the darkness. The shocking news, brought in at the barrack gates +officially, produced an abashed silence, hard repercussions, darkness +of thought and a loud glare of electricity. In Gerald’s room some new +music for the jazz band, caught in a draught, flopped over and over. An +orderly put it away, shocked. All night some windows let out, over the +sandbags, a squeamish, defiant yellow. + +Mrs. Vermont heard when Timmy had just gone out; he was to be out +all night with a patrol. She was to sleep alone, she could not bear +it. Past fear, she ran to the Rolfes’ hut. She spent the night +there, sobbing, tearing off with her teeth the lace right round her +handkerchief. Captain Rolfe kept bringing her hot whisky. “I can’t, +I can’t, not whisky; it’s so awful.” They all felt naked and were +ashamed of each other, as though they had been wrecked. From the hut +floor--where they had danced--the wicker furniture seemed to rise and +waver. + +“Percy, where did he--how was he--?” + +“Through the head.” + +“Then it didn’t--?” + +“Oh no. Probably instantaneous.” + +“Oh, _don’t!_ Oh, Percy, how can you!” + +Denise repeated: “I can’t believe it.” And while the others sickly, +furtively stared, she tried to press from her hair the waves she had +had put in that morning. “You know, I _can’t_ believe it. Can you, +Betty? It’s so ... extraordinary.” + +“Why can’t we all go home? Why did we stay here? Why don’t we all go +home? That’s what I can’t understand.” + +“Percy, can _you_ believe it? I mean, I remember him coming in and +standing against this table--” + +“Oh, don’t!--Percy, what became of _them?_ Where did they go? Those +devils!” + +“Oh, got right away.” + +“Didn’t anyone hear anything, any firing? I mean, didn’t it make a +noise?... Couldn’t they be tortured--why should they just be hanged or +shot? Oh, I do think, I mean I do think when you think--” + +“Well, we’ve got to get ’em, haven’t we? Look, just try--” + +“Oh, I _can’t_, I tell you-- Why can’t we all go home!” + +“Percy, leave her _alone!_ Oh God, my head; I shall cut my hair off. I +mean, he came in and stood there against that table. Why did they get +just Gerald?--Oh yes, I know there was the sergeant--but _he_ won’t +die; I know he won’t die.... I can’t believe it! Percy, _can_ you +believe it? Percy, say something.” + +Betty sobbed: “I should like to--oh, I should like to-- Those beasts, +those beasts!” + +“Look, you two girls go to bed.” + +“Oh, how can we!” + +“Oh, why isn’t Timmy here? I mean, when I think of Timmy, and out +all night--_I_ can’t understand the King, I can’t understand the +Government: _I_ think it’s awful!” + +But they went to bed--Percy spent the night on two chairs--and lay in +what seemed to both an unnatural contiguity, re-clasping each other’s +fingers, talking of “Him,” of “you know who” and “that boy” in the +eager voices, low-pitched and breaking, kept as a rule to discuss the +intimacies of their marriages. In the same moment they fell, dimly +shocked at each other, asleep. Then Denise saw Lois clearly, standing +affectedly on the Danielstown steps with a tin of biscuits, a room full +of mirrors behind her. And Betty woke with surprise to hear herself +say: “What I mean is, it seems so odd that he shouldn’t really have +meant anything.” + +They heard an early bugle shivering in the rain. + + + + + XXIV + + +MR. DAVENTRY arrived before the postman. He had not paid an unofficial +visit since he had been in Ireland; it seemed to him odd there should +be nothing to search for, nobody to interrogate. It was early, wet +tarnished branches came cheerfully through the mist. He had come to +the gate with a convoy on its way over to Ballyhinch; two lorries +had ground into silence and waited for him at the gate, alarming the +cottagers. He walked up the avenue lightly and rapidly: nothing, at +the stage things had reached for him, mattered. And superciliously he +returned the stare of the house. + +He rang and made his demand. Lois came out slowly, dumb with all she +must begin to say--for who could an anxious waiting officer be but +Gerald? “Really ...” Lady Naylor had said, with a glance at the clock, +advising her to put down her table napkin. And Francie, smiling, had +covered up her egg for her. + +“You?” she now said while everything, the importance of everything, +faintly altered. “Come and have breakfast.” + +He told her that there had been a catastrophe yesterday, west of +Clonmore: a patrol with an officer and an N.C.O. had been ambushed, +fired on at a cross-roads. The officer--Lesworth--was instantly +killed, the N.C.O. shot in the stomach. The enemy made off across +country, they did not care for sustained fire, in spite of the hedges. +The men did what they could for the sergeant. + +“Will he die?” + +“Probably.” + +“And Gerald was killed.” + +“Yes. Would you--?” + +“I’m all right, thank you.” + +“Right you are.” He turned round and stood with his back to her. She +asked what time it had happened; he said about six o’clock. She thought +how accurate Gerald was and how anxious, last time, he had been to +establish just _when_ she had been happy because of him, on what day, +for how long. “They’d been out all the afternoon?” They both saw the +amazed white road and dust, displaced by the fall, slowly settling. “As +a matter of fact,” said Daventry, “we were mostly ready for things. I +don’t suppose--if he knew at all--it mattered.” “No, I don’t suppose, +to oneself, it ever would matter much.” But she thought of Gerald in +the surprise of death. He gave himself up to surprise with peculiar +candour. + +“Thank you for coming.” + +“I was passing this way anyhow.” + +“But still, there was no reason why you should take the trouble.” + +Daventry glanced at her, then at the gravel under his feet, without +speculation. Cold and ironical, he was a stay; he was not expecting +anything of her. He finally said: “It seemed practical. Would you like +me to--shall I just let the others know?” She nodded, wondering where +to go, how long to stay there, how to come back. Her mind flooded +with trivialities. She wondered who would go up to the tennis this +afternoon, if there would be anyone left who did not know, who would +expect him; she wondered what would become of the Jazz band. She saw +for days ahead she must not deny humanity, she would have no privacy. +“As a matter of fact, they are expecting me back to breakfast.” + +But at the thought of Francie’s tender and proud smile, covering up +her egg, she was enlightened and steadied by grief, as at the touch of +finger-tips. She went into the house and up to the top to meet what was +waiting. Life, seen whole for a moment, was one act of apprehension, +the apprehension of death. Daventry, staring at her in memory--she was, +after all, a woman--went into the hall. Here, it pleased him to think +of Gerald socially circumspect under the portraits. + +He waited. The dining-room door swung open on a continued argument; +they came out one by one, each on the threshold, balanced momentarily +like a ball on a fountain by the shock of seeing him. “Lady Naylor?” +he said to Francie. “Oh _no!_” she seemed appalled at the supposition. +“Isn’t ... Mr. Lesworth here?” “Not to-day.” Lady Naylor came last and +stared hardest: really, the Army seemed to be inexhaustible. He told +her. “Oh, no!” she said quickly, as though to prevent something. He +told her the circumstances. “Oh--_no_,” she repeated, and turned in +appeal to her husband. “That is ... that is too bad,” said Sir Richard +and in despairing confusion touched her shoulder. He looked back into +the dining-room at the chairs and plates and table, incredible in +their survival. + +The fact was, they did not at all care for the look of Mr. Daventry. +They felt instinctively that he had come here to search the house. +Lady Naylor, still statuesque from the shock, made, even, a little +disdainful gesture, a kind of: “Here’s everything.” He, unconscious of +her impression of being brought to book, remained staring darkly and +piercingly past her. Behind her, across the dark dining-room, he saw +through a window the lawn striped with mist and sunshine. In Clonmore +it had rained that morning: they seemed to have escaped that too. She +said sharply: “Where’s Lois?” + +“I’m afraid I don’t know,” he replied, indifferent. + +“She--you have--?” + +“Oh, yes.” + +Her defensive dropped; she said with heartbroken eyes on his face: “You +know, we knew him so well. He came out here so often to tennis. It +seems queer that one can’t--that one never-- He was so--” + +“Yes he was, wasn’t he?” + +“His mother, he used to tell me about his mother. Who will write? I +should like to write to her. Yes, I want very much to write to her. I +think she might like--we did know him so well, you see-- Richard, +don’t you think I--?” + +But Sir Richard had slipped away quietly; he was an old man, really, +outside all this, and did not know what to do. He was wondering, also, +about the Connors. Peter Connor’s friends--they knew everything, they +were persistent: it did not do to imagine.... + +Mr. Daventry said that was all, he thought; he must go now. He took +leave with unfriendly courtesy and went off abruptly, with an air that +obliterated them, as though he had never been into their house at +all. Then she exclaimed, recollecting herself: “_He_ must be unhappy; +I ought to have said something.” There was so much to do now, more +than would fit into a morning; she had some idea of postponing lunch. +And hearing the postman, she half thought, terrified by a sense of +exposure: “Suppose there should be a--suppose he should have--” + +But there was no letter for Lois from Gerald. + +No one was on the steps to hear the news from the postman; he went +away disappointed. Lady Naylor thought firmly: “Now I must go and find +Lois.” But she did not go; things seemed to delay her. She looked into +the drawing-room to see whether something--she wasn’t certain what--was +there. Francie, red-eyed, looked guiltily over the back of the sofa. +They did not say anything. The room became so sharply painful that Lady +Naylor almost exclaimed: “Lois has not done the flowers!” + +It was Laurence who, walking about the grounds unguardedly, was exposed +to what they all dreaded. He came on Lois, standing beside a holly +tree. She could have moved away, but seemed not so much rooted as +indifferent. + +“It’s all right,” she explained, and added: “I’m just thinking.” + +His look became almost personal, as though he had recognized her. He +said: “I think I should. I expect--I don’t know--one probably gets past +things.” + +“But look here, there are things that one can’t--” (She meant: “He +loved me, he believed in the British Empire.”) “At least, I don’t want +to.” + +“Perhaps you are right,” he said, studying, with an effort of sight and +of comprehension, some unfamiliar landscape. + +“Well, don’t stop, Laurence. You’re going somewhere, aren’t you?” + +“Nowhere particular. Not if you--” + +“No, I don’t specially. Though if it has to be anyone, you.” + +Taking this for what it was worth, he went on, brushing awkwardly past +her against the laurels. + + * * * * * + +A fortnight later, Mrs. Trent drove over, the very evening of her +return from the North. She had been inexpressibly bored up there and +wished to complain. Lady Naylor, delighted, came out to meet her; it +was like old times again. + +“The house feels empty. They’ve gone, you know.” + +“Yes, dear me. I was sorry not to have seen the last of Hugo and poor +little Francie. What about their bungalow?” + +“Oh, that was just an idea; they are quite off it. Bungalows inland +seem so pointless, cliffs are so windy and one cannot live on a flat +coast. No, they think now of going to Madeira.” + +“Then they won’t un-store the furniture?” + +“I don’t think so; they never cared for it much.” + +“It’s a pity he never did go to Canada.” Mrs. Trent looked round at the +pleasant fields and lawns, the trees massive and tarnished, the windows +that from their now settled emptiness seemed to have gained composure. +Her sense of home-coming extended even to Danielstown. She went on: +“How’s Richard? And listen: are you getting in your apples?--we haven’t +begun. They never get anything done when I’m away. And tell me: how’s +Lois?” + +“Oh, gone, you know.” + +“_Gone?_ Oh, the school of art!” + +“Oh no,” said Lady Naylor, surprised. “Tours. For her French, you know. +And to such an interesting, cultivated family; she is really fortunate. +I never have been happy about her French. As I said to her, there will +be plenty of time for Italian.” + +“Oh, that’s splendid,” Mrs. Trent said vaguely but warmly. “Then of +course you must feel quiet. Did she and Laurence travel over together?” + +“She seemed so offended at being thought incompetent and he was +worried at the idea of looking after her luggage, so we sent them over +separately; he crossed Wednesday, she Friday. Both nights, I hear, +it was rough.... Yes, it’s been sad here, lately; we’ve been so much +shocked and distressed about that unfortunate young Lesworth. I think +I felt it particularly; he had been out here so much and seemed so +glad to talk, and had come, in a way, to depend on one. Though it was +a shock, too, for Lois. You see they had really played tennis so often +and were beginning to be quite friends. She did not take it as hard +as I feared, girls of her generation seem less sensitive, really.... +I don’t know; perhaps that is all for the best. And of course she has +so many interests. But it was terrible, wasn’t it; I still think: how +terrible. But he did have a happy life. I wrote that to his mother; +I said, it must always be some consolation to think how happy his +life had been. He quite beamed, really; he was the life and soul of +everything. And she wrote back--I did not think tactfully, but of +course she would be distracted--that it was _her_ first consolation to +think he died in so noble a cause.” + +Mrs. Trent had for a moment an uneasy, exposed look. She said: “It was +heroic,” and glanced down awkwardly at her gloves. She missed a dog, +she felt unstayed, there was no dog. + +“Heroic,” said Lady Naylor, and scanned the skies with eager +big-pupilled eyes that reflected the calm light. “Although,” she added, +half in surprise, “he could not help it.... But come in now and tell +Richard about the North, he will be amused, though sorry that you were +dull. To tell you the truth, we both rather feared you might be. Ah, +don’t mind the time, I’m sure it’s early; come in, come in!” + +But Mrs. Trent could not, she was a punctilious person and wore a +wrist-watch. She had not even sent round her dog-cart to the back; a +man was walking the cob up and down the avenue. “A flying visit,” said +Lady Naylor mournfully, having prolonged the conversation by half an +hour. Then Mrs. Trent climbed briskly into the dog-cart and gathered +the reins up; they sighed at each other their resignation to parting. + +“Then we see you on Tuesday. Be sure and come early, before the +Hartigans.” To the domestic landscape, Mrs. Trent nodded an approving +farewell. “Every autumn, it strikes me this place looks really its +best.” + +“To tell you the truth, I really believe it does. There is something in +autumn,” said Lady Naylor. She remained on the steps looking after the +trap, her hands restlessly, lightly folded. Some leaves spun down from +the gate with a home-coming air. + +The two did not, however, again see Danielstown at such a moment, such +a particular happy point of decline in the short curve of the day, the +long curve of the season. Here, there were no more autumns, except for +the trees. By next year light had possessed itself of the vacancy, +still with surprise. Next year, the chestnuts and acorns pattered +unheard on the avenues, that, filmed over with green already, should +have been dull to the footsteps--but there were no footsteps. Leaves, +tottering down the slope on the wind’s hesitation, banked formless, +frightened, against the too clear form of the ruin. + +For in February, before those leaves had visibly budded, the +death--execution, rather--of the three houses, Danielstown, Castle +Trent, Mount Isabel, occurred in the same night. A fearful scarlet +ate up the hard spring darkness; indeed, it seemed that an extra day, +unreckoned, had come to abortive birth that these things might happen. +It seemed, looking from east to west at the sky tall with scarlet, +that the country itself was burning; while to the north the neck of +mountains before Mount Isabel was frightfully outlined. The roads in +unnatural dusk ran dark with movement, secretive or terrified; not a +tree, brushed pale by wind from the flames, not a cabin pressed in +despair to the bosom of night, not a gate too starkly visible but had +its place in the design of order and panic. At Danielstown, half-way +up the avenue under the beeches, the thin iron gate twanged (missed +its latch, remained swinging aghast) as the last unlit car slid out +with the executioners bland from accomplished duty. The sound of the +last car widened, gave itself to the open and empty country and was +demolished. Then the first wave of a silence that was to be ultimate +flowed back, confident, to the steps. Above the steps, the door stood +open hospitably upon a furnace. + +Sir Richard and Lady Naylor, not saying anything, did not look at each +other, for in the light from the sky they saw too distinctly. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79073 *** |