CHAPTER V
All this year of hope and reprieve, Richard had just dimly realized the continuation of Mr Gryce’s attacks; but they had slithered more or less harmlessly off the conviction that in the September of 1917 would come his own chance to prove to Englishmen whether or no he be an Englishman. Now ... Mr Gryce had not improved with keeping; and Richard was again exposed, without shield, to the old pestered agony of responsibility ...hehad committed atrocities;hedid not fight fairly;hewas a German, the Germans.... No place for him during the war—no place afterwards. Where was he born? Where reared? where legally belonging? Where his sympathies?... All over the place—nowhere—anywhere. What country wanted him? What country claimed him? For what country and in what cause had he suffered during the Great War?—Jew, then, at least? Or Socialist—Conscientious Objector?
But he had no convictions—doubting even his own stubborn loyalty of schoolboyhood. He was no more a schoolboy. He was a man—a man with nerves. His nerves gave Richard no rest.
He did not regret, in the week that followed Samson’s letter, his refusal to serve in the Labour Battalion. Morally, he considered the evasion despicable—for him; though a good enough solution for those who really were indifferent for the fight, and impartial as to the issues. He did not regret it; nevertheless, his loathing towards internment swelled again to a morbid obsession. He positively could not bear the sound or sight of the word. And then Mr Gryce began to flaunt a button with “Intern them all” displayed thereon—Richard went down to stay with the Dunnes for his last week of liberty. He remembered affectionately and with a sense of far-off coolness and repose, that chintz sitting-room in the cottage; itsportrait of Commander Antony Dunne over the mantelpiece; its atmosphere so casually, indubitably English; remembered too how naturally in those Christmas holidays of 1914 he had fitted himself into this room and what it stood for. Perhaps here was peace from the demons plaguing him; reassurance, also, as to where in spirit he belonged. If he were “all right” among the Dunnes, he was—all right.
The chintz sitting-room, speaking for the Dunnes, repudiated Richard Marcus; bluff and careless Antony Dunne was definitely antagonistic towards him—and Antony Dunne dominated his family still, from the encircling oak frame. Richard had anticipated gratefully the room, the pictures, the model of a man-of-war, the curios from the Pacific Islands and Japan and the Malay; the albums with Greville and Frank in their different stages of allegiance to naval tradition, the battered boys’ books on the shelf, all yarning about the sea and sea-fights and sea-heroes; the view of low-lying fields beyond the windows; he had anticipated all these—and forgotten he was no longer careless participant. The room informed him now very definitely that he was an outsider; guilty in his birth-place; the room quietly but grimly imposed its personality upon Richard, as symbolizing all from which he was excluded. The Dunnes had lived in Essex, in Market Cottage, since five generations; the Dunnes had always been naval stock—dedicated to England’s sea-service long before any question of war; their patriotic allegiance need not even be mentioned—could be taken absolutely for granted; it stood—as this room stood. That the Dunnes should ever go messing about the Continent and having their sons in the wrong places ... the room was lazily scornful at the mere idea. The Dunnes were quite, quite certain beforehand where they were to be born and where buried. One of them had settled in another county, and one—Molly’s father—had married a London girl; these were their utmost excursions abroad. And one Dunne had learnt how to speak a foreign language, Spanish, fluently ... it was a great joke among the other Dunnes. And when their profession took them across wide seas and into strange ports and islands, these seas and ports and islands became, at a touch, English ... or English to them, which was the same thing. They were simply uninfluenced by what was not English; just as the room absorbed no outlandish flavour from the scattered lumps of stone andcoral, weapons and embroideries. These were vivid and interesting enough—but only vivid and interesting on sufferance; the real thing was the chintz, the view, the album.
Richard grew to hate that room.
Next, he grew to hate Frank. Frank was a talkative lad of fourteen, who had met Richard with the pony-trap on arrival at the station of the nearest town; it was necessary, before driving out to Market Cottage, four miles away, that Richard should call at the police-station, and exhibit his papers and photograph and so forth; and answer the official’s searching questions. Frank’s curiosity had insisted on accompanying Richard inside, even to the lengths of bestowing pennies on an urchin to hold the pony; he thought the whole proceedings “rum”; no previous guest of the Dunnes had ever been subjected to all this fuss.... Frank asked the object of the fuss a great many questions about registration—recurred to it all through supper, in fact: “Five-mile limit—what does that mean? That you can’t go any further from here without special permit? Good Lord! Grev, did you hear that? Then you can’t come with us to the meet on Thursday. What rot for you! don’t you hate it! I say, show the Mater your photograph, won’t you?—the one you showed up at the Station. I suppose they think you’re a spy! Do you have to exhibit your thumb-prints too? Like a bally old convict, isn’t it?...”
Richard could not bring himself to be chatty or informative on the subject of registration; and Frank, incensed by his surliness, came to the conclusion that Richard was a spy, and as such ought to be tabooed from intimacy, and watched.
The situation worried Greville, the more so as he could not quite whole-heartedly champion Richard—“You see, Mater, he’s not a bit like he used to be. I mean, he was quite a jolly old bean last time he was here, wasn’t he? But now—he goes red as fire when Frank rags him about the police and so on——”
“We must just tell Frank to leave off, if it makes Richard uncomfortable. He’s our guest, after all.”
“Yes—but Mater—if—if——”
“What, dear?”
“If Richard felt as—as loyal—well, as other chaps, he’d laugh, wouldn’t he, when Frank....” The handsome young naval sub-lieutenant was no psychologist. “You don’t supposethere’s anything in it, do you, Mater? I’d never have dreamt of such a thing if Richard hadn’t changed so from when he was at Winborough. And Frank is always going on at this child for chumming up with a German. I punch his head, of course, pretty often; butwhydoes he shy like an old cart-horse when we talk about the war? Richard, I mean?”
Mrs Dunne smiled: “I don’t think Richard is a spy in the German pay, Grev, if that’s what is on your mind.”
“Oh, nor do I,” very quickly.
His mother waited; there were obviously more skeins of perplexity to be unwound.
“One doesn’t have anything to do with a German,” Greville blurted out. “But what’s one to do if he’s your pal beforehand?”
“I wonder....” Mrs Dunne thought it out, though hardly realizing that this was the predicament of a great many of her fellow English.
Greville was not the type of boy who would ever of his own volition commit any act that was in the least degree complex or eccentric. Richard had been as normal and sturdy a disciple of take-it-for-granted as himself, when they had first paired off as inseparables. So that the shatterment of Richard’s normal world, of necessity involved a twitch where it joined Greville’s.
“I think you owe something to old friendship, my boy.”
“Oh, this child isn’t going to be a perishing deserter, betcherlife....” In proof of which, Greville summoned Richard for a long tramp through the slowly russeting country. They swung along for the most part in silence, as they had always been wont to do; but previously it was the silence which signified “all’s well,” whereas now it was lumpish—a case of nothing to say. For Greville’s natural disposition was for anecdotes of the gunroom—joyous narrative of the day when they “bagged a Fritz,” or technical details of his present training for the R.N.A.S.—his companion’s set face and monosyllabic appreciation was discouraging on such themes. Even had Greville realized that the other was sick with envy, and not, as he thought, bored, it would hardly have rendered matters more comfortable. Mutual memories of Winborough were safe enough, and recurred in spasms, but Greville’s interest had been superseded by fresher, more vital stuff; and Richard’soccasional starts on an abstract subject were, curiously, addressed more to an absent David than to Greville:—“Have you ever noticed how nearly all the popular songs they sing have something in ’em about a long long way or long long trails?” he remarked once, as a chorus from a khaki group in the distance floated to them in wind-borne snatches. “A long, long road in Flanders or France, straight and planted with poplars ... tired men dragging on and on with a sense of endlessness like in a Nevinson picture—but it’s queer that it should have worked its way into the very songs.”
Greville knew little of roads and cared less.
They were at the moment on the outskirts of a neighbouring town; a road of detached houses, picturesque and gabled: each so fretfully and laboriously different, and all so drearily alike. All of these bore their names painted on the gates; and one was “Heimat.” Richard’s lower lip twisted sardonically.... “Heimat”—home—after three years of war with Germany! Who in their simplicity had dared leave such a name displayed? A wistful group of exiles from the Vaterland, who still clung to their own tongue, wore plaid, and basket plaits, and stupid socks, drank coffee for breakfast, and sang in chorus round the piano after dinner?—No—they would have called their house Omdurman or the Cedars or Kenilworth; was it likely that a second Otto Redbury would have the temerity to dwell behind a gate with “Heimat” painted boldly upon it—“In our position—”? Heimat probably sheltered a serenely unconscious English family, who accepted the rum name they found when they moved in, and pronounced it wrong—and who could with safety have dwelt in a house called “Kaiser Wilhelm” and still not meet with suspicion. Perhaps they had an ancient German governess whom they tolerated and sheltered for pre-war sake, and she guarded in her sentimental old rag-bag of a heart the secret understanding of “Heimat,” and found comfort in it....
Greville, who had not noticed the house called Heimat, interrupted his companion’s musings: “I say, did you hear old Rogers has had both his legs shot away?”
“Bad luck! We beat Dumfield by an innings when he was captain.”
“Yes; he wasn’t a patch on Rothenburg, though. D’you remember Rothenburg?”
Yes—Richard remembered Con.
“German name, wasn’t it? What happened to him?”
“D.S.O. and killed at Vimy,” briefly. He wondered if Greville, like Mr Gryce, was going to say “ought to have been interned”? Even the subject of Winborough was perilous, might lead to ... the admission they all sought to drag from his sensitive reluctance.
For this was the latest result of Richard’s nerves, that he imagined a conspiracy on the part of the Dunne household to make him utter aloud—scream aloud—the fact that he was a German. Therefore he set stern watch upon his speech, though never doubting they would win their point in the end.... “Morose beggar!” commented young Frank. “Molly’s coming to-morrow—we’ll see ifshewakes him up a bit!”
“Frank, I don’t want you to tell Molly about Richard.”
“What—not that he’s a blooming——”
“No, dear.”
“Why, Mater? Strikes me Molly ought to be put on guard. She might want to marry him. Nice old fizzle that ’ud be.”
Mrs Dunne seriously replied that he might trust her to be responsible for the safeguarding of Molly (aged fifteen) from contraction of an alliance with the enemy.
“Are you going in the R.F.C., Richard?” asked Molly, on her first morning.
They were in the orchard, and her mouth was stained a deep plum-purple.
“No.”
“You said last year—no, the year before that, wasn’t it?—that you weren’t keen on anything except a commission in the Flying Corps. And I was going to work the wings and ‘per ardua ad astra’ on a silk handkerchief for you. Lucky I didn’t.”
“Plenty of chaps you could have given it to.”
Molly fastened strong pointed teeth into the downy blue of yet another plum; and then asked: “Are you going into the R.E.?”
“No.”
“Gunner, then?”
“No.”
“What are you going to be when you join up?”
“I’m not joining up.”
“White feather!” she flashed at him. She had been inclinedto regard Richard as her especial property, whenever they had met at Market Cottage. Though he had teased her a lot, he was always rather more gentle in action where she was concerned, than Greville and Frank. So that she was not prepared now, when in a fit of passion he seized her by the shoulders and shook her—shook her—“You little beast——”
His fingers dug deep into her shoulders; she tried with a sudden jerk to twist out of his grasp ... could not.... Then with quite a good exhibition of resource, tore an over-ripe plum from a bough near at hand and flung it in Richard’s face—“Hun!”
“That’s right,” he said coolly, releasing her. “Traitor if you like—spy and coward,” and he grinned at her mute amazement. Suddenly, in a queer, vicious sort of way he was enjoying the scene. “You’ve guessed it, Molly. Only a Hun would grab a girl and shake her. I’d be happy dropping bombs on babies, too; and shooting a half-drowned non-combatant in the water. We’re all like that. And I’d be happy——” he stopped, and looked at the girl; a shifting ray of sun through the leaves struck her across the face; across the half-parted plum-stained lips; showed him the angry gold freckling her big brown eyes. A tomboy in blue serge with rough chestnut hair ... yes, but a promise of more than that ... for him.
He moved towards her—and quickly she plucked another dark mauve globule.
“Drop that.”
“Hun! Hun! Hun!” she taunted him.
“There are things one can’t help, Molly—and there are also too many things you don’t even begin to understand, Molly—That’s why you’re no good to me, just at present. One day, when I’ve time, I may bother to make you understand. Or I may not. Meanwhile——” His arm sprang up against the whizzing plum, averted it, dragged her into his arms and kissed her roughly ... then more tenderly.... She was passive, recognizing with wonder that this was suddenly not an uncouth bullying schoolboy, but a man dogged and fierce and rather unwilling, who had captured her defiance and stilled it.
But what rubbish! Richard! Why, he was only eighteen; younger than Grev—and Grev was certainly not yet a man, though he had fought.... Richard had not even fought—the colour stung her brown skin into red, as she recalled hiscontempt: “There are too many things you don’t even begin to understand, Molly——”
“I don’t care! I don’t care!” she raged in a whisper.
“I don’t care either,” came the answer in that cool man-voice, which reason could hardly yet accept as belonging to Richard; “but if I ever do care, Molly, then I’ll damned well marry you, and you’ll have a Hun for a husband whether you want it or not—so you’d better be more polite now....”
“I won’t—you shan’t—never—let me go, Richard!”
“Kiss me first, then. I like your kisses though I don’t like you.”
In a final twist for liberty, she slewed her head backwards ... and saw his eyes, sad light eyes narrowed under their bending ridges—something like a tumbler pigeon turned wildly over and over in her breast.... With a gasp, she offered him her childish fruit-stained lips ... and darted away between the orchard trees.
Richard pressed his two clenched fists against his forehead....
“What did I say to her?—looks as though I were going mad....” A portion of himself seemed to slide coldly away from the rest—and then be jerked again into its place ... it was a nasty sensation; and so was the shame with which he submitted to the fact that he had no control whatever over any juggling tricks his brain and body in goblin collaboration might choose to play him.
A conviction, for instance, that a number of people in assembly held a threat and a menace for him ... slow horror which the mind communicated to the flesh—he could not keep still between walls and floor and ceiling, with people crushing him round and stifling him, blocking his exit—with people’s voices droning like wasps ... the heavy persistent circling motion of wasps over food ... yes, he had to get away, if he was to breathe, if he was to live ... his head, his eyes, his ears and neck, his wrists and finger-tips and knees, each held their separate hammering pulse—how could he sit quietly in a chair, at a table, with all these fever-pulses dinning and throbbing in unequal measure, and that one great pulse in his left side swinging dominion over the others—he must get into the open, or die, there, before them all, before Greville’s bewilderment, and Frank’s loud disdain, and Molly crying, “Hun! Hun! Hun!” ... he preferred to die alone.
“I ought to go home——” but home was more meals inpublic, and Mr Gryce, and traffic, and pavements a-swirl with people. Only a few days more now—only to-morrow and the day after—only to-morrow—and horror itself would be there, in place of horror anticipated. How would it be when he needed to run—and ran up against barbed wire—and was turned back ... enclosed and ringed by barbed wire?Senselessbarbed wire—had it been enemy fencing, you might cut it, break through and into enemy trench, bring a rifle smashing down on a fat pink head ... Prussian head ... pink head ... mud and filth and the swarm of lice, and oozy, sticky blood, and cold, wet cold.... This was France—war—his birthright—birthright of everybody growing from 1914 into manhood. Oh, damn ... that hot swollen feeling round his temples again—no, not inside—round the outside ... and why did they try so hard to hypnotize him into declaring aloud that he was a German? even Mrs Dunne, even Greville ... and Frank of course, with Molly now his partner and confederate. They were all jolly and serene and happy enough—couldn’t they leave him alone? They and the chintz sitting-room and that—that stranger dining with them this Sunday after church. Who was it? The local doctor? Dr Greyson? He had not brought his wife ... apologized, said she had a cold; Richard knew—he did not care to bring her into a house where a German was staying; she might have to shake hands with him, and she had vowed not to shake hands with a German again—so she had preferred to stay at home. The Dunnes had talked of asking a Mr Rhodes and his son and daughter—very decent people, Richard remembered them from last time ... and then the question of inviting them had suddenly been abandoned, with a great show of tact on Mrs Dunne’s part—“perhaps they would not care to come out so soon after poor Hal’s death”—but again Richard suspected the confidential after-discussion between Greville and his mother. “Better not, Mater, while Richard’s here; he’s going to-morrow. But they’re the sort who’dmind....”
... Would Frank never stop eating pudding? apple suet pudding—two helpings already, and now a third. Frank did it on purpose—fiendishly—he knew Richard was mad to get up and out of the cramped cramping space....
“Coffee in the sitting-room, I think,” Mrs Dunne proposed at last; “such a pity it’s raining, or we might have sat outside.”
They all moved together, glucose in conviviality, towards the room which held the portrait of Commander Dunne. Greville, in his simple, eager way was explaining some aviation technicality to Doctor Greyson, who listened respectfully.
“These youngsters—they’re showing us all the way!” he smiled at Frank in his blue and gold, at Molly wearing her Girl Guide uniform—his eye swept over Richard blankly—he knew then? They had told him, or he must have remarked on all that square muscularity clothed in mufti.... Voices like persistent wasps ... the pursuing threat was in the room with him now ... it was always worst in here ... with the picture of Commander Antony Dunne. What was the Doctor saying? something about the German prisoners employed to work on a farm in the neighbourhood ... but that was part of the plot, to goad him into his declaration—to lead the talk that way ... part of the plot....
“They’re lazy swine, you know; won’t do a stroke of work when the overseer’s back is turned——”
“Why should they?” demanded Richard.
The wasp-drone hushed now; faces all turned towards him, curious to hear—the plot was working as anticipated.
Fool! why had he spoken? ... that cursed new trick of seeing things all round and from the other side. But he went on, doggedly: “Do you suppose that if I were an English prisoner in Germany that I’d do one more stroke of work on their damned alien soil than would be forced out of me?”
Molly and Frank exchanged a quick look. And Greville frowned uneasily. Then Dr Greyson said, with perfect courtesy: “It’s rather difficult, I imagine, for anyone who is not entirely one of us to appreciate our point of view. For you’re not quite English, are you, Mr Marcus?”
He knew!... he knew well enough—he only put the question to drag out his answer—he should have it then!... Frank smiled meaningly at Molly.... Richard saw him—and the room, the little chintz sitting-room which was all England, was glad, glad, glad at his impending humiliation.... Nerves drawn tighter and tighter—then they twanged apart, burst strings—“You’re not quite English, are you, Mr Marcus?”
“No,” Richard screamed suddenly, “I’m a German. And I hate the English—I hate them——”
It was not true. As he rushed for the door, and down thepassage and out into the garden, all that was left sane in him denied the cry; he did not hate the English—loved them—wanted to be like them—wanted to belong to them—fight for them. But they had pushed him into the lie. And now he could not live, having said it ... the sea was somewhere ... he would run till he got to the sea....
The pad of footsteps in his rear ... he plunged forward, slipping on the soaked ground.... More footsteps, louder—only let him get away—if there were no shock of barbed wire ahead to stay him ... he would escape the barbed wire, escape the mob that since two and a half years had been hounding behind him ... never so close as now.... “Schnabel! Schnabel!” soft rain blowing across his face ... head down, arms pressed against his sides, breath sobbing fiercely, he ran on in a blind panic....
“I can’t catch up with the beggar,” said Greville, returning to the sitting-room. “I called him, too.... I s’pose he’ll come back all right?”