PART TWENTY-SEVENTHE NEW SCIENCE

PART TWENTY-SEVENTHE NEW SCIENCE

Into every marriage there come times of crisis, when man and woman gaze at each other dumbly across a great wall of misunderstanding. Peter’s homecoming from hospital provided that crisis in his life and Patricia’s.

Poor Patricia! she had looked forward so rapturously to having him at Sunflowers; worked so hard to make the place perfect. And now it seemed to her as though not only house and children but she herself must be distasteful to him; as though even palship were ended. Night after night, his placid kisses banished her to loneliness. Night after wakeful night, she watched the light in his dressing-room glimmer through the chinks of the door between them. Poor Patricia! unable to realize that this man who annoyed her by the very placidity of his demeanour, was struggling—every minute of the day, and every hour of the night—to prevent his hands from trembling, his voice from quivering, his every tone and every attitude from betraying the terrors which were eating away his self-respect.

Poor Peter! he strove so desperately to conceal his miseries. Poor Peter, who only succeeded, by not voicing them, in finally convincing his wife that the something he strove so obviously to conceal from her must be lack of affection. . . .

Thus brick by reticent brick: he with his nameless shameless fears, she with her certainty of love lost for ever: these two built up their pathetic wall of misunderstandings.

In all their lives they had never had so many opportunities for companionship: in all their lives they had never been so uncompanionable. They were always together—but they were never in harmony. Mutual existence turned to a game of finesse—“I mustn’t let her know this,” “I mustn’t let him see that.” Yet, outwardly, they remained a very ordinary married couple. No visiting stranger, not even Francis whom they saw almost daily, perceived the barrier between them.

Walking together, talking together, in the dining-room with the children, in the garden with Fry, morning and evening, the game of misunderstanding went on.

And the man used to say to himself: “O God, am I going mad? I am afraid, afraid. Everything frightens me. One day she will know I am afraid. Then, she will despise me. The servants know I am afraid: they talk about me: I cannot hear what they say, but I know they are talking about me, they talk about me all the time. The children know I am afraid. . . . O God, what am I afraid of? Of what am I not afraid? I wish to God I could go back to the front. Death is simpler out there. And I am only fit for death, because I am afraid to go back to the front. . . . She mustn’t know that I am afraid, she must never guess that I am afraid.”

And the woman used to say to herself: “O God, what is behind Peter’s eyes? He hates it all—me, the children, this house I have made for him. His voice praises, but his heart condemns me. O God, if he’d only say what he is thinking. We used to be pals once—and that was not enough for me. I used to call myself his chattel. Now, I am not even chattel to him. We are strangers in a strange house. He hates me. He mustn’t guess that I know of his hatred.”

The woman, at any rate, had work for anodyne. By now, Patricia began to realize that country life on a moderate income is not the simple paradise which town dwellers imagine it. She was not yet fully aware of the robberies practised on her; but she had learned, at least, the necessity of personal supervision. Children, house, servants, garden, animals—all needed her. The man Fry, grown arrogant on the proceeds of speculation (he had utilized her absence to dispose of the apple-crop to a confederate—and the two were now holding forty bushels of pippins for the ultimate rise) turned lazy, insubordinate; required constant prodding. Fanny and Elizabeth—half-trained, utterly uneducated, liars by inheritance of serfdom—could not be trusted to work unwatched. Also, accounts had begun to roll in.

None of these inevitable pettinesses would have been a burden, if she could have laughed over them with Peter. But household affairs had always been taboo between them: her job and hers only. They had made that rule in the prosperity of three thousand a year; and she was not the type of woman to break it in the adversity of six hundred. Moreover, intuition warned her that he must, for the present, be shielded from financial anxieties.

Peter, who had no work for anodyne and cherished all the prejudices of the caste which is not accustomed to see its womenfolk labour, watched her busied about the house, feeding her chickens, educating the children, till the Fear of Poverty wiped out all other fears and he said to himself: “This is the way my clerks used to live. I’ve brought her to this. I shall bring her to worse than this. . . .” Then he would take his twelve-bore from the case in his dressing-room, drop a couple of No. 5’s into the breech, and slip through Tebbits’ Farm, down the hill to Francis Gordon’s cottage.

“Why the devil do you always bring that gun of yours?” Francis used to ask.

“Might see a rabbit.” Invariably Peter gave the same answer to his cousin’s question; invariably he felt shamed by it. For the real reason of that gun-carrying was Fear, the Fear of Open Spaces.

And when Peter used to ask, “Done any work, old man?” Francis would answer, “Oh, I’m just lying fallow for a bit.” For Francis Gordon had passed beyond the Fears into the land of No-Incentive.

Heron Baynet arrived at Sunflowers on Christmas Eve. Nothing about the house suggested tragedy: the hedges were clipped, the ground dug; holly decked the hall; above the oak dining-table hung a bunch of mistletoe; Peter’s study had been cleared for the children’s tree and presents. The day itself brought its usual gift-giving, its usual church-going, the usual roast-beef for lunch, the usual turkey, the usual champagne—and Francis Gordon who hobbled through Tebbits’ cowyard in full evening-kit and a fur-coat—for dinner.

The usual Christmas dinner-party! Yet all through it, Heron Baynet felt conscious of tension. To his professional mind, these three fairly ordinary people—the young wife, the convalescent and the invalided soldier—seemed somehow out of tune with the world and with each other; he sensed discord in the apparent harmony of their even small-talk. Instinctively, he began to analyse them, to look for tangible symptoms of that intangible tension.

What could be the trouble? Covertly, he studied Peter. The man looked thin, of course: that was to be expected after his illness. He spoke rather more slowly than usual, drank more than his share of wine, seemed to grip knife and fork. . . . “I wonder,” thought Heron Baynet. Then Fanny, entering hurriedly, caught her foot in the edge of the carpet, stumbled, recovered her balance. The doctor saw Peter’s face twitch for the fraction of a second; saw the lower jaw drop, jerk back into position as the fifth nerve sent its message of control from the taut brain. “Poor devil,” thought Heron Baynet. . . .

In the light of that subtle revelation, many things became clear to the neurologist’s mind: he understood his daughter’s occasional glances at her husband, Peter’s carefully modulated voice, the whole atmosphere of watchful distrust in which these two must have been living since his son-in-law returned from hospital. Professional instinct satisfied, he turned his attention to Francis.

But nothing in Francis Gordon’s demeanour betrayed tension. On the contrary, he seemed—compared with the super-alertness of Peter and Patricia—a mind gone mute. He talked, and he ate, and he drank, like an automaton. . . .

Meal over, Patricia left her three men alone in the small candle-lit dining-room. The maid brought coffee; Peter produced cigars. They talked for a little about the fall of the Asquith Cabinet, Lloyd George, Tanks, the chances of America coming in.

The last topic seemed to strike a responsive chord in Francis Gordon’s mind. His eyes brightened to it for a moment: then the flame in them went dead. Peter told about Charlie Henry; Heron Baynet led him from that to his own wounding.

“I don’t remember much after I was hit,” said Peter, and shied off the subject.

“But were you unconscious all the way to England?”

“I suppose so.”

Conversation languished for a moment. Then Peter edged his chair towards his father-in-law’s; began to talk medicine. Peter opened very carefully, feeling his way with each sentence towards the topic which for the moment obsessed him: but it did not take the doctor’s astute mind very long to realize that he was being pumped for information. And the information his son-in-law sought was all about one subject—tubercle. “At what age were people most liable to consumption?” “How did it start?” “Was it hereditary?” “How long did it take to kill a man?” “Could it be cured?” . . .

“Now why on earth,” thought Heron Baynet, “does a man who is obviously suffering from repressed shell-shock, want to know about tubercle?” And that night he sat up very late, peering into the flames of the wood-fire in his bed-room, seeing visions of this new science, the science of neurology, by which men who had learned how to die might be taught how to live.

Heron Baynet had planned his return to London for Boxing Day; but he cancelled his appointments by wire, and stayed on at Sunflowers. He felt his daughter’s happiness to be staked on a correct diagnosis of her husband’s mental condition; and as Peter’s reserve made direct methods impossible, the diagnosis necessitated vigilance and unceasing study.

After two days spent apparently in idleness, actually in the most minute observation, the doctor succeeded in decoying his daughter away from home, husband and children; suggested a little stroll through Arlsfield Woods.

It was a dull December afternoon; and as they took the footpath across the paddock, picked their way under leafless branches over slippery tree-roots, Patricia could not help contrasting this winter sombreness with the splendid springtime when she and Francis had first found Sunflowers. Then, the world had been one great promise; now, the world and her own hope seemed withered, never to blossom again. . . .

“I wanted to talk to you about Peter.” Her father’s voice interrupted reverie. “Does he ever fire that gun he carries about all the time?”

She looked up astonished. “No, I don’t think he ever does. Why do you ask, pater?”

But Heron Baynet only muttered, “H’m, I thought not”; and walked on in silence. “You’re worried about him, aren’t you?” he said at last.

“A little”—loyalty restrained her from giving the correct reason—“he doesn’t seem really well yet.”

“He isn’t. He’s very far from well. He’s about as ill as any one can be.”

“Pater!” she stopped in her walk, and they stood facing each other. “Not his lungs.”

“No”—the man spoke very gently—“not his lungs, but his mind. You’ve often heard me talk about shell-shock, Pat; and I’ve often bored you with my jargon of neurasthenia. Well, now you’ll have to listen to it all over again. Only this time, it’s got a personal application.”

He took her arm, and they resumed their walk, pacing slowly among the trees.

“Peter,” began Heron Baynet, “is suffering from acute neurasthenia brought on partly by actual shell-shock, and partly by the general strain of war. In a weaker character the symptoms would be perfectly plain—shaky hand, general jumpiness, irritability, forgetfulness. Peter is controlling all these symptoms—and Heaven knows what impulses—with the result that, sooner or later unless we can find some means to save him, his mind will give way altogether.”

“You don’t mean that he’ll go mad, pater.” Love and horror mingled in Patricia’s voice.

“Nothing of the sort,” said her father angrily. “Neurasthenia isn’t madness; any more than a sprained ankle is madness. Neurasthenia is a mind-sprain; and like all sprains, its primary treatment must be rest. Do you think Peter’s soul ever gives his mind a rest? Not a bit of it. Peter’s mind is afraid of going out by itself—that’s why he always carries that gun—but Peter’s soul says to it, ‘Afraid, are you? I’ll teach you to be afraid’; and off he goes for a walk. Result: he comes back with his mind a little more sprained than when he started. Peter’s mind wants his fingers to shake, his body to start when it hears some sudden noise: Peter’s soul says to his mind, ‘You let those fingers shake—and there’ll be trouble.’ Result: more mind-sprain.”

Heron Baynet elaborated his theory of the “soul and the mind”—known also in the patter of neurologists as the “mind and the brain,” or the “conscious and the subconscious”—till he succeeded in making clear to Patricia that the thing to be feared in Peter’s case was not madness, a wrong-functioning of the brain, but break-down, a non-functioning of it.

“But surely, pater,” she said at last, “if he’s as bad inside as you think, he’d have consulted you about it?”

“My dear, he’s afraid to.”

“Afraid?” Patricia laughed incredulously. In spite of all she had just heard, she could not yet bring herself to believe Peter afraid of anything. “Afraid to consult you?”

“Yes, afraid to consult me. Scared to death! Don’t you see, Pat, that the whole trouble lies in that one word, ‘Fear’? Do you think that your so-called ‘heroes’ aren’t afraid? Of course they are—otherwise they wouldn’t be heroes. The hero is the man who controls fear—not the man who doesn’t feel it. But the process of controlling fear can’t go on indefinitely. Every man has his limit. . . .”

“But Peter!” she interrupted, still unbelieving. “Peter!”

“Peter’s gone beyond his limit and his fear-controlling apparatus is breaking down; that’s all. Take his history, and you’ll see what I mean. At eighteen, he goes into business: that means anxiety, mind-strain, fear to be controlled; at twenty-one, his father dies—more mind-strain; he gets married, takes on more responsibilities; buys another business. . . . Then, comes the War; instead of going to it with an easy mind. . . . Well, you know what’s happened since 1914.” Heron Baynet broke off for a minute, resumed: “I felt, when he came home on leave in April that the strain was telling on him. However, apparently he gets over it; goes back to the front. What do we know after that? Practically nothing. He tells us that he had a ‘cushy time’ at Neuve Eglise, that he had rather a ‘rotten time’ on the Somme. At the end of the ‘rather rotten time’ he gets a crack on the head which keeps him unconscious for the best part of three days, a wound in the fleshy part of the arm,andbronchial pneumonia. How did he get bronchial pneumonia?”

“Exposure,” said Patricia.

“Exposure be sugared. He was picked up the same day. . . . By the way, has he ever spoken to you about consumption?”

“Yes. Twice. He said the children ought to sleep in the open air.”

“Consumption is one of the particular fears he can’t quite control. That, I’m certain of. I wonder what his other fears are—or aren’t.”

For all her anxiety, Patricia could not restrain a feeling of relief. One thing at least, her father’s explanation had taught her: that she might still win her husband’s love—“even if he is a coward,” she said aloud.

“A coward!”—Heron Baynet snapped at the word as he had snapped at the suggestion of madness. “A coward! Were you afraid before Primula was born?”

“A little,” she confessed.

“Well, multiply that fear by infinity—and you will have some idea of what Peter is going through. And remember, youknew; he knows nothing, except that he is afraid, and that to be afraid is to be”—Heron Baynet hesitated over the word—“caddish.”

Silently, they began to retrace their steps homewards. Already, light was failing among the trees. It seemed to Patricia that she walked in cold shadows—helpless.

“Can nothing be done?” she said at last.

“Without his willingness to be treated—nothing.”

“Will he have to go back to the front in March?”

For the first time that afternoon, her father laughed. “Not if I know anything about Medical Boards, Pat. He wouldn’t last ten days.” The doctor grew serious. “But that doesn’t help us much. The damage to his mind has got to be repaired somehow.Youmight start the process; I can’t.”

“I?” The monosyllable carried infinite query.

“Yes. You, and you only. Get his confidence; make him tell you—under pledge of secrecy—why he carries that gun; why he’s afraid of consumption for the children. Make him talk to you about the day he was wounded—about the horrors he’s seen.”

“Can’t you talk to him, pater? He never opens his mouth about that sort of thing to me.”—Her voice faltered.—“We’re not such good friends as we used to be, pater.”

Heron Baynet’s voice did not falter. “I know you’re not, Pat. But you’ve got to be. These repressions are killing Peter. Unless somebody can break them down, I won’t be answerable for the consequences. It’s no use my talking to him, he’d freeze up at once. Whereas you, you’re his wife.”

“But, Pater. . . .”

“Damn it, girl,”—the doctor’s voice rose to fury—“can’t you see that this is a matter of life or death. Youmustmake him talk. Make him drunk if you like—get drunk yourself—make love to him as if you were his mistress: but for God’s sake, make him talk.”

Patricia blushed scarlet; quickened her pace.

“And then?” she asked.

“Persuade him somehow that he’s got shell-shock, and to consult me about it.” For a moment, the doctor forgot his son-in-law: neurasthenia and its treatment lay very near his professional heart, and that heart was being steadily broken by War Office neglect. “Two years, I’ve been at them,” he burst out, “two years! And they’re only just beginning to realize that a wound in the mind can be as fatal as a wound in the body. Meanwhile, God knows how many brave men are being tortured.”

By now, they had reached the paddock-gate, stood gazing down on Sunflowers. The mellow house behind the leafless walnut-tree looked a veritable English home of peace; smoke spired lazily from its tall chimneys; its square windows glinted welcome. They heard the children’s voices shouting, “Daddy! Daddy!” saw Peter striding, gun over shoulder, to the front door.

“He’s been to see Francis again,” said Patricia.

“Agoraphobia,” thought Heron Baynet, “the Fear of Open Spaces. I wonder what particular kind of horror he sees every time he goes down across that little bit of meadow-land.”

But Patricia’s mind had suddenly remembered Francis; Francis, alone, night after night, in that quaint up-and-down cottage, firelight glowing sombrely on panelled walls, Prout and his “female” pottering in the red-tiled kitchen.

“Pater,” she said suddenly, “supposing you’re wrong in your diagnosis?”

“I’m never wrong about these things,” he answered, purposely boastful.

“Then tell me what’s the matter with Francis. Even I can seehe’snot normal.”

“Normal!”—Heron Baynet pulled a cigarette-case from his over-coat pocket, extracted and lit a Gianaclis—“of course he’s normal. That’s his trouble. A normal man trying to live an abnormal life.”

“It isn’t abnormal to live in the country.”

“No, it isn’t abnormal to live in the country,but”—for the second time that afternoon, Heron Baynet laughed and his daughter blushed—“but it is abnormal, especially for a man of Francis Gordon’s temperament, to live there like a monk.”

“But he doesn’t even work, pater,” protested Patricia.

“Why should he?” said her father. “He hasn’t got anybody to workfor.”

Thoughtfully, they passed into the house.

PART TWENTY-EIGHTWOMANCRAFT

After Heron Baynet’s departure, the influence of his disclosures became infinitely disturbing to his daughter’s mind.

Inheriting all the prejudices of ignorant generations—the generations who regarded nervous disorders as akin to lunacy, and made torture-chambers of our asylums—Patricia found it almost impossible to realize Peter’s condition. It needed all her reasoning power, all her affection, to conquer those prejudices, to stifle her instinct of revulsion from the abnormal.

She felt immensely sorry for him. She understood; and vowed to save him from the fears which—now that her mind had been opened—she saw behind his eyes. But she could not, at the outset, quite keep the word “madness” out of her thoughts. Mad! Supposing Peter were to go mad?

Nor, in her heart of hearts, could she quite help despising him for his fears—even as she despised Francis Gordon for his idleness. Peter was no longer a Man, her husband, some one to be looked up to, leaned on, consulted in emergencies—but a weakling, a creature to be protected.

For these thoughts, she hated herself; they shamed her, as his fears shamed Peter: and she set herself to conquer them, fearlessly, resolutely. So that, by the end of two days, she had almost accustomed herself to the idea of illness. Peter was ill—she said the word over and over again—ill, not mad, ill with a sickness that she alone could cure.

This idea of illness satisfied the motherhood in her—and of the matehood she was not even yet fully unaware.

If Patricia had been a religious woman, especially if she had been a Roman Catholic, her natural refuge in such a crisis would have been the priest. But Patricia—though she paid the customary lip-service of her caste in Arlsfield Church—regarded her God as she regarded her King. Both were symbols: the one a symbol of conduct, the other a symbol of country. As symbols one owed loyalty to both; but individually neither could be of the slightest assistance. Every normal human being, argued Patricia, must fight its way through the world unaided. . . .

Hitherto, her own battles had been purely personal: the fights of reason (a sensible General) against instincts (a horde of hare-brained savages); and hitherto—except for one lapse, falling in love with her own husband—reason had always triumphed. Reason must triumph again; only Reason—not instinct—could save Peter. . . .

Having thus persuaded herself, as the drunkard persuades himself of his perfect sobriety, that her passion for Peter would soon be a thing of the past, Patricia took a lonely walk, tried to sum up her problems.

First and foremost of these was to carry out her father’s instructions: to make Peter confess; break down the wall of reticent commonplaces which he had built up against her. How? She remembered her father’s words, “Make love to him as if you were his mistress!” The words themselves conveyed nothing whatever to a woman utterly unversed in the wiles of sex; but they filled her with a delicious feeling of fright. For a moment, the idea of being Peter’s “mistress” completely routed that calculating General, Reason. . . .

This “bed-room thought,” as Patricia phrased it, was so disturbing that reason took refuge among its minor problems. Peter’s leave had still ten weeks to run; long before it ended, she would find some way of gaining his confidence.

Meanwhile, the home, Peter’s home, demanded immediate attention. She really must get rid of Fry, Fry came later and later of a morning, left earlier and earlier of an evening, Fry overfed the animals, Fry hadn’t yet finished his seed-potato-sorting. . . . Thought became gloriously inconsecutive. . . . One oughtn’t to keep three servants. The children would have to go to school. The Lowndes Square purchase money wouldn’t last for ever. It was very good of Peter to have given her the Lowndes Square money. Peter always had been very good to her. . . .

By this time, she had circled Arlsfield Village, was beyond the Post Office. In front of her, the boundary road of Arlsfield Hall serpentined under leafless chestnuts. Still lost in thought, Patricia wandered on.

Peter’s mistress! Why mistress? What did a mistress give that wife couldn’t? Ridiculous! She smiled to herself. Give! What couldn’t she give to a man if only. . .

There are certain moments in the life of every woman, when the sex-antagonism disappears and she realizes the sex-necessity. Such a moment came to Patricia as she tramped sturdily along the leaf-sodden road that late-December afternoon of nineteen hundred and sixteen.

Hitherto, she had been content to regard the sex-intimacies as rather shameful necessities of married life. The man desired; the woman gave way to his desires. Her own desires, the secret pleasure she sometimes experienced in giving way to him, were of those savage hordes, the instincts, which Reason—very reasonably—did its utmost to suppress: Bedroom thoughts, in fact.

Bedroom thoughts! Suddenly she saw the absurdity of the phrase. If love meant anything at all, it meant mutuality; and mutuality could not exclude sex-instinct. Why should woman be ashamed of her desires? Bedroom thoughts—indeed. Absurd mock-modesty! Rubbish! Stuff and Nonsense! Early Victorianism at its soppiest extreme! . . .

And the woman of thirty tramped on. It was her moment of matehood: in that moment, she forgot her two children, her reduced income, her husband’s illness; realized nothing except this new and to her amazing truth—that the sex-need was mutual.

There came over her a great mood of clairvoyance. The word “mistress” no longer puzzled, no longer frightened. By her love, she interpreted the meaning of it: by her love, she saw the sex-thing whole. It sufficed not that a wife surrendered her body grudgingly, even though she became her husband’s pal, his childbearer, the manager of his home and the partner of his income. Marriage, to be perfect, required more than these. They twain must be one flesh, one in mutual desire as they were one in mutual interest. And in clean desire, love sanctifying, could be no shame.

Matehood-moment still on her, Patricia rounded the last bend of the road; sighted the mellow straggling roof of Francis Gordon’s cottage above the leafless elder-hedges.

Francis! In the light of her new vision, the man no longer seemed despicable. Broken, foolishly ashamed of physical infirmity, irresolute, unwilling or unable to work—one thing, at least, he kept sacred. “Living like a monk!” Her father’s words held the semblance of a sneer; but she, Patricia, understood.

And for the first time, understanding him, she respected this man. Intuition gave her the sure clue to his mind: like herself, Francis Gordon had climbed the pinnacles, seen the sex-thing whole. As to her, so to Francis Gordon, Love had vouchsafed the inner meanings; and now, he could accept no substitute for Love. Either the one woman,—pal and childbearer, partner and mistress; or this, the lonely cottage among the lonely woods. . . .

But intuition gave Patricia no clue to the heart of the problem, to the man’s renunciation. Blind to everything except her own immediate feelings, she saw only this straggling cottage which might have been a home—this house without its woman. A girl in America! In her ignorance, Patricia hated “that girl.” That girl must know Francis loved her. She corresponded with him; sent him post-cards when he didn’t write regularly. Then why didn’t she marry him? Obviously, because “that girl” was a flirt, a light woman, unworthy of love. . . .

By the time she reached the low flint-wall which divided Glen Cottage from the main-road, Patricia had worked herself up into a fine state of resolution. She would talk to Francis; warn him against “that girl” who was ruining his life, warn him against himself. . . .

But, unfortunately for resolution, Francis Gordon was out.

Prout, standing in the gabled doorway, told her that “Mister Peter had come for Mister Francis, and they’d gone up to Sunflowers.”

Patricia paused for one irresolute moment. Then she said, “Do you think you could get me a cup of tea, Prout, I’m feeling rather tired?”

“Certainly, Madam. Where will you have it, Madam? In the writing-room?”

“Yes, Prout. That will do nicely.”

She laid down stick and gauntlets; passed through the sombre oak-panelled hall-way, up the broad shallow staircase, into the long room above. “Here,” thought Patricia, “he ought to be writing.” She looked at the great desk under the window, across it to the swelling turf of Arlsfield Park: she looked at the cushioned settle by the writing-desk, at the fire in the Morgan-tiled grate, at the black-lacquer chairs, at the low bookshelves against the cream-distempered walls, at the écru velvet curtains, the maroon carpet on the floor. Then she walked deliberately to the desk; picked up Beatrice’s photograph.

“A fine face,” thought Patricia, “a good face.”

Prout, entering with the tea-tray, caught her in the act: she stood there, guiltily, frame in her hand; and the little gray-haired valet in the scrupulously brushed blue clothes stared at her over the rim of his high white collar. He, too, had fingered that photograph-frame; peered not once, but a hundred times, into those clear thoughtful eyes. . . .

Prout drew a little table from its corner by the fireplace, set down his tea-tray, arranged a chair. Patricia put back the photograph.

“Your tea, Madam,” said Prout; but he made no move to go.

“Prout,” began Patricia—and stopped as though she had accosted a stranger by mistake.

“Yes, Madam?” There was invitation in the valet’s voice.

Still, Patricia hesitated.

“You were going to ask, Madam?”

She plunged in headlong, “Prout, who is that girl?”

“That, Madam, is Miss Cochrane’s photograph”—the old man spoke slowly—“and, if I may be allowed to say so, Madam, it’s a great pity Mister Francis ever met her.”

“Why?” Patricia hated herself for asking the question: it meant the breaking-down of barriers, made her the old man’s accomplice. But Prout seemed to take no notice; his voice lost no accent of respect.

“Because, Madam, if it hadn’t been for Miss Cochrane,hemight have had a chance. What chance has he got now?” The respectful voice rose. “No chance, Madam.”

There fell a silence between these two: rules of conduct, honoured for generations, kept both tongue-tied. Patricia looked at her tea-cup, but made no attempt to drink from it: the valet stood stock still, as though awaiting an order. In the game of etiquette, it was the woman’s move.

“Tell me more about her,” said Patricia at last.

Etiquette went by the board; the valet turned suddenly man, an old man who spoke broken-heartedly about a boy he loved.

“Mrs. Jameson, she was the woman for him. I knew it the moment they met. We were on board a steamer, travelling from the Argentine to the West Indies. And I thought, I thought. . . .”

“Yes, Prout. You thought. . . .”

“I thought she was going to make him happy. . . . Look at him now, Mrs. Jameson. A broken man! Look at his life. Is it life? It isn’t life, Mrs. Jameson. It’s just death. And all”—he shook his hand at the photograph on the writing-table—“all because of one wretched woman who isn’t fit to polish his boots.Ipolish his boots, Mrs. Jameson;Irun this house for him;Ido my best to make him happy.I’dwork my fingers to the bone for him. Why? Not for the few shillings a week he gives me—I haven’t been in service forty years for nothing, Mrs. Jameson—but because . . . because I’m fond of him. Isshefond of him? Would she let him eat out his heart for her if she was fond of him? If she was fond of him, why didn’t she marry him then? Why doesn’t she marry him now? Write, write, write! Three years she’s been writing to him. And every time one of her letters comes, it makes him worse. Why doesn’t she stop writing to him? If she doesn’t want him, why can’t she leave him alone? Why can’t she leave him alone, Mrs. Jameson?”

The man stopped speaking: the valet went on, “Many’s the time I’ve thought of writing to her myself, Madam. But I’ve served the Gordons—father and son—for over twenty years. And I know my place, Madam.”

“And what would you have said in your letter, Prout?” Patricia asked the question almost automatically.

“I should have told Miss Cochrane the truth, Madam.” . . . The door closed silently. Patricia found herself alone.

A moment, she hesitated. The whole business seemed suddenly fantastic, out of its century. Men no longer died for love of one woman. Francis would get over this infatuation, recover his vitality, his joy of life. She could not do this thing. She, like Prout, “knew her place.”

Then, for the mood of matehood was still strong in her, Patricia rose slowly from her chair; walked towards the desk. Again, she picked up the photograph, gazed into the eyes of it. The eyes seemed to ask a question, a matehood question. “Tell me,” the eyes seemed to say, “tell me. I too, can give. . . .”

“What harm can it do?” thought Patricia. Her free hand, resting on a mass of papers, encountered something hard, something hard and flat. She put down the photograph; turned over the papers. . . . The Browning pistol lay at full cock, blue-black on the black wood of the desk; and she knew instinctively that Francis, disturbed at Peter’s entrance, must have turned the papers to hide it. . . .

Now, Patricia hesitated no longer. His pen, the pen she had given him, was lying in a little lacquer pen-tray—her gift too. She picked it out; unscrewed the mechanism; sat down to the desk; drew a sheet of note-paper from its rack; and wrote, wrote for the life of a man. . . .

Her quick movements shook the desk-top; till the pistol beside her quivered. It quivered to her hand as she wrote. She could not keep her eyes away from the pistol. . . .

“Francis has probably told you about me. I am his cousin’s wife—his cousin Peter’s wife. He does not know I am writing to you—he has never told meor any oneabout you. I am writing this in his house—he is not here. I don’t quite know what to say to you. I can only tell you that he needs youvery desperately. If you love him you ought to come to him. I don’t know if you love him or if you can come to him—but I do know that it is a question of life or death for Francis.” . . .

She signed her name and address legibly at foot of the letter; rose with it in her hand; walked to the fireplace; dried the single sheet at the flame. Again, the whole affair seemed fantastic. She wanted to throw the letter on the fire: till, looking over her shoulder, she saw the pistol, black and menacing on the desk-top.

She rang the bell; walked back to the writing-desk; found an envelope, folded the sheet; sealed it up.

“You rang for me, Madam,” said Prout, appearing silently in the doorway.

“Yes.” She handed him the closed envelope. “You know Miss Cochrane’s address, I suppose.”

“Yes, Madam”—obviously, the valet wanted to thank her, to ask questions. He began to stammer something; but Patricia cut him short.

“Have it registered, please: and, Prout”—her eyes flickered to the pistol on the writing-desk—“I thought you said you were fond of him!”

She was out of the room and down the stairs before the old man could answer. He heard the rattle of her stick, the clang of front door closing, as he stood by the window, pistol grasped gingerly in one hand, unaddressed letter in the other. “I ought to have seen her out,” thought the valet. “I ought to have seen her out.”

Twice, as she climbed the meadow-path, Patricia wanted to turn back. She had behaved like a lunatic. She had done two unpardonable things: gossiped with a servant, interfered between a man and a woman. The letter must not be sent—the letter must be destroyed. But Patricia did not turn back. . . .

Among the haystacks in the field behind his cow-yard, old man Tebbits was feeding his chickens. Patricia heard his quaint treble: “Come birds—come birds—come birds”; came upon him suddenly as she rounded the first rick. He plucked cap from head, said:

“Good-evening, missis.”

“Good evening, Mr. Tebbits.” She could see that old man Tebbits was ripe for a gossip. He began to talk as he scattered the corn, and she stood listening to him for a full five minutes. “Middlings was up again—and bad. He never remembered them so bad. And the bran. You couldn’t really call it bran. Same with the toppings. That gilt of hers would make a fine sow. Store-pigs didn’t pay like they used to. Ten-week pigs didn’t pay so bad.Healways killed ‘brokes.’ ‘Brokes’ was no good.”

Patricia had not yet learned the meaning of a “broke”; but she found Tebbits’ gossip comforting. Here, at least, was somebody normal, somebody of the old kindly world, the world, that had gone to smash in August, 1914. . . . Reluctantly, she made her excuses, bade him good-night; picked her way through the cow-yard, out on to the road: reluctantly, she swung the gate of Sunflowers, passed to her home.

It was nearly five o’clock, dusk deepening to darkness. In the paddock, she could see Fry’s burly figure, locking-up the chicken-houses. But no lamp yet glowed from the hall windows. Perhaps Francis and Peter had gone upstairs to the children. . . .

She turned the knob of the front-door, heard Francis’ voice through the velvet curtains. “Well, anyway it’s a gentleman’s death.” She entered quietly, stood still for a moment. Peter’s voice answered: “Oh, of course a man’s got a right to kill himself if he wants to. No one asked us into this rotten world.”

Patricia slipped out again, closing the door gently behind her; walked round to the back of the house. Fry was just locking up the stable-door. She called out, “Good-night, Fry.” He answered surlily, “Good-night, Madam.” In the red-tiled kitchen, Fanny—a fat slovenly fair-haired girl—was preparing tea. Both lamps were lit; the kitchen glowed hospitably. Patricia scraped her boots; strode in.

“Have the children had their tea, Fanny?”

“Yes, mum. Elizabeth’s upstairs with them now, mum.”

“Why isn’t the lamp in the hall lit?”

“I’m sorry, mum. I forgot it, mum.”

“Go and light it, please.”

The girl rattled a box of matches in her apron pocket; went out. Patricia leaned her stick against the wall; drew off her gauntlets; re-arranged the tea-tray. Through the door, which Fanny had left open, she heard Peter’s, “Mrs. Jameson not come in yet, Fanny?” and the girl’s answer, “Yes. She’s just come in.” . . .

The two cousins were sitting in armchairs by the fireplace. They rose as Patricia entered. Francis said, “Good evening, Pat”; Peter, “Hallo, old thing.”

“Why didn’t you ask for the lamp?” asked Patricia.

“Forgot all about it,” said Peter.

“And the room smells like a public-house.”

“You always say that, Pat.” Francis plopped back into his chair. “It’s Peter’s fault, not mine. He ought to give up cigars now he’s out of the business. Besides, he’ll ruin his lungs. . . .”

Patricia saw Peter wince; turned away to draw the brown window-curtains. Fanny clattered in with the tea-tray; put it down on a stool by the fireplace.

“Where are you going to sit, Pat?” Peter was still on his feet, back to the fire.

“Inyourchair, I think.” She smiled at him. He walked gingerly round the tea-tray; drew himself up a third chair. She poured out; handed them their cups, plates, cakes and bread-and-butter. Talk languished. “What have you two been discussing all the afternoon?” she asked.

“Suicide,” grinned Francis; “nice cheery topic!” and went on, Peter approving, to elaborate his theory.

“Suicide’s the last act of a coward,” decided Patricia.

“Or an altruist,” interrupted Francis.

“What the devil’s an altruist?” asked Peter.

“An altruist”—Patricia rose from the tea-table—“is a woman who leaves a nice comfortable fire to see that Elizabeth doesn’t drown Evelyn and Primula in their baths.”

But she went upstairs heavy-hearted; found no joy in the laughter of her children, in their bath-games, their quaint prayers, their snuggling “good-nights.” . . .

Francis stayed for dinner; stayed endlessly. After coffee, he and Peter drew sofa to the fireplace in the hall; began to discuss the war. Patricia, making pretence of reading the newspapers, watched them covertly from her armchair.

Both the cousins were in day-clothes: Peter still wore breeches and gaiters, his rough homespun shooting-coat; Francis, a loose gray-green suit of Lovat tweed. Her own black evening dress, high-throated, lawn at wrist, seemed to isolate her from their bodies, as thought isolated her from their conversation.

They talked quietly, but with the bitter unreasoned conviction of the fighting-man. Patricia could never accustom herself to that bitterness. In their eyes, only the fighting-man existed: they could not see the non-combatant. To them, non-combatants were traitors, shirkers, conscientious objectors, self-advertisers, money-grubbers; always ready to betray the fighting-man, to cheat him and rob him, to preach to him first and leave him in the lurch afterwards.

“Patriotism!” sneered Peter. “Why, the Boches are ten times more patriotic than we are. There aren’t any conscientious objectors in Germany.”

Francis sneered back, “Never mind, old boy. We shall never sheathe the sword till every munition-worker has got his own motor-car.”

“Don’t you believe it, Francis. Our damned politicians would sheathe the sword tomorrow if they saw the chance. Take it from me, they’ll do us in the eye before it’s over.”

Patricia flung down her newspapers. “You’re perfectly impossible, both of you. Can’t you see anything good in England? Isn’t everybody working? . . .”

“Isn’t everybody getting paid for it?”—Peter’s eyes darkled. “Who’s paid worst? The front-line infantryman, of course. That’s war all over. The more dangerous the job, the less the pay. And if it wasn’t for the infantryman, you’d have had the Huns in England. . . .”

“No, we shouldn’t,” interrupted Francis. “The Navy’s still at sea, isn’t it?”

“It is,” crowed Peter. “And that’s the worst paid service of the lot.”

She picked up her paper. It was useless to argue with them; they must talk themselves out. And again the thought of madness overwhelmed Patricia. The whole scene—the two lounging men, the cosy lamp-lit room—became unreal. She was in a lunatic asylum. Peter and Francis were both dead: their minds, the minds she had once known so well, existed no longer: two ghosts, two utter strangers, occupied these bodies. Two mad ghosts of minds she had known!

The hallucination passed. She felt mentality strengthen in her, felt resolution rise triumphant over weakness. These were not lunatics, but two sufferers, two sick men. And she, Patricia, would cure them both. To cure, to heal—these were the blessed functions of her womanhood. . . .

At last, Francis said good-night; lit his final cigarette; limped towards the door. Patricia helped him on with his coat; found him his torch; watched it dancing over the gravel towards the gate. “Take care of yourself,” she called after him: and thought of Prout, waiting-up in that lonely cottage. She could trust Prout—but for how long? And the girl in America? What would “that girl” do? If I were her, thought Patricia, nothing on earth would keep me from him. . . . Thought expired: she turned back to her husband.

Peter had not moved from the sofa. He sat hunched-up, peering into the fire. His face showed thin and drawn in the flame-light. A great throb of pity for him suffused her: she wanted to fling herself at his feet, to ask his pardon. Mad? Her Peter mad? How had she dared so much as think it of him? He was only ill, ill and sad and broken. His life, his dreams, his health—everything he valued in the world—had gone to smash. He had flung them down, a free gift, in the temple of honour. And now, now he had no more to give! He was spent in honour, exhausted of giving. But she—she to whom he had given, all his life, ungrudgingly—she the acceptor of his gifts—she was not spent; her giving had not yet begun, the fountain of it gushed in her veins, ungrudging, inexhaustible, a great bright fountain of giving. . . .

“Peter!” Her voice woke him from reverie. He felt her warm arms round his neck; her warm lips on his cheek. Instinctively, he recoiled from them: they seemed to invade the privacy of his thought. The warmth of womanhood had no place among those cold devils of fear with whom he walked o’ nights. . . . But she would not let him go. Her arms clung to him; her lips explored his face; her body snuggled against him on the sofa. . . . “Peter,” she was whispering at his ear—“make love to me. Make love to me tonight. I can’t bear you to be away from me any more. . . . You’re being cruel to me, Peter. . . . I can’t go on doing without you, I just can’t. . . . Despise me if you like: but don’t reject me. I want you so . . . I’m shameless. I haven’t got any shame left in me. But I want you, Peter: I want you as you used to want me. You used to want me once, Peter.” . . . He lay in her arms, passive, a man struck dumb. . . . “Peter, you must love me tonight. I can’t be alone any more. Oh, boy, boy”—the old love-word quivered at her lips—“I want you so much. I can’t be alone any more, boy. Are you afraid to love me? . . .”

He sprang from the sofa with a great shrill cry: “Afraid! Yes. I am afraid. God forgive me for being a coward. I am afraid.”

She dragged him down to her. “You mustn’t be afraid of me, boy. I love you. Do you understand. I’m your wife, your slave, your mistress. . . .”

He wrenched himself free; stood up to his full height. She saw him through a sheen of tears, towering above her. His voice carried down to her through immense distances:—

“You mustn’t touch me, Pat. You mustn’t degrade yourself by touching me. I am unclean, a leper in the sight of God and man. The soul inside me has putrefied. Putrefied! You don’t know what that means. I don’t want you to know what that means. It stinks. My soul inside me stinks. My brain is full of filthy pictures. They haunt me. And I am afraid. . . .”

She, too, was afraid; but love in her cast out fear. Brown eyes kindling, she rose to him; twined her arms about him; locked hands behind his neck; clung to him with all her body. She would have kissed him on the lips; but his lips evaded her. The breath whistled through his lips. His heart pounded against her breasts as she forced him back to the sofa. . . . Her hands unlocked from his neck. Her hands fondled him. Lower and lower she sank against him, closer and closer. She could feel all his body quiver to her. He shook under her hands as a ship shakes when she heaves propeller free. . . .

“What are you frightened of, boy? Tell me what you’re frightened of. I’m your wife, boy. I won’t hurt you.”

Suddenly, she felt his arms round her; his lips at her ear. Clinging to her, straining her to him, he spoke: fiercely, as men speak in fight:—

“You mustn’t love a coward, Pat. God knows I want you. God knows I mustn’t take you. . . . I am a coward. Do you know what that means? . . . I’ll tell you. . . . Everything frightens me. . . . I am afraid to go out alone. . . . I am afraid for the children, for you, for myself. . . . I am afraid of life. . . . I am afraid to go on living. . . . And I haven’t got the pluck to kill myself. . . . Dear Christ, I haven’t even got the pluck to kill myself. . . .”

He began to cry, clinging to her, straining her to him: cruel dry sobs, deep down in the throat. She could not move; she could not see him. Her breasts were two burning torments; her body burned as with fire.

“Peter”—would he hear her? O God! would he hear her?—“I don’t care if you’re a coward. I don’t care about anything. Only make love to me. Make love to me, boy, or I shall die. . . .”

All that night, he lay in her arms; sleepless. All that night she lay listening to him, listening to the horrors in his brain. In the darkness, he told her of dark things, things hidden from sheltered women. For he had walked many nights with Fear, none aiding; till Fear had bitten deep into his soul. . . .

All that night she lay listening to these things, unafraid, glorying that he should tell her of them, pitying him, loving him, persuading him. . . .

But when at last, promise given, he fell asleep on her naked breast; when at last dawn peeped at her through the chinks of the window-curtains; Fear came to Patricia—and with Fear, Fear’s kinswoman, self-reproach.

Would he hate her when he awoke? Would he retract the promise given? Had she robbed him of honour, lost him his lonely battle for self-respect? Had her thoughts been all of him? Had she given herself all selflessly?

Self-reproach whispered to her in the dawning: “Delilah! Delilah! Delilah!”

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