9075
WO weeks later they took possession of me. They did it with so much friendliness that at the end of a month it was as though we had always lived together. Even the furniture fitted into all my odd nooks and angles as if it had been made especially for me. And, indeed, it might have been, for most of it was created in the reign of Queen Anne, at which period my walls were, as one might say, feeling their legs. It was very pleasant when night had settled down and everyone was sleeping, to listen to the conversations which were carried on between the new-comers and my own floors and stairs. One grandfather's clock was particularly interesting in his reminiscences. He had told the time to Dr. Johnson and had ticked away the great lexicographer's last hours. On this account he was inclined to be amusingly self-important; it was a permanent source of grievance with him that, so far as the present generation was concerned, his pedigree was unknown. There were times when he would work himself into such passions that his weights would drop with a bang. He was always sorry for it next morning and ashamed to face the little lady. As she came down to breakfast, she would catch sight of his hands and say, “So the poor old clock has stopped again! The old fellow's worn out. We shall have to send him to the mender's.”
Perhaps it is hardly fair to repeat this gossip about one piece of the furniture, for everything, myself included, was old; whether we were tables, chairs or stair-cases, we all had our crochets and oddities. But, however much we differed among ourselves, we were united in adoring the youth of the little lady and her children. More than any of us the whispering parrot adored her.
The whispering parrot was a traveller. He had come from Australia fifty years ago.
He played so indispensable a part in producing the happy ending that he deserves an introduction.
He had been the gift of the children's grandfather, a retired General. His plumage was Quaker grey, all except his breast and crest which were a wonderful rose-pink. He had black beady eyes which took in everything; what they saw, he invariably remembered. He had a confidential, hoarse way of speaking, that never rose above a whisper. When you heard him for the first time you supposed that he had a bad sore throat. He had a favorite question which he asked whenever he thought he was not being paid sufficient attention, “What shall we talk about?” He would ask it with his head cocked on one side, while he rubbed his feathers up and down the bars. “What shall we talk about?” he would ask the little lady as she sat sewing beneath the lamp of an evening. She was always by herself when the children had been put to bed. She had no callers and never went anywhere.
“Talk about Polly!” she would say. “I don't know, you good grey bird. Did you think I was lonely? Well, let's see! Who loves Mummy best? Can you answer me that?”
Then he would cock his head still farther on one side and pretend to think furiously. She would have to ask him several times before he would attempt an answer. Usually, when he got ready, he would clear his throat and whisper, “The dustman.” After which he would laugh as though his sides were aching: “What a naughty Polly! What a naughty Polly!”
She would maintain a dignified silence till she had emptied her needle. Then she would glance at him reproachfully, “Think again, Mr. Impudence—not the dustman.”
So he would think again, and having clambered all over his cage and hung upside down to amuse her, would hazard, “Polly?”
“Not Polly.”
Then he would make any number of suggestions, though he knew quite well the answer she required. After each wrong guess he would go off into gales of ghostly merriment. At last he would say very solemnly, “Robbie.”
“Yes, Robbie,” she would reply and scratch his head; after which the game was ended. Soon she would fold away her work, put out the lights and climb the narrow stairs to her quiet bed.
It seemed very sad that, when she was so young, she should have to spend so many hours in talking to a rascally old bird. One can be young for so short a time. How short, those who are old know best.
There were evenings, however, when, after the parrot had answered “Robbie,” she would whisper, “I wonder!” and clasp her hands in her lap, gazing straight before her. On these evenings she would sit very late and would look down at her feet from time to time, as though expecting to see someone crouching there. Taxis would chug their way into the square and draw up at one or other of the dolls' houses. The taxi door would open and after a few seconds close with a bang. There would be the rustle of a woman's dress and the tripping of her slippered feet across the pavement; the bass muttering of her husband paying the driver; laughter; the rattling of a key in the latch; and silence. The little lady would sit quite motionless, listening to the secret homecomings of lovers. Then at last she would nod her head, “You're right, Polly, I expect. There's no one else. No doubt it's Robbie who loves me best.”
9083
UT it wasn't Robbie. The diningroom window was the first to make the discovery. Being on the ground-floor, it gazes across the pavement under the trees and sees many things after nightfall which are missed by the upper storeys. The first and second time that something unusual happened I was not told; not until the third time was I taken into the secret. The dining-room window does most of the watching for the entire house; it sees so much that it has learnt to be discreet.
It was Armistice night when the unusual happening first occurred. London had gone mad with relief from suspense. Wherever a barrel-organ could be found people were dancing. Where more suitable music was not available, tin-cans were being beaten with a dervish, rhythmic monotony. Dance the people must. Their joy had gone into their feet; they could not convince themselves that peace had come till they had danced themselves to a standstill. They invented impromptu steps, dancing twenty abreast in the open spaces, humming any tune that caught their fancy, with their arms linked in those of strangers. But there were no strangers that night; everyone was a friend. Top-hats, evening-dress, corduroys and privates' uniforms hobnobbed together. A mighty roar of laughter and singing went up from thousands of miles of streets, dim-lit and dusk-drenched to ward off the ancient peril from the air. How suddenly unmodern peril had become! All London laughed; all England; all the world. The sound reached the Arctic; polar bears lumbered farther northward, stampeded by the strum of our guffaws. If there were inhabitants on Mars, they must have heard. The war was won. The news was so incredible that we had to make a noise to silence our doubts.
Everything that could rejoice was out under the stars making merry. We had hidden so long, walked so stealthily, wept so quietly, hated so violently that our right to be happy was almost too terrible to bear. We expressed our joy foolishly, hysterically, inadequately by shouting, embracing, climbing lamp-posts, riding on the roofs of taxis. What did it matter so long as we expressed it and brought the amazing truth home to ourselves? The last cannon had roared. The final man had died in battle. The wicked waste of white human bodies was ended. There would be no more rushing for the morning papers and searching the casualty lists with dread; no more rumours of invasions; no more musterings for new offensives. The men whom we loved were safe; they had been reprieved at the eleventh hour. We should have them home presently, seated by their firesides. It seemed like the fulfilment of a prophet's ecstasy; as though sorrow and crying had passed away and forever there would be no death.
There were two people who did not dance, climb lamp-posts, beat tin-cans and ride on the roofs of taxis that night. Perhaps they were the only two in London; they were both in Dolls' House Square. The little lady was one. She had tucked Joan and Robbie safely in their beds. She had kissed them “Good-night” and turned the gas on the landing to a jet. She had gone part way down the narrow stairs and then... and then she had come back. She had picked up Joan and carried her into Robbie's room. When the two heads were lying close together on the pillow, she had seated herself in the darkness beside them.
The little boy stretched up his arms to pull her down; she resisted. His hands wandered over her face and reached her eyes. They were wet. His heart missed a beat. He knew what that meant. So often in the dark, dark night he had wakened with the sure sense that she was crying and had tiptoed down the creaking stairs to creep in beside her and place his small arms tightly about her.
“Never mind; you have me, Mummy.” That was what he always said. He whispered it now.
“Yes, I have my wee man.”
“And me, Mummy,” Joan murmured sleepily.
“Mummy knows. She has you both. Don't worry about her. She's feeling silly tonight.”
“Because you're happy?” Joan questioned.
“Yes, happy for so many little boys and girls whose soldier daddies will be coming back to them soon. Don't talk any more. Go sleepy-bye.”
But Robbie knew that it wasn't happiness that made her cry; he knew that she was crying because she had no soldier to come back. What could he say to comfort her? His eyes grew drowsy while he thought about it. He waited till Joan was in Sleepy-bye Land, then with an effort he opened his eyes.
“Mummy, do you know what I'd like best for Christmas?”
“I thought you were sleeping. Don't tell me now. There's heaps of time. It's six weeks till Christmas.”
“But Joan and I have talked about it,” he persisted. “We don't want him, if you don't want him.”
“What is he, dear? If he doesn't cost too much, you shall have him.”
Robbie procrastinated now that he had brought his mother to the point of listening. It was a delicate proposal that he was about to make. “I don't know whether you can get one,” he hesitated. “A boy at my school got one without asking, and it wasn't even Christmas.”
He was sitting up in bed now, very intense and serious, and very much awake.
“But you've not told me yet what it is you want. If you don't tell me, I can't say whether I can afford it.”
She slipped her arm about the square little body and feeling how it trembled, held it close against her breast. He hid his face in the hollow of her neck. “Robbie's place,” she whispered. “If it's difficult to say, whisper it to mother there.”
His lips moved several times before a sound came and then, “If it isn't too much trouble, we should like to have a Daddy.”
Against his will she held him back from her, trying to see his eyes. “But why?”
It was he who was crying now. “Oh Mummy, I didn't mean to hurt you.... To be like all the other little boys and girls.” When at last he was truly asleep and she had come down to the lamp-lit room in which she sewed, she did not take up her work. The parrot tried to draw her into conversation with his eternal question, “What shall we talk about?”
“Nothing tonight, Polly,” she said. Presently she crossed the room and, pulling back the curtains, stood staring out into the blackness. So her children had felt it, too—the weight of loneliness! She had tried so hard to prevent them from sharing it; had striven in so many ways to be their companion. Try as she would, she could never make up for a father's absence. She could never give them the sense of security that a man could have given without effort, even though he had loved them less. It was a bitter realisation—one which vaguely she had always dreaded must come to her. It was doubly bitter coming to her now, on a night when all the world was glad. She might be many things to her children; she could never be a man.... What did Robbie think? That you bought a father from an agency or engaged him through an advertisement? She smiled sadly, “Not so easy as that.”
“What shall we talk about?” asked the parrot.
She drew the curtains together, extinguished the lights and groped her way up to bed.
But her eyes had not peered far enough into the blackness. There was another person in London who had not danced or climbed lamp-posts or ridden on the roofs of taxis that night. For three hours he had watched the little house from the shadow of the trees across the road. From the pavement, had you been passing, you would hardly have distinguished him as he leant against the garden-railings. The only time he gave a sign of his presence was when the red flare of his cigarette betrayed him. He did not seem to be planning harm to anyone; he could not have done much harm in any case, for the left sleeve of his coat hung empty. He was simply waiting for something that he hoped might happen. At last his patience was rewarded when she drew aside the curtain and stood with the lighted room behind her, staring out into the blackness. Only when she had again hidden herself and all the house was in darkness, did he turn to go. He was there the next night and the next. It was after his third night of watching that the dining-room window told me.
9095
HE fourth night he was there again. By this time everything in the house, from the kettle in the kitchen to the carpet on the topmost landing, was aware that a one-armed man was hidden beneath the trees across the road, watching. The whole house was on the alert, listening and waiting—everybody, that is to say, except the people most concerned, who inhabited us. It seemed strange that they alone should be in ignorance. The grandfather clock did his best to tell them. “Beware; take care. Beware; take care,” he ticked as his pendulum swung to and fro. They stared him in the face and read the time by his hands, but they had no idea what he was saying.
What could it be that the watching man wanted? Whatever it was, he wanted it badly, for it was by no means pleasant to stand motionless for several hours when the November chill was in the air. Nor did he seem to find it pleasant, for every now and then he coughed and shook himself like a dog inside his coat, and sunk his chin deeper into his collar.
He had been there since six o'clock. He had seen the cook and the housemaid come up the area-steps and meet their respective sweethearts under the arc-light at the end of the square. There was only one other grown person in the house beside the little lady—Nurse; and Nurse had been in bed since the afternoon with a sick headache. He could not have known that. It was at precisely eight that he consulted his luminous wrist-watch, crossed the road, hesitated and raised the knocker very determinedly, as if he had only just arrived and had not much time to spare.Rat-tat-tat!The sound echoed alarmingly through the silence. The little lady dropped her sewing in her lap and listened. The sound was repeated.Rat-tat-tat!It seemed to say, “Come along. Don't keep me waiting. You've got to let me in sooner or later. You know that.”
“It can't be the postman at this hour,” she murmured, “and yet it sounds like his knock.”
Laying her work on the table beneath the lamp, she rose from her chair and descended. She opened the door only a little way at first, just wide enough for her to peer out, so that she could close it again if she saw anything disturbing.
“So you do live here!” The man outside spoke gladly. “I guessed it could be no one else the moment I saw that the house was no longer empty.”
She opened the door a few more inches. His tone puzzled her by its familiarity. His face had not yet come into the ray of light which slanted from the hall across the steps.
“You don't recognise me?” he questioned. “I called to let you know that I did fetch that taxi. It's been on my mind that you thought I deserted you. Taxi-cabs were hard to find in an air-raid.”
She flung the door wide. “Why it's——”
She didn't know how to call him—how to put what he was into words. He had been simply “the American officer”—that was how she had named him in talking with the children. He had been often remembered, especially during the fireside hour when in imaginary adventures he had been the hero of many stories. How brave she had made him and how often she had feared that he was dead! There were other stories which she had told only to herself, when the children were asleep and the house was silent. And there he stood on the threshold, with the same gallant bearing and the same eager smile playing about his mouth. “I've always been loved and trusted; you love and trust me, too”—that was what his smile was saying to her.
Her heart was beating wildly; but nothing of what she felt expressed itself in what she said. “I'm by myself. I've let the maids go out. I'm terribly apologetic for having treated you so suspiciously.”
He laughed and stepped into the hall. “I seem fated to find you by yourself; you were alone last time. I'm in hospital and have to be back by ten. Won't you let me sit with you for half an hour?”
He had begun to remove his top-coat awkwardly. His awkwardness attracted her attention.
“Please let me do that for you.”
“Oh, I'm learning to manage. It's all right.... Well, if you must. Thanks.” She didn't dare trust herself. There was a pricking sensation behind her eyes. She motioned to him to go first. As she followed him up the stairs, she gazed fixedly at his flattened left side, where the sleeve was tucked limply into the tunic-pocket. She knew that when she was again face to face with him she must pretend not to have noticed.
He entered the room and stood staring round. “The same old room! But it didn't belong to you then. How did you manage it?”
“Easily, but not on purpose.”
“Truly, not on purpose?” His tone was disappointed.
“No, not on purpose. I didn't know the name of the square or the number of the house that night. I stumbled on it months later by accident. It was still to let.”
“So you took it? Why did you take it?”
“Because I'd liked it from the first and it suited me,” she smiled. “Why else?”
“I thought perhaps...”
“Well, say it. You're just like Robbie. When Robbie wants to tell me something that's difficult, he has a special place against which he hides his face; it's easier to tell me there. You men are all such little boys. If it's difficult to tell, you do the same and say it without looking at me.”
She reseated herself beneath the lamp and took up her sewing. “Now tell me, why did you want me to say that I took it on purpose?”
“I don't quite know. Perhaps it was because, had I been you, I should have taken it on purpose. One likes to live in places where he has been happy, even though the happiness lasted only for an hour.”
He wandered over to the couch before the fire and sat down where he could watch her profile and the slope of her throat beneath the lamp. The only sound was the prick of the needle and the quiet pulling through of the thread. It had all happened just as he would have planned it. He was glad that she was alone. He was glad that it was in this same room that they had met. He was glad in a curious unreasoning way for the faint fragrance of Jacqueminot that surrounded her. It had been just like this at the Front that he had thought of her—thought of her so intensely that he had almost caught the scent and the rustle of her dress, moving towards him through the squalor of the trench. Through all the horror the brief memory of her gentleness had remained with him. And what hopes he had built on that memory! He had told himself that, if he survived, by hook or by crook he would search her out. In hospital, when he had returned to England, all his impatience to get well had been to get to her. In his heart he had never expected success. The task had seemed too stupendous. And now here he was, sitting with her alone, the house all quiet, the fire shining, the lamp making a pool of gold among the shadows, and she, most quiet of all, taking him comfortably for granted and carrying on with her woman's work. At last he was at rest; not in love with her, he told himself, but at rest.
It was she who broke the silence. “How did you know? What made you come so directly to this house?”
He met her eyes and smiled. “Where else was there to come? It was the one place we both knew. I took a chance at it.” And then, after a pause, “No, that's not quite true. I was sent up to London for special treatment. The first evening I was allowed out of hospital, I hurried here and, finding that our empty house was occupied, stayed outside to watch it.”
“But why to watch it?”
“Because it was a million to one that you weren't the tenant. Before I rang the bell I wanted to make certain. You see I don't know your name; I couldn't ask to see the lady of the house. If she hadn't been you, how could I have explained my intrusion?”
“And then you made certain?”
He nodded. “You came to the window on Armistice night and stood for a few minutes looking out.”
“I remember.” She shivered as if a cold breath had struck her. “I was feeling stupid and lonely; all the world out there in the darkness seemed so glad. I wish you had rung my bell. That was three nights ago.”
“You mean why did I let three nights go by. I guess because I was a coward. I got what we call in America 'cold feet.' I thought...”
He waited for her to prompt him. She sat leaning forward, her hands lying idle in her lap. He noticed, as he had noticed nearly a year ago, the half-moon that her shoulders made in the dimness. She was extraordinarily motionless; her motionlessness gave her an atmosphere of strength. When she moved her gestures said as much as words. Nothing that she did was hurried.
“Tell me what you thought.” she said quietly. She spoke to him as she would have spoken to Robbie, making him feel very young and little. When she spoke like that there was not much that he would not have told her.
“I thought that you might not remember me or want to see me. We met so oddly; after the lapse of a year you might easily have regarded my call as an impertinence.”
“An impertinence!” There were tears in her eyes when she raised her head. “You lost your arm that I and my children might be safe, and you talk about impertinence.”
“Oh, that!” He glanced down at his empty sleeve. “That's nothing. It's the luck of the game and might have happened to anybody.”
“But you lost it for me,” she re-asserted, “that I might be safe. You must have suffered terribly.”
Seeing her distress, he laughed gaily. “Losing an arm wasn't the worst that might have happened. I'm one of the fortunate ones; I'm still above ground. The thing wasn't very painful—nothing is when you've simply got to face it. It's the thinking about pain that hurts.... Hulloa, look at the time; I can just get back to the hospital by ten. If we're late, they punish us by keeping us in next night.”
At the top of the stairs as she was seeing him out, he halted and looked back into the room. “It's quiet and cosy in there. I don't want to leave; I feel like a boy being packed off to school. You can't understand how wonderful it is after all the marching and rough times and being cut about to be allowed to sit by a fire with a woman. I loved to watch you at your sewing.”
“It's because you're tired,” she said, “more tired than you know. You must come very often and rest.”
9109
N the weeks that followed the little house came to know him well. Everybody in the little house treated him as though his injury were a decoration, which had been won especially in their defence. They were prouder to see him come walking up their steps with his blue hospital band on his remaining arm, than if Sir Douglas Haig himself had called upon them. Nobody took any count of the frequency of his visits—nobody except himself. Nobody seemed to think it strange that the moment the doctors had finished his dressings, he should wander off to Dolls' House Square. Nobody seemed to guess just how fond he was of the little lady. He hardly guessed himself. There were times when he wondered exactly how fond he was. He did not believe he was in love with her; the feeling that he had was too gentle. He had always understood that love was exciting, passionate and tumultuous with dreads, whereas in her presence he knew neither fears nor hesitancies. He wasn't the least in terror that he would lose her. He felt simply safe, the way a ship might feel when the winds had ceased to buffet and it lay still in a sheltered harbour on a level keel. This feeling of safety struck him as an extraordinary sensation to be produced in a soldier by a woman; he was a trifle ashamed of it, as though it were not quite manly.
While he spoke with her, he found himself believing with a child-like faith that all women were mothers and that the world was good. He knew that for the present he could not do without her, but he was at a loss to imagine what he would do with her for always. She was like religion—she went beyond him, was bigger and better. He only dimly understood her, but was comfortable in believing that everything hidden was as kind as the part he knew. In a strangely intimate way he worshipped her, as a child adores his mother, thinking her the most perfect and beautiful being in the world. He discovered in her a wisdom of which nothing in her conversation gave the least indication; her unhurried attitude towards life created the impression. If this were love, then all the hearsay information he had gathered on the subject was mistaken.
There were days when, after his wound had been dressed and he had left the hospital, he made a pretence that he was not going to visit her. He told himself that he was making her a habit, and that to make a habit of anyone was foolish. Instead of going to Dolls' House Square, he would invent some urgent business and take himself off citywards. But expeditions in which she had no share soon grew flat. He would find himself thinking about her, wondering whether she was waiting for him. He would end up, as he always ended up, by jumping in a taxi and knocking on her door in Dolls' House Square.
He never once found her out. There was invariably a welcome for him. He would take his seat by the fire in the quiet room and watch her sewing till the darkness deepened and the lamp had to be brought out. It didn't seem to matter much whether he talked or was silent; her contentment seemed complete when he was there. She made no effort to entertain him, which was the best proof of their friendship. She was perfectly willing that he should ignore her, if that was his mood, by reading the paper or playing with the children.
Though she made no effort to entertain him, the entire household had re-organised itself in readiness for his sharprat-a-tat. Everyone, without expressing the fact, recognised that it was nice to have a man about the house. When one rose in the morning, there was something to which to look forward now. A man dropping in, even occasionally, gave this group of women a sense of protection and of contact with the unwidowed world.
To Robbie and Joan he stood for something midway between a big brother and a pal. They had sharp rivalries as to who should light his cigarette. It wasn't easy for him to grip the box between his knees and strike the match with only one hand. They watched him and by anticipating his wishes tried to constitute themselves his missing hand.
When they were with him, the little lady withdrew into the background, making herself so still and self-effacing that it scarcely seemed that he had come to see her. It was as though she had three children; he appeared to be their friend much more than hers. He would carry them off to the Zoo, to matinees or to see the Christmas toys in the West End shops. Sometimes she would accompany them; more often she would listen to their adventures when they had returned. But she never was really left out. While they were absent from her, she formed the main topic of conversation. Of this she was well aware; if she had not been, she would not have been so happy.
In a way she derived more pleasure from staying at home and picturing them laughing through the crowded streets, going into tea-shops, riding in taxis and coming back through the dusk together. The children looked so proud in their sole possession of a man, especially of a soldier who had been wounded. Had their father come through the war, that was how they would have looked in his company. She was glad that they should get away from skirts. He could give them something which it was not in her power to give, however much she loved them. She was only a woman. Her reward followed when they returned a little conscience-stricken at having left her, bringing with them a present as indisputable proof that she had been remembered.
One evening in talking with her after the children had been put to bed, he asked her if she didn't think she ought to go out more often.
“I know I ought.”
“Then why don't you?”
She smiled gently, thinking how little he knew of the world. “When you've not got your own man to take you, it's difficult. The world moves in pairs. A woman can't go to many places unaccompanied.”
“But surely you don't need to. You must have quantities of friends who would be glad...”
She cut him short. “When a woman is left by herself, she learns a good many things about men that she didn't suspect when she was married. The men she would trust herself with have their wives or fiancées—they have no time to trouble over shipwrecked women like myself. And the other kind of men... The world has no place for a widow. It doesn't mean to be unkind, but it simply doesn't know what to do with her. Unmarried women consider her an unfair rival; they think she's seeking a second chance before they've had their first. In the old days India solved the problem by burying us with our husbands. In England they do the same thing, only less frankly. It's rather stupid to have to live and yet to be treated as though you ought to be dead. One fights against it at first; then one gradually becomes reconciled to be out of the running. If one's wise, she puts all her living into her children.”
“But that's not fair,” he spoke hotly.
“It's the way it happens.”
He sat frowning into the fire. What she had told him had upset all his preconceptions about her. Without looking at her, he re-started the conversation. “I've thought of you as being so happy. I always thought of you that way at the Front. I've pictured you as being perched high on a ledge out of reach of waves and storms. From the first you've given me the feeling that nothing could hurt or move you, and that nothing could hurt or move me while I was near you. It's a queer thing for a man to admit to a woman, but you make me feel absolutely safe.”
“That's not so very queer,” she said, “because that's the way you make me feel.”
“Do I? You're not laughing at me?” He swung round, leaning over the back of the couch, his entire attitude one of amazement.
She met his surprise with a quiet smile. “I'm perfectly serious. But you know the reason why we feel so safe in each other's company? It's because, in our different ways, we're both lonely people. We're not like the rest of the world; we don't move in pairs. I'm lonely because I'm a woman on my own, and you're lonely because you're in hospital in a foreign country. We met just at the time when we could give each other courage.”
“But you don't look lonely,” he protested; “one always thinks of lonely people as being sad and untidy. You always look so terrifically well-groomed and expensive. You create the impression that you're either going to or returning from a party. I never saw you when you weren't self-assured and occupied. I used to wonder how you spared me so much time from your engagements.”
“Clever of me, wasn't it?”
Instead of answering her, he came over and stood above where she sat stitching beneath the lamp. He was seeing her for the first time not as wise, self-reliant and fashionable, but as beautiful, alone and unprotected. He could almost feel the ache of the bruises she had suffered. He felt self-reproached; what had he given her? Up to now anything that he could have given had seemed too small to mention. He had taken from her continually, supposing that she had a surplus of everything. And all the while she had been sharing his own hunger for the presents that money cannot buy.
“It's great to be alive, when you'd expected to be dead.”
It was her turn to be surprised. She raised her head quickly, recognising a new earnestness in his tone.
0119m
“One doesn't talk much about what happened at the Front,” he said; “but one can't help feeling that his life was spared for some definite purpose. I believe the purpose was to be happy and to make others happy. I don't want to hog my own pleasure any more or to trifle in the old slovenly ways. I want to crowd every second with gratefulness for the mere fact of living. That's what's been bringing me here so often. That's why I've been so glad to carry Joan and Robbie away. Kiddies mean so tremendously much more to me than they did before I nearly died. And then there's home and women. I took them for granted once, but now... It's like saying one's prayers to be in a good woman's presence. I don't know if you at all understand me. I'm trying to thank you for what you've done....”
And there his eloquence failed, leaving him gazing down at her and wondering whether she thought him foolish. She patted his hand, but she did not meet his eyes. “It's all right. Don't explain. I know what you're meaning to say.”
“Do you?” He spoke doubtfully. “I think I was trying to ask you if we couldn't be happy together. I'm not married and I'm not engaged; but I'm not like the other men you mentioned.”
“My dear boy, I never thought you were. If I had, you wouldn't have been here. You're honourable all the way through; I knew that the moment I saw you. Does that make you feel better?”
He laughed happily. “Much. Do you know what I believe I've been trying to ask you through all this maze of words? If I get permission from the doctor to stay out late tomorrow night, would you be gay and go with me to a theatre?”
Her eyes met his with gladness. “I should love it.”
9125
HAT evening at the theatre was the first conscious step in their experiment of being happy together. She received word from him at lunch-time that the doctor's permission had been granted and that he would call for her at seven. The news made her as excited as if she had never been to a theatre before in her life. She spent the afternoon before the mirror, brushing and re-brushing her hair, and in laying out all the pretty clothes which she knew men liked. It was three years since she had dressed with the deliberate intent that a man should admire her. Once to do that had been two-thirds of her life. To find herself doing it again seemed like waking from a long illness; she could hardly bring herself to believe that the monotony of sorrow was ended and that she was actually going to be happy again. She had been made to feel so long that to be happy would be disloyalty to past affections.
She locked her bedroom door, for fear any of the servants should guess how she was occupied. She was filled with an exultant shame that she should still be capable of valuing so highly a man's opinion of her appearance. “But I will be happy,” she kept telling herself; “I have the right.” And then, in a whisper, “Oh, little house, you have been so kind. Wish me luck and say that he'll think me nice.”
0127m
Outside in the bare black cradle of the trees the November afternoon faded. Sparrows twittered of how winter was almost come. Against the cold melancholy of the London sky, like silhouettes crayoned on a wall of ice, roofs and chimneys stood smudged. In flickering pin-points of incandescence street-lamps wakened; night came drifting like a ship into harbour under shrouded sails.
She had been sitting listening for a long time, haunted by childish fears that he would not come. At seven promptly a taxi panted into the square and drew up wheezing and coughing before the little house. Seizing her evening-wrap, she ran down the stairs and had her hand on the door before his knock had sounded. “I didn't want to keep you waiting,” she explained.
He handed her into the cab. With a groan and a thump the engine pulled itself together and they made good their escape. As she settled back into her corner, pulling on her gloves, she watched him. So he also had regarded it as a gala-night! He was wearing a brand-new uniform and had been at extra pains to make his boots and belt splendid and shiny. She did her best not to be observed too closely, for her eyes were overbright and her color was high. She felt annoyed at herself for being so girlish.
“It's tremendous fun. I haven't been to the theatre in the evening since... for years and years,” she whispered. “The war is really ended. I'm believing it for the first time.”
They dined together at Prince's to the fierce discords of Jazz music. It suited her mood; it was primitive and reckless. Diners kept rising between courses and slipping out in pairs to where dancing was in progress. The whole world went in pairs tonight. And she had her man; no one could make her lonely for just this one night. It was exciting to her to notice how much more they seemed to belong to each other now that they were in public. He felt it also, for he showed his sense of pride and ownership in a hundred little ways. It was good to be owned after having been left so long discarded. As he faced her across the table, he had the air of believing that everybody was admiring her and envying him his luck. She was immensely grateful that he should think so. It was as though he could hear them saying, “How on earth did a one-armed fellow do it?” Had they asked him, he could only have told them, “The house was empty, so I entered.” Yes, and even he had not guessed how empty! But what had changed her? Knowing nothing about the locked door and how her afternoon had been spent, he was puzzled. All he knew was that the woman whom he had thought perfect, had revealed herself as more perfect. She had become radiantly beautiful in a way quite new and unexpected.
Of the play to which they went she saw but little; all she realised was that it was merry—a fairy-tale of life. One does not notice much when the heart is swollen with gladness. People sang, and looked pretty, and fell in love. Everyone was paired and married before the curtain was rung down. Something, however, she did remember: two lilting lines which had been sung:
And, while the sun is shining,
Make hay, little girl, make hay.
They kept repeating themselves inside her head. Unconsciously in the darkness as they were driving home, she started humming them.
“What did you say?” he questioned.
“I didn't say anything. It was just a snatch from a tune we heard.”
“Was it? Won't you hum it again?”
So in the intermittent gloom of the passing lights she tried; but for some reason, inexplicable to herself, it made her feel choky. She couldn't reach the end. Gathering her wrap closer about her, she drew the fur collar higher to hide the stupid tears which had forced their way into her eyes.
“I believe you're crying!” he exclaimed with concern. “Do tell me what's the matter.”
“I'm too happy,” she whispered brokenly. The taxi drew up against the pavement with a jerk. There was no knowing what he might say next to comfort her. She both yearned to learn and dreaded. Flight was the safer choice. Before he could assist her, she had jumped out. “Come tomorrow and I'll thank you properly. I can't now. And... I'm sorry for having been a baby.” Catching at her skirts, she fled up the steps and let herself into the darkened house.
Not until his wheels had moved reluctantly away, did she climb the narrow stairs to the room from which she had departed so gaily. Her solitariness had returned. She had had her own man for a handful of hours. They were ended.
As she threw off her finery, she could still hear that voice persistently advising,
And, while the sun is shining,
Make hay, little girl, make hay.
In the darkness she flung herself down on the bed, burying her face in the pillow. “I want to; oh, I want to,” she muttered.