"Brumenhein!"
"Yes, you know—the fellow whom the Kaiser thought such a lot of. People said he might very likely supplant Griegenbach."
"I didn't dare look at you," Roland said to Muriel afterwards. "I couldn't have kept a straight face if I had."
"And what a bit of luck."
"It may save me a lot of unpleasantness later on."
"You're a wonderful boy."
They were saying good-night to each other on the landing, and Muriel, who slept on the second floor, was standing on the stairs, leaning over the banisters. Her words made Roland feel very brave and confident.
"And to think that you didn't expect me to notice that you had put your hair up!"
He meant it as a joking repartee to her compliment, but the moment after he had said it he felt frightened. They looked at each other and said nothing. There was a moment of chill, intense embarrassment, then Muriel gave a nervous laugh and, turning quickly, ran up to her bedroom.
ONE WAY OR ANOTHER
THREE YEARS
Thenext three years of Roland's life were an amplification of those three days, and nothing would be gained by a detailed description of them. The narrative would be cut across frequently by visits to Europe, dropped threads would have to be gathered up, relationships reopened. The action was delayed, interrupted and, at times, held up altogether. The trips abroad were always altering Roland's perspective, and the sense of distance made him reconsider his attitude. Four months after the events described in the last chapter he had reached a state of acute reaction against his home, his parents and, in a way, against April, because of her connection with that world from which he was endeavouring to escape. Very little was needed to drive him into declared revolt, but at that moment he was sent abroad and, once abroad, everything became different. He began to accuse himself of selfishness and ingratitude. His parents had denied themselves comfort and pleasure to send him to an expensive school; they had given him everything. Like the pelican, they had gone hungry so that he should be full. Since he could remember, the life of that family had centred round him. Every question had been considered on the bearing it would have on his career. Was this the manner of repayment? And it was the same with April. He forgot her mother and her home; he remembered only her beauty and her love for him, her fixed, unwavering love, and the dreams that they had shared. He always returned home in a temper of sentimentality, full of good resolutions, promising himself that he would begentle and sympathetic to his parents, that he would never swerve from his love for April. The first days were invariably soft and sweet: but in a short time the old conflict reasserted itself; the bright world of Hogstead stood in dazzling contrast to the unromantic Hammerton. He became irritated, as before, by the trifling inconveniences of a house that lacked a parlourmaid; unpunctual, unappetising meals; and, more especially, by the endless friction imposed on him by the company of men and women who had been harassed all their lives by the fret and worry of small houses and small incomes. Trivial, ignoble troubles, that was the misfortune of everyone fated to live in Hammerton. And April was a part of it. He was very fond of her; indeed, he still thought he was in love with her, but love for Roland was dependent on many other things, was bound up with his other enthusiasms and reactions. He enjoyed her company and her caresses. In her presence he was capable of genuine tenderness; but it was so easy. April responded so simply to any kindness shown to her. There was no uncertainty about her. He missed the swift anger of the chase.
More and more frequently he found himself receiving and accepting invitations to spend the week-end at Hogstead; and always when he announced his intention of going there he was aware of silent criticism on the part of his parents. He felt guilty and ashamed of himself for feeling guilty. It became a genuine struggle for him to pronounce the words at breakfast. It was like confessing a secret, and he hated it. Had he not a right to choose his friends? Then would come a reaction of acute self-accusation and he would improvise a treat, a theatre or a picnic. His emotions would fling it like a sop to his conscience: "There, does that content you? Now may I go and live my own life?" Afterwards, of course, he was again bitterly ashamed of himself.
But always on the ebb-flow of his contrition came fear—the instinct of self-preservation, to save, at all costs, his individuality from the fate that threatened it.Whenever things seemed likely to reach a head, a European trip would intervene, and the whole business would have to begin again. An action that would ordinarily have completed its rhythm within three or four months was lengthened into three years; in the end inevitably the curve of the parabola was reached. The time was drawing near when Roland would have to make his decision one way or another.
He was by now earning a salary of four hundred pounds a year, and marriage—marriage as his parents understood it—was well within his means. Up till now, whenever any suggestion about the date of his marriage had been advanced, he referred to the uncertain nature of his work.
"I never know where I'm going to be from one week to another. Marriage is out of the question for a chap with a job like that."
Their engagement was still unannounced. He had retained that loophole, though at the time it was not so that he had regarded it.
Ralph had asked him once whether he was engaged. And the question had put him on his guard. He didn't like engagements. Love was a secret between two people. Why make it public? He must strike before the enemy struck. In other words, he must come to an agreement with April before her mother opened negotiations. That evening he had brought up the subject.
He was sitting in the window-seat, while she was on a stool beside him, her head resting against his knees and his hand stroking slowly her neck and hair and cheek.
"You know, darling," he said, "I've been thinking about our engagement."
"Yes, dear."
"Well, are you awfully keen on an engagement?"
"But how do you mean? We shall have to be engaged some time, shan't we?"
"Oh, of course, yes. But there's no need for a long engagement, is there? What I mean is that we could easily get engaged now if we wanted to. But it wouldbe a long business, and oh, I don't know! Once we're engaged our affairs cease to be our own. People will be asking us 'When's the happy day?' and all that sort of thing. Our love won't be our own any longer."
"It's just as you like, dear."
It was so nice to sit there against his knee, with his fingers against her face. Why should they worry about things? It would be nice to be engaged, of course, and to have a pretty ring, but it didn't matter. "It's just as you like," she had said, and they had left it at that over two years ago and there had been no reason to rediscuss it. But he knew that now the whole matter would have to be brought up. It had been decided that he was to remain in London for a couple of years in charge of the Continental branch; he would have to go abroad occasionally, but there would be no more long trips. He was in a position to marry if he wanted to. His family would expect him to, those of his friends who had heard of the "understanding" would expect him to, Mrs Curtis would expect him to, and he owed it to April that he should marry her. For years now he had kept her waiting. There was not the slightest doubt as to what was his duty.
Nothing, however, could alter the fact that there was nothing in the world that he wanted less than this marriage. It would mean an end to all those pleasant week-ends at Hogstead. It was one thing to invite a young bachelor who was no trouble to look after and who was amusing company; it was quite another thing to entertain a married couple. He would no longer be able to throw into his business that undivided energy of his. He would not be free; he would have to play for safety. As his friendship with the Marstons began to wane, he would become increasingly every year an employee and not an associate. He would belong to the ruled class. And it would be the end, too, of his pleasant little dinner-parties with Gerald. He would have to be very careful with his money. They would be fairly comfortable in a small house for thefirst year or so, but from the birth of their first child their life would become complicated with endless financial worries and would begin to resemble that of his own father and mother, till, finally, he would lose interest in himself and begin to live in his children. What a world! The failure of the parent became forgotten in the high promise of the child, and that child grew up only to meet and be broken by the conspiracy of the world's wisdom and, in its turn, to focus its thwarted ambitions on its children, and then its children's children. That was the eternal cycle of disillusion; whatever happened he must break that wheel.
But the battle appeared hopeless. The forces were so strong that were marshalled against him. What chance did he stand against that mingled appeal of sentiment and habit? All that spring he felt himself standing upon a rapidly crumbling wall. Whenever he went down to Hogstead he kept saying to himself: "Yes, I'm safe now, secure within time and space. But it's coming. Nothing can stop it. Night follows day, winter summer; one can't fight against the future, one can't anticipate it. One has to wait; it chooses its own time and its own place." At the office he was fretful and absent-minded.
"What's the matter with you?" Gerald asked him once.
"Nothing."
"Oh, but there must be, you've been awfully queer the last week or so."
Roland did not answer, and there was an awkward silence.
"I say, old man, I don't quite like asking you, but you're not in debt or anything, are you? Because if you are, I mean——"
"Oh, no, really. I'm not even 'overdrawn.'"
In Gerald's experience of the world there were two ills to which mankind was heir—money and woman. The subdivisions of these ills were many, but he recognised no other main source. If Roland was not indebt, then there was a woman somewhere, and later in the day he brought the matter up again.
"I say, old son, you've not been making an ass of yourself with some woman, have you? No one's got hold of you, have they?"
"Lord, no!" laughed Roland. "I only wish they had!"
But Gerald raised a warning finger.
"Touch wood, my son. Don't insult Providence. You can take my word for it that sooner or later some woman will get hold of you and then it's the devil, the very devil. Did I ever tell you about the girl at Broadstairs?" And there ensued the description of a seaside amour, followed by some shrewd generalities on the ways of a man with—but to conclude the quotation would be hardly pertinent. At any rate, Gerald told his story and pointed his moral.
"You may take my word for it, adultery is a whacking risk. It's awfully jolly while it lasts, and you think yourself no end of a dog when you offer the husband a cigar, but sooner or later the wife clings round the bed-post and says: 'Darling, I have deceived you!' And then you're in it, up to the ruddy neck!"
Roland laughed, as he always did, at Gerald's stories, but it hurt him to think that his friend should have noticed a change in him. If he was altered already by a few weeks of Hammerton, what would he be like in five years' time after the responsibilities of marriage had had their way with him? And marriage was not for five years, but for fifty.
He never spoke to Gerald of April now. There had been a time in the early days of their friendship when he had confided in him, under an oath of secrecy, that he hoped to marry her as soon as his position permitted. And Gerald had agreed with him that it was a fine thing to marry young, "and it's the right thing for you," he added; "some fellows are meant for marriage and others aren't. I think you're one of the ones that are." A cryptic statement that Roland had, at the time, called in question, but Gerald only laughed. "Imay be wrong," he had said, "one never knows, but I don't think I am." Often afterwards he had asked Roland about April and whether they were still in love with each other as much as ever, and Roland, his vanity flattered by the inquiry, had assured him of their constancy. But of late, when Gerald had made some light reference to "the fair April," Roland had changed the conversation, or, if a question were asked, had answered it obliquely, or managed to evade it, so that Gerald had realised that the subject was no longer agreeable to him, and, being blessed with an absence of curiosity, had dropped it from his repertoire of pleasantries. But he did not connect April with his friend's despondency.
THREE DAYS
Thesummer was nearly over, however, before the crisis came. It was on a Friday evening in the beginning of September, and Roland was sitting with his mother, as was usual with them, for a short talk after his father had gone to bed. He could tell that something was worrying her. Her conversation had been disjointed and many of her remarks irrelevant. And suddenly his instinct warned him that she was going to speak to him about April. He went suddenly still. If someone had thrown a stone at him at that moment he would have been unable to move out of the way of it. He could recollect distinctly, to the end of his life, everything that had passed through his mind during that minute of terrifying silence that lay between his realisation of what was coming and the first sound of that opening sentence.
"Roland, dear, I hope you won't mind my mentioning it, but your father and I have been talking together about you and April."
He could remember everything: the shout of a newsboy in the street—"Murder in Tufnell Park!" the slight rustle of the curtain against the window-sill; the click of his mother's knitting-needles. And, till that moment, he had never noticed that the pattern of the carpet was irregular, that on the left side there were seven roses and five poppies and on the right six roses and six poppies. They had had that carpet for twenty years and he had never noticed it before. His eyes were riveted on this curious deformity, while through the window came the shriek of the newsboy—"Murder in Tufnell Park!" Then his mother's voice broke thetension. The moment had come; he gathered his strength to him. As he had walked five years earlier, with unflinching head, up the hill to Carus Evans, so now he answered his mother with an even voice:
"Yes, mother?"
"Well, dear, we've been thinking that you really ought to be settling something definite about yourself and April."
"But we didn't want to be engaged, mother."
"I wasn't thinking of that, dear. I know about that. It's a modern idea, I suppose, though I think myself that it would have been better some time ago, but it's not an engagement so much we're thinking of as of your marriage."
It was more sudden than Roland had expected.
"Oh, but—oh, surely Mrs Curtis would never agree. She'd say we were much too young."
"Well, that's what we thought, but I went round and saw her the other day, and she quite agreed with us that it was really no good waiting any longer. You are making a lot of money, and it's quite likely that Mr Marston will raise your salary when he hears you're going to be married; and after all, why should you wait? As I said to your father: 'They've known each other for a long time, and if they don't know their minds now they never will.'"
Roland did not know what to say. He was unarmed by a sympathy and kindness against which he could not fight.
"It's awfully decent of you." Those were the only words that occurred to him, and he knew, even as he uttered them, that they were not only completely inadequate, but pitifully inexpressive of his state of mind.
"We only want to do what will make you happy, and it is happier to marry young, really it is!"
He made a last struggle.
"But, mother, don't you think that for April's sake—she's so young. Isn't it rather hard on her to be loaded with responsibilities so early?"
"It's nice of you to think that, Roland. It shows you really care for her; but I think that in the end, when she's an old woman like I am, she'll be glad she married young."
And then, because Roland looked still doubtful, she offered him the benefit of what wisdom the narrow experiences of her life had brought her. She had never unlocked her heart before; it hurt her to do it now and her eyes welled with tears. But she felt that, at this great crisis of his life, she must be prepared to lay before her son everything that might help him in it. It might be of assistance to him to know how these things touched a woman, and so she told him how she too had once thought it cruel that responsibilities should have been laid on her so soon.
"I was only nineteen when I married your father, and things were very difficult at first. It was a small house, we had no servant, and I had to get up early in the morning and light the fires and get the breakfast things ready, and all the morning I had to scrub and brush and wash up. I had no friends. And then, after tea, I used to lie down for an hour and rest, I was so tired, and I wanted to look fresh and pretty for your father when he came home. And there were times when I thought it was unfair; that I should have been allowed to be free and happy and unworried like other girls of my age. I used to see some of my school friends very occasionally and they used to tell me of their balls and parties, and I was so envious. And then very often your father was irritable and bad-tempered when he came back, and he found fault with my cooking, and I used to go away and cry all by myself and wonder why I was doing it, working so hard and for nothing. And then I began to think he didn't love me any more; there was another girl: she was fresher; she didn't have to do any housework. There was nothing in it; it never came to anything. Your father was always faithful; he's always been very good to me, but I could see from the way his face lighted up when she came into the room that he was attracted by her, and I can'ttell you how it hurt me. I used to think that he preferred that other girl, that he thought her prettier than I was. It wasn't easy those first three years. When you've been married three years you're almost certain to regret it and think you could have done better with someone else, but after ten years you'll know very well that you couldn't, because, Roland, love doesn't last; not what you mean by love; but something takes its place, and that something is more important. When two people have been through as much together as your father and I have, there's—I don't know how to put it—but, you can't do without each other. And it makes a big difference the being married early. That's why I should like you and April to marry as soon as ever you can. You'd never regret it."
The tears began to trickle slowly down her cheeks; she tried to go on, but failed.
Roland did not know what to do or say. He had never loved his mother so much as he did then, but he could not express that love for her with words. He knelt forward and put his arms round her and drew her damp cheek to his.
"Mother," he whispered. "Mother, darling!"
For a long time they remained thus in a silent embrace. Then she drew back, straightened herself, and began to dab at her eyes with a handkerchief.
"It'll be all right, mother," he said.
She did not answer, but smiled a soft, glad smile, and taking his hand pressed it gently between hers.
"As long as you're happy, Roland," she said.
And so the crisis had come and had been settled. In those few minutes the direction of fifty years had been chosen finally. It was hard, but what would you? Life went that way. At any rate he would have those first few scented months; that at least was his. For a year he and April would be indescribably happy in the new-found intimacy of marriage, and afterwards—but of what could one be certain? For all he knew life might choose to readjust itself. One could not have anything both ways; indeed, one paid for everything.The Athenian parent had been far-seeing when he knelt before the altar in prayer that the compensating evil for his son's success might be light. One should do what lay to hand. As he curled himself in his bed he thought of April, and his heart beat quickly at the knowledge that her grace and tenderness would soon be his.
He shut away all thought of the dark years that must follow the passing of that first enchantment and fixed his mind on the sure pleasures that awaited him. How wonderful, after all, marriage could be. To return home at the end of the day and find your wife waiting for you. You would be tired and she would take you in her arms and run cool fingers through your hair, and you would talk together for a while, and she would tell you what she had done during the day, and you would tell her of whom you had met and of the business you had transacted, and you would bring your successes and lay them at her feet and you would say: "I made so much money to-day." And your words would lock that money away in her little hand—"All yours," they would seem to say. Then you would go upstairs and change for dinner, and when you came down you would find her standing before the fire, one long, bare arm lying along the mantelpiece, and you would come to her and very slowly pass your hand along it, and, bending your head, you would kiss the smooth skin of her neck. And could anything be more delightful than the quiet dinner together? Then would come the slow contentment of that hour or so before bedtime, while the warmth of the fire subsided slowly and you sat talking in low tones. And, afterwards, when you were alone in the warm darkness to love each other. Marriage must be a very fine adventure.
The next day brought with it its own problems, and on this Saturday morning in early autumn the white mist that lay over the roofs of Hammerton was a sufficient object of speculation. Did it veil the blue sky that adds so much to the charm of cricket, or a grey, sodden expanse of windy, low-flying clouds. It was the lastSaturday of the cricket season. Roland was, naturally, bound for Hogstead, and there is no day in the whole year on which the cricketer watches the sky with more anxiety. In May he is impatient for his first innings, but as he walks up and down the pavilion in his spiked boots and hears the rain patter on the corrugated iron roof he can comfort himself with the knowledge that sooner or later the sun will shine, if not this week, then the next, and that in a long season he is bound to have many opportunities of employing that late cut he has been practising so assiduously at the nets. In the middle of the season he is a hardened warrior; he takes the bad with the good; he has outgrown his first eagerness; he has become, in fact, a philosopher. Last week he made seventy-two against the Stoics and was missed in the slips before he had scored. Such fortune is bound to be followed by a few disappointments. But at the end of the season a wet day is a dire misfortune. As he sits in the pavilion and watches the rain sweep across the pitch he remembers that only that morning he observed the erection of goal posts on the village green, that the winter is long and slow to pass, that for eight months he will not hold a bat in his hands, that this, his last forlorn opportunity of making a century, is even now fast slipping from him.
The depression of such a day is an abiding memory through the grey months of January and December, and, though Roland had had a fairly successful season, he was naturally anxious to end it well. He was prepared to distrust that mist. He had seen many mists break into heavy sunshine. He had also seen many mists dissolve into heavy rain. He knew no peace of mind till the sky began to lighten just before the train reached Hogstead, and he did not feel secure till he had changed into flannels and was walking down to the field on Gerald's arm, their shadows flung hard and black upon the grass in front of them.
It was a delightful morning; the grass was fresh with the dew which a slight breeze was drying; there was hardly a worn spot on the green surface, against whichthe white creases and yellow stumps stood in vivid contrast. An occasional cloud cut the sunlight, sending its shadow in long ripples of smoke across the field.
"And to think," said Gerald, "that this is our last game this season."
But for Roland this certainty marred the enjoyment of the blue sky and the bright sunshine. "This is the last time," he repeated to himself. For eight months the green field, so gay now with the white figures moving in the sunlight, would be desolate. Leaves would be blown on to it from the trees; rain would fall on them. The windows of the pavilion would be barred, the white screens stacked in the shelter of a wall.
After his innings he sat beside Muriel in the deck-chair on the shaded, northern terrace. But he felt too sad to talk to her and she complained of his silence.
"I don't think much of you as a companion," she said. "I've timed you. You haven't said a word for ten minutes."
He laughed, apologised and endeavoured to revert to the simple badinage that had amused them when Muriel was a little girl in short frocks, with her hair blowing about her neck, but it was not particularly successful, and it was a relief when Gerald placed his chair on the other side of Muriel and commenced a running commentary on the game. Roland wanted to be alone with his thoughts. Occasionally a stray phrase or sentence of their conversation percolated through his reverie.
"What a glorious afternoon it's going to be," he heard Muriel say. "It seems quite absurd that this should be your last game. One can't believe that the summer's over. On a day like this it looks as though it would last for ever!"
The words beat themselves into his brain. It was over and it was absurd to dream. The autumn sunshine that had lured her into disbelief of the approach of winter had made him forget that this day at Hogstead was his last. By next year he would be married; the delightful interlude would be finished. He would havepassed from the life of Hogstead, at any rate in his present position. If he returned it would be different. The continuity would have been broken.
Out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of Muriel's profile; how pretty she was; quite a woman now; and he turned his chair a little so that he could observe her without moving his head. Yes, she was really pretty in her delicate porcelain fashion; she was not beautiful. But, then, beauty was too austere. Charm was preferable. And she had that charm that depends almost entirely on its setting, on a dress that is in keeping with small dainty features. The least little thing wrong and she would have been quite ordinary.
What would happen to her? She would marry, of course; she would find no lack of suitors. Already, perhaps, there was one whom she had begun slightly to favour. What would he be like? To what sort of a man would she be attracted? Whoever he was he would be a lucky fellow; and Roland paused to wonder whether, if things had been different, if he had been free when he had met her first, she could have come to care for him. She had always liked him. He remembered many little occasions on which she had said things that he might have construed into a meaning favourable to himself. There had been that evening on the stairs when they had felt suddenly frightened of each other, and since then, more than once, he had fancied that they had stumbled in their anxiety to make impersonal conversation.
How happy they would have been together. They would have lived together at Hogstead all their lives, a part of the Marston family. Hammerton would have ceased to exist for him. They would have built themselves a cottage on the edge of the estate; their children would have passed their infancy among green fields, within sound of cricket balls.
At the far end of the field, on the southern terrace, Beatrice was sitting alone, watching Rosemary play a few yards away from her. She must have been thereduring the greater part of the morning, but Roland had not noticed her till she waved a hand to attract his attention. He rose at once and walked across to her. He felt that a talk with her would do him good.
They had seen a good deal of each other intermittently during the past three years, and each talk with her had been for Roland a step farther into the heart of a mystery. Gradually they had come to talk in shorthand, to read each other's thoughts without need of the accepted medium of words, so that when in reply to a complimentary remark about the fascination of her hat she made a quiet shrug of her shoulders, he knew that it was prompted by the wound of her wasted beauty. And on that late summer morning, with its solemn warning of decay, Roland felt brave enough to put to her the question that he had long wished to ask.
"Why did you marry him?" he said.
His question necessitated no break in the rhythm of her reverie. She answered him without pausing.
"I didn't know my own mind," she said. "I was very young. I wasn't in love with anyone else. My mother was keen on it. I gave way."
Beatrice spoke the truth. Her mother had honestly believed the match to be to her daughter's advantage. Her own life had been made difficult through lack of money. She had always been worried by it, and she had naturally come to regard money as more important than the brief fluttering of emotion that had been the prelude to the long, bitter struggle. It had seemed to her a wonderful thing that her daughter should marry this rich man. Herself had only been unhappy because she had been poor; her daughter would be always rich.
"How did you meet him?" Roland asked.
"I was his secretary. Romantic, isn't it? The poor girl marries the rich employer. Quite like the story books." And her hands fluttered at her sides.
Roland sought for some word of sympathy, but he was too appalled by the cruel waste of this young woman's beauty, of her enormous potentialities flung away on an ageing, withered man, who could notappreciate them. Her next sentence held for him the force of a prophetic utterance.
"When you marry, Roland," she said, "choose your own wife. Don't let your parents dictate to you. It's your affair."
As their eyes met it seemed to him that they were victims of the same conspiracy.
"One can't believe that the summer is over on a day like this. It looks as though it would last for ever!" The words ran like a refrain among his thoughts all the afternoon. He had a long outing. Hogstead had imported for the final match talent that was considerable but was not local. The doctor had persuaded a friend to bring his son, a member of the Rugby XI. It was discovered that an old blue was spending his honeymoon in a farmhouse a few miles away and a deputation had been dispatched to him; while, at the last moment, the greengrocer had arranged a compromise on a "to account rendered" bill with a professional at the county ground. Hogstead was far too strong for Mr Marston's side and all the afternoon Roland chased terrific off drives towards the terraces. The more tired he became the deeper grew his depression. The sun sank slowly towards the long, low-lying bank of cloud that stretched behind the roofs of the village; the day was waning, his last day. Came that hour of luminous calm, that last hour of sunlight when the shadows lengthen and a chilling air drives old players to the pavilion for their sweaters. Above the trees Roland could see the roof of the house; the trees swayed before its windows; the sunlight had caught and had turned the brass weathercock to gold. Never again, under the same conditions, would he see Hogstead as he in the past had so often seen it, standing above the trees, resplendent in the last glitter of sunset. It was only five years ago that he had come here for the first time, and yet into those five years had been crowded a greater measure of happiness than he could hope to find in the fifty years that were left him.
At the end of the day Mr Marston's eleven hadhalf-an-hour's batting, during which Roland made one or two big hits. But it was an anticlimax, and his innings brought him little satisfaction. It was over now. He walked back to the pavilion, and with dismal efficiency collected his boots and bat and pads and packed them into his bag. What would he be like when he came to do that next? What would have happened to him between then and now? He came out of the pavilion to find Muriel standing on the step, waiting, presumably, for her brother. The need for sympathy, for feminine sympathy, overwhelmed him, and he asked her whether she would come for a walk with him—only a short stroll, just for a minute or two. She looked at him in surprise.
"But it's so late, Roland," she said; "we'll have to go and change for dinner in a minute."
"I know, I know, but just for a minute—do."
He was not ready yet for the general talk and laughter of the drawing-room; he wanted a few minutes of preparation.
"Do come," he said.
She nodded, and they turned and walked together towards the end of the cricket ground. She did not know why he should want her to come with him at such an unusual time, but she could see that he was unhappy, that he needed sympathy, and so, after a second's hesitation, she passed, for the first time in her life, her arm through his. He looked at her quickly, a look of surprise and gratitude, and pressed her arm with his. He said nothing, now that she was with him. He did not feel any need of words; it was her presence he wanted, and all that her presence meant to him. But she, being ignorant of what was in his mind, was embarrassed by his silence.
"That was a jolly knock of yours," she said at last.
"Oh! not bad, but in a second innings!"
"Rather like that one of yours five years ago."
"What! Do you remember that?"
"Of course; it was a great occasion."
"For me."
"And for us."
The past and the emotions of the past returned to him with a startling vividness. He could recall every moment of that day.
"I was so anxious to come off," he said. "You know I was to have gone into a bank and Gerald brought me down in the hope that your pater would take to me. I was frightfully nervous."
"So was I."
"But you'd never seen me."
"No, but Gerald had talked to me about you, and I thought it such rotten luck that a fellow like you should have to go into a bank. There'd been a row, hadn't there?"
They had reached the hedge that marked the boundary for the Marston estate; there was a gate in it, and they walked towards it. They stood for a moment, her arm still in his, looking at the quiet village that lay before them. Then Roland dropped her arm and leant against the gate.
"Yes, there'd been a row," he said, "and everything was going wrong, and I saw myself for the rest of my life a clerk adding up figures in a bank."
He paused, realising the analogy between that day and this. Then, as now, destiny had seemed to be closing in on him, robbing him of freedom and the chance to make of his life anything but a grey subservience. He had evaded destiny then, but it had caught him now. And he leant on the gate, hardly seeing the labourers trudging up the village street, talking in the porch of the public-house; their women returning home with their purchases for Sunday's dinner.
Again Muriel was oppressed by his silence.
"I remember Gerald telling us about it," she said, "and I was excited to see what you'd be like."
"And what did you think of me when you saw me?"
"Oh, I was a little girl then"; she laughed nervously, for his eyes were fixed on her face and she felt that she was blushing.
"Yes, but what did you think?" he repeated; "tell me."
Her fingers plucked nervously at her skirt; she felt frightened, and it was absurd to be frightened with Roland, one of her oldest friends.
"Oh, it's silly! I was only a little girl then. What does it matter what I thought? As a matter of fact," and she flung out the end of her confession carelessly, as though it meant nothing, "as a matter of fact, I thought you were the most wonderful boy I'd ever seen." And she tried to laugh a natural, offhand laugh that would make an end of this absurd situation, but the laugh caught in her throat, and she went suddenly still, her eyes fixed on Roland's. They looked at each other and read fear in the other's eyes, but in Roland's eyes fear was mingled with a desperate entreaty, a need, an overmastering need, of her. His tongue seemed too big for his mouth, and when at last he spoke, his voice was dry.
"And what do you think of me now?"
She could say nothing. She stood still, held by the grey eyes that never wavered.
"What do you think of me now?" he repeated.
She made a movement to break the tension, a swift gesture with her hand that was intended for a dismissal, but he was standing so close that her hand brushed against him; she gave a little gasp as his hand closed over it and held it.
"You won't tell me," he said. "But shall I tell you what I thought of you then? Shall I tell you? I thought you were the prettiest girl I had ever seen, and I thought how beautiful you would be when you grew up."
"Oh, don't be so silly, Roland," and she laughed a short, nervous laugh, and tried to draw her hand from his, but he held it firmly, and drew her a little nearer to him, so that he could take her other hand in his. They stood close together, then she raised her face slowly to his and the puzzled, wistful, trusting expression released the flood of sentiment that had beensurging within him all the afternoon. His misery was no longer master of itself, and her beauty drew to it the mingled tenderness, hesitation, disappointment of his vexed spirit. She was for him in that moment the composite vision of all he prized most highly in life, of romance, mystery, adventure.
His hands closed upon hers tightly, desperately, as though he would rivet himself to the one thing of which he could be certain, and his confused intense emotion poured forth in a stream of eager avowal:
"But I never thought, Muriel, that you would be anything like what you are; you are wonderful, Muriel; I've been realising it slowly every day. I've said to myself that we were only friends, just friends, but I've known it was more than friendship. I've told myself not to be silly, that you could never care for me—well, I've never realised, not properly, not till this afternoon, Muriel."
She was no longer frightened; his words had soothed her, caressed her, wooed her; and when he paused, the expression of her eyes was fearless.
"Yes, Roland," she said.
"Muriel, Muriel, I love you; I want you to marry me. Will you?"
She blushed prettily. "But, Roland, you know; if father and mother say yes, of course."
In the sudden release of feeling he was uncertain what exactly was expected of a person whose proposal had been accepted. They were on the brink of another embarrassed silence, but Muriel saved them.
"Roland," she said, "you're hurting my fingers awfully!"
With a laugh he dropped her hands, and that laugh restored them to their former intimacy.
"Oh, Roland," she said, "what fun we shall have when we are married."
He asked whether she thought her parents would be pleased, and she was certain that they would.
"They like you so much." Then she insisted on his telling when and how he had first discovered that he wasin love with her. "Come along; let's sit on the gate and you shall tell me all about it. Now, when was the first time, the very first time, that you thought you were in love with me?"
"Oh, but I don't know."
"Yes, you do; you must, of course you must, or you'd be nothing of a lover. Come on, or I shall take back my promise."
"Well, then, that evening on the stairs."
Muriel pouted.
"Oh, then!"
"Do you remember it?" he said.
"Of course I do. You frightened me."
"I know, and that's why I thought that one day you might marry me."
"Oh, but how silly!" she protested. "I wasn't a bit in love with you then. In fact, I was very annoyed with you."
"And, besides, I think I've always been in love with you."
"Oh, no, you haven't."
"Don't be too sure. And you?"
She smiled prettily.
"I've often thought what a nice husband you would make."
And then she had taken his hand in her lap and played with it.
"And where shall we live when we are married?" he had asked her, and she had said she did not care.
"Anywhere, as long as there are lots of people to amuse me."
She sat there on the gate, her light hair blowing under the wide brim of her hat, laughing down at him, her face bright with happiness. She was so small, so graceful. Light as heatherdown, she would run a gay motif through the solemn movement of his career.
"You are like a fairy," he said, "like a mischievous little elf. I think I shall call you that—Elfkin."
"Oh, what a pretty name, Roland—Elfkin! How sweet of you!"
They talked so eagerly together of the brilliant future that awaited them that they quite forgot the lateness of the hour, till they heard across the evening the dull boom of the dinner gong. They both gasped and looked at each other as confederates in guilt.
"Heavens!" she said, "what a start. We've got to run!"
It was the nearest approach to a dramatic entrance that Roland ever achieved. Muriel kept level with him during the race across the cricket ground, but she began to fall behind as they reached the long terrace between the rhododendrons.
"Take hold of my hand," said Roland, and he dragged her over the remaining thirty yards. They rushed through the big French windows of the drawing-room at the very moment that the party had assembled there before going down to dinner. They had quite forgotten that there would be an audience. They stopped, and Muriel gave out a horrified gasp of "Oh!"
They certainly were a ridiculous couple as they stood there hand in hand, hot, dishevelled, out of breath, beside that well-groomed company of men and women in evening dress. Mrs Marston hurried forward with the slightly deprecating manner of the hostess whose plans have been disturbed,
"My dear children——" But Muriel had by this time recovered her breath and courage. She raised a peremptory hand.
"One minute. We've got something to tell you all."
"But surely, dear, after dinner," Mrs Marston began.
"No, mother, dear, now," and, with a twinkle in her eye and a sly glance at her embarrassed lover, Muriel made her alarming announcement:
"Roland and I, mother, we're going to be married."
Roland had seen in a French novel a startling incident of domestic revelation recorded by two words:consternation générale, and those two words suited the terrible hush that followed Muriel's confession. It was not a hush of anger, or disapproval, but of utter and complete astonishment. For a few minutes no onesaid anything. The young men of the party either adjusted their collar studs and gazed towards the ceiling, or flicked a speck of dust from their trousers and gazed upon the floor. The young women gazed upon each other. Mrs Marston thought nervously of the condition of the retarded dinner, and Mr Marston tried, without success, to prove adequate to the situation. Only Muriel enjoyed it; she loved a rag, and her eyes passed from one figure to another; not one of them dared look at her.
"Well," she said at last, "we did think you'd want to congratulate us." To Mr Marston some criticism of himself appeared to be implied in this remark. He pulled down his waistcoat, coughed, and went through the preliminaries usual to him when preparing to address the board. And, in a sense, this was a board meeting, a family board meeting.
"My dear Muriel," he began, but he had advanced no further than these three words when the dinner gong sounded for the second time. It was a signal for Mrs Marston to bustle forward.
"Yes, yes, but the dinner'll be getting quite cold if we don't go in at once. Don't trouble to change, Mr Whately, please don't; but, Muriel, you must go up and do your hair, and if you have time change your frock."
"Weren't they lovely?" said Muriel, as she and Roland ran upstairs to wash. "I could have died with laughter."
"You made me feel a pretty complete fool," said Roland.
"Well, you made me feel very silly about three-quarters of an hour ago. I deserved a revenge." And she scampered upstairs ahead of him.
Roland washed quickly and waited for her at the foot of the stairs. He was much too shy to go in alone.
"And they say that women are cowards," said Muriel, when he confessed it to her. "Come along."
The quarter of an hour that had elapsed since the sensational disclosure had given the company time torecover its balance, and when Muriel and Roland entered the room, they found that two empty seats were waiting for them side by side.
"Here they are," said Mr Marston, "and I hope that they're thoroughly ashamed of themselves." He felt himself again after a glass of sherry, and it was an occasion of which a father should make the most. It could only come once and he was prepared to enjoy it to the full. "To think of it, my dear, the difference between this generation and ours. Why, before I got engaged to your mother, Muriel, why, even before I began to court her, I went and asked her father's permission. I can remember now how frightened I felt. We respected our parents in those days. We always asked their opinions first. But to-day—why, in you burst, late for dinner, and announce with calm effrontery that you're going to be married. Why, at this rate, there won't be any engagements at all in a short time; young people will just walk in at the front door and say: 'We're married.'"
"Then we are engaged, father, aren't we?" said Muriel.
"I didn't say so."
"Oh, but you did; didn't he, Roland?"
Roland was, however, too confused to hold any opinion on the subject.
"Well, if you didn't actually say so you implied it. At any rate we shall take it that you did."
"And that, I suppose, settles it?"
"Of course."
Mr Marston made a theatrical gesture of despair.
"These children!" he said.
It was a jolly evening. Roland and Muriel were the centre of congratulations; their healths were drunk; he was called on for a speech, and he fulfilled his duty amid loud applause. Everyone was so pleased, so eager to share their happiness. Beatrice turned to him a smile of surprised congratulation. Only Gerald held back from the general enthusiasm. Once across the table his eyes met Roland's, and there was implied in theirglance a question. He was the only one of the party who had heard of April, and never, in all their confidences, had there passed between them one word that might have hinted at a growing love between his sister and his friend; it was this that surprised him. Surely Roland would have told him something about it. Roland was not the sort of fellow who kept things to himself. He always wanted to share his pleasures. Gerald would have indeed expected him to come to him for advice, to say: "Old son, what chance do you think I stand in that direction?"—to entrust him with the delicate mission of sounding Muriel's inclinations. He was surprised and a little hurt.
As they were going towards the drawing-room after dinner he laid his hand on Roland's arm, holding him back for a minute. And as he stood in the doorway waiting for his friend, Roland felt for the first time a twinge of apprehension as to the outcome of this undertaking. But he could see that Gerald was nervous, and this nervousness lent him confidence.
"It's no business of mine, old son," Gerald began, "I'm awfully glad about you and Muriel and all that, but," he paused irresolute; he disliked these theatrical situations and did not know how to meet them. "I mean," he began slowly, then added quietly, anxiously: "It's all right, isn't it, old son?"
"Of course," said Roland. "It's the most wonderful——"
"I know, I know," Gerald interrupted, "but wasn't there, didn't you tell me about——"
"Oh, that's finished a long time ago. Don't worry about that."
"You see," Gerald went on, "I should hate to think——Oh, well, I'm awfully glad about it, and I think you're both fearfully lucky."
Two hours later Roland and Muriel stood on the landing saying good-night to one another. She was leaning towards him, across the banisters, as she had leant that evening three years earlier, but this time he held her hand in his.
"I can't tell you how happy I am," he was saying; "I shall dream of you all night long."
"And so shall I of you."
"We're going to be wonderfully happy, aren't we?"
"Wonderfully."
And in each other's eyes they saw the eager, boundless confidence of youth. They were going to make a great thing of their life together. Roland cast a swift glance over the banisters to see if anyone was in the hall, then stood on tiptoe, raising himself till his face was on the level with Muriel's.
"Muriel," he said.
"Yes."
"I want to whisper something in your ear."
"What is it?"
"Lean over, close to me, and I will tell you."
She bent her head, her cheek brushing against his hair. "Well?" she said.
He placed his mouth close to her ear.
"Muriel, you haven't kissed me yet."
She drew back and smiled.
"Was that all?" she said.
"Isn't it enough?"
She made no answer.
"Aren't you going to?" he said.
"I don't know."
"Please, please do."
"Some day I will."
"But why not now?"
"Someone would see us."
"Oh, no, they wouldn't. And even if they did what would it matter? Muriel! please, please, Muriel!"
He raised himself again on tiptoe; and leaning forward, she rested her hands upon his shoulders. Then she slowly bent her head to his, and their lips met in such a kiss as children exchange for forfeits in the nursery. As she drew back Roland slipped back again on to his heels, but he still held her hand and her fingers closed round his, pressing them, if not with passion, at least with fondness.
"You're rather an old dear, Roland," she said. And there was a note in her voice that made him say quickly and half audibly:
"And you're a darling."
She drew her hand from his gently. "And what was that pretty name you called me?"
"Elfkin."
"Let me be always Elfkin."
Both of them that night were wooed to sleep by the delight of their new-found happiness.
THE LONELY UNICORN
Thelovers went for a walk together on Sunday morning through the woods that lay beyond the village, and they sat on a pile of broken sticks that a charcoal burner had collected for a fire, and they held hands and talked of the future. Her pleasure in this new relationship was a continual fascination to Roland. She regarded love, courtship and marriage as a delightful game.
"What fun it's going to be," she said; "we shall announce our engagement and then everyone will write and congratulate us, and we shall have to answer them, and I shall have to pretend to be so serious and say: 'I am much looking forward to introducing you to my fiancé. I hope you will like each other.'"
"And what sort of a ring am I to get you?"
"The ring! Oh, I had forgotten that. One has to have one, doesn't one? Let's see now. What should I like?" And she paused, her finger raised to her lower lip. She remained for a moment in perplexed consideration, then suddenly shook her head.
"Oh, I don't care, just what you like. Let it be a surprise. But there's one thing, Roland, dear—promise me."
"Yes."
"You will promise, won't you?"
"Of course."
"Well, then, promise me you won't put any writing inside it, because I shall want to show it to my friends and I should feel so silly if they saw it."
After lunch Mr Marston asked him to come into the study for a talk.
"I'm not going to play the heavy father," he said; "in fact, you know yourself how thoroughly pleased we are, both of us, about it all. We couldn't have wished a better husband for Muriel. But there is such a thing as finance, and you've got, I gather, no money apart from what you earn from us."
"No, sir."
"And your salary now is——?"
"Four hundred a year, sir."
"And how far do you think that will go? You could start a home with it, of course, but do you think you could make Muriel happy with it? She's a dainty little lady, and when she's free from home authority she will want to be going out to dances and theatres. How far do you think four hundred will take her?"
"Not very far, sir."
"Then what do you propose to do? Long engagements are a bad thing."
"Yes, sir."
"Well, then, what do you think of doing?"
Roland, who had expected Mr Marston to make his daughter a generous dress allowance, was uncertain how to answer this question. Indeed, he made no attempt.
"I suppose," said Mr Marston, "that what you were really thinking was that I should make you some allowance."
Roland blushed, and began to stammer that, as a matter of fact, that was exactly what—but he never finished the sentence, for Mr Marston interrupted him.
"Because, if that's what you were thinking, young man, I can disillusion you at once. I don't believe in allowances; they put a young couple under an obligation to their parents. And that's bad. A young couple should be independent. No!" he said, "I'm not going to make Muriel any allowance, but," and here he paused theatrically, so as to make the most of his point, "I am going to give you a good opportunity of making yourself independent. I am going to offer to both you and Gerald junior partnerships in the business."
Roland gave a start; he could scarcely believe what he had heard.
"But, sir——" he began.
"Yes, a partnership in our business, and I can't say how pleased I shall be to have you there, and how proud I am to have a son-in-law who will want to work and not be content to attend an occasional board meeting and draw large fees for doing so. I know a business man when I meet one. We are jolly lucky to have got you, and as for you and Muriel, well, honestly, I don't know which of you is luckier!"
They were the same words that Gerald had used, and he was convinced of their truth five minutes later when he sat in the drawing-room pouring out this exciting news to Muriel, when he saw her eyes light with enthusiasm, and heard her say on a note of genuine comradeship and admiration: "Roland, I always knew it. You're a wonderful boy!"
This state of rapture lasted till he said good-night to Gerald on Monday evening in the doorway of the office. Then, and then only, did he realise to what a series of complications he had delivered himself. He had fallen into the habit of regarding his life at Hogstead and his life at Hammerton as two separate entities; what happened to him in one life did not affect him in the other. Hogstead had been his dream country. During the week-end he had retreated within his dream, flung up bulwarks, garrisoned himself securely. He had not realised that, when he returned to Hammerton, he would have to deliver an account of himself. So far, what had happened in that dream country had only mattered to himself. His engagement to Muriel, however, involved the fortunes of persons other than himself, and this fact was presented to him acutely as he sat on the top of a bus and drew nearer, minute by minute, to No. 105 Hammerton Villas.
In the course of seventy-two hours he had completely altered the direction of his life. He had left home on Saturday morning with every intention of proposing definitely to April at the first opportunity and of marryingher as soon as the necessary arrangements could be made. Yet here he was on Monday evening returning home the fiancé of Muriel Marston and a junior partner in her father's firm. He could not imagine in what spirit the news would be received. His parents knew little enough of Gerald and his father; they were hardly aware of Muriel's existence. Years earlier he may have said, perhaps, in reply to some casual query: "Oh, yes, he's got a sister, much younger than himself, a jolly kid!" But of late, nothing. He did not see either how he was to introduce the subject. He would be asked hardly any questions about his holiday; he had always been uncommunicative.
"Have you had a nice time, my dear?"
That's what his mother would say, in the same indifferent tone that she would say "Good morning, how do you do?" to a casual acquaintance. She would then proceed to tell him about the visitors they had received on Sunday.
His father would arrive, lay down his evening paper on the table and begin to change his boots.
"So you're back all right, Roland?" That would be his only reference to his son's holidays before he plunged into a commentary on the state of the bus service, the country and the restaurant where he had lunched.
"Coming for a walk, Roland?" That would be his next indication that he was conscious of his son's presence, and on the receipt of an affirmation he would trudge upstairs, to reappear ten minutes later in a light grey suit.
"Ready, my son?" And they would walk along the High Street till they reached the corner of Upper College Road. There Mr Whately would pause. "Well, Roland, shall we go in and see April?" And in reality the question would be an assertion. They would have to go into the Curtises'; it would be terrible. He would feel like Judas Iscariot at the Last Supper. He would be received by Mrs Curtis as a future son-in-law. April would smile on him as her betrothed.Whatever he did or said he could not, in her eyes, be anything but perfidious, disloyal, treacherous. He would be unable to make clear to her the inevitable nature of what had happened.
The red roofs and stucco fronts of Donnington had by now receded into the distance; the bus was already clattering down the main street of Lower Hammerton. The lights in the shop windows had just been kindled and lent a touch of wistful poetry to the spectacle of the crowded pavements, black with the dark coats of men returning from their offices, with here and there a splash of gaiety from the dress of some harassed woman hurrying to complete her shopping before her husband's return.
"In three more minutes we shall be at the Town Hall," Roland told himself. "In two minutes from then I shall have reached the corner of Hammerton Villas; 105 is the third house down on the left-hand side. In six minutes, at the outside, I shall be there!"
And it turned out exactly as he had predicted. He found his mother in the drawing-room, turning the handle of the sewing-machine. She smiled as he opened the door and, as he bent his head to kiss her, expressed the hope that he had enjoyed himself. Three minutes later his father arrived.
"A most interesting murder case to-day, my dear; there's a full account of it inThe Globe. It appears that the fellow was engaged to one girl, but was really in love with the mother of the girl he murdered, and he murdered the girl because she seemed to suspect—no, that's not it. It was the girl he was engaged to who suspected; but at any rate you'll find it all inThe Globe—a most interesting case." And he opened the paper at the centre page and handed it to his wife. As he did so his arm brushed against Roland, and the forcible reminder of his son's existence inspired him to express the hope that the cricket at Hogstead had reached the high expectations that had been entertained regarding it. This duty accomplished, he proceeded to describein detail the lunch he had selected at the Spanish café.
"There was a choice of three things: you could either havehors d'œuvreor a soup, and then there was either omelette or fish or spaghetti, with veal or chicken or mutton to follow, and, of course, cheese to finish up with. Well, I didn't think the spaghetti at that place was very good, so I was left with a choice of either an omelette or fish."
While he was stating and explaining his choice Mr Whately had found time to divest his feet of his boots.
"Well, and what about a walk, Roland?"
"I suppose so, father."
"Right you are. I'll just run up and change."
Ten minutes later, before Roland had had time to unravel the complicated psychology of the Norfolk murder case, Mr Whately was standing in the doorway in his grey tweed suit and straw hat. "A bit late for a straw, perhaps, but it's lovely weather, almost like spring. One can't believe that summer's over." The repetition of the phrase jarred Roland's conscience. Would it not be better to get it off his chest now, once and for all, before he was taken to see April, before that final act of hypocrisy was forced on him?
"Father," he said, "there's something——"
But Mr Whately did not like to be kept waiting.
"Come along, Roland, time enough for that when we are out of doors. It'll be dark soon."
And by the time they had reached the foot of the long flight of steps the moment of desperate courage had been followed by a desperate fear. Time enough when he got back to tell them. He made no effort even to discourage his father when, at the corner of Upper College Road, they paused and the old assertive question was asked. Roland nodded his head in meek submission. What was to be gained at this point by discussion? There would be enough turmoil later on.
But he regretted his weakness five minutes later when he sat in the wicker chair by the window-seat. He looked round the room at the unaltered furniture, theunaltered pictures, the unaltered bookshelves, and Mrs Curtis eternal in that setting, her voice droning on as it had droned for him through so many years. There was no change anywhere. Mrs Curtis was sitting beside the fireplace, her knitting on her lap, the bones of her body projecting as awkwardly as ever. His father sat opposite her, his hat held forward before his knees, his head nodding in satisfied agreement, his voice interrupting occasionally the movement of his head with a "Yes, Mrs Curtis," "Certainly, Mrs Curtis." And he and April sat as of old, near and silent, in the window-seat.
As he looked at April, the profile of her face silhouetted against the window, an acute wave of sentiment passed over him, reminding him of the many things they had shared together. The first twenty years of his life belonged to her. It was to her that he had turned in his moment of success; her faith in him had inspired his achievements. She had been proud of him. He remembered how she had flushed with pleasure when he had told her what the school captain had said to him at the end of the season, and when he had been invited to the cricket match at Hogstead it was of her that he had asked soft encouragement, and it was at her feet that he had laid, a few days later, his triumph. How strange that was, that she should have been the first to hear of Hogstead. The wave of tenderness swept away every little difference of environment and personality that had accumulated round their love during the past three years. What a fine thing, after all, they had meant to make of their life together. What a confession of failure was this parting. And when Mr Whately rose to go, and Mrs Curtis followed him to the door, no doubt with the intention of leaving the lovers alone together, Roland put out his arms to April and folded her into them, and for the last time laid his lips on hers in a kiss that expressed for him an infinite kindness for her, and pity, pity for her, for himself, and for the tangle life had made of their ambitions. As he drew back his headfrom hers she whispered the word "Darling!" on a note of authentic passion, but he could not say anything. His hands closed on her shoulders for a moment, then slackened. He could not bear to look at her. He turned quickly and ran to his father. Was it, he asked himself, the kiss of Iscariot? He did not know. He had buried a part of himself; he had said good-bye to the first twenty years of his life.