THE GHOST
SEVEN days leave—how exhilarating! Freedom was wine in the mouth. And though of those seven days only three remained he was still enjoying a delirious intoxication. He had learned the art of squeezing the present moment dry, of living with all his heart in a happy now, when he reached one, regarding the long intervals of wretchedness as unmeaning parentheses.
‘I was a silly fellow not to get here earlier. But you know what relatives are.’
‘You were both silly and horrid,’ answered his hostess. But her eyes danced with pleasure as they met his, and the two friends exchanged a smile of understanding. This was their good time, and they would make the most of it, wasting no regret on the past and admitting to their hearts no fear of the great black future that loomed, like a beast of prey, ready to shatter their happiness with a blow of its paw. It was a most delightful friendship, and that it depended on mutual liking alone, and onno sort of conventional tie, constituted not the least of its charm. Dressed in a white tub-frock, her small face from under a drooping sun-hat flushing with excitement, Betty—publicly known as Mrs. Charles Cowley—looked exquisitely cool and fresh and young, younger even than her years, which numbered twenty-seven. It did Arnold’s eyes good to look at her, and it sent a warm thrill through his romantic heart that he was able to enjoy that comforting sight, able to bask in her jolly friendliness, without a thought of disloyalty towards her husband, his old friend Charles. So far as he could feel sorry for anyone this morning he was a little sorry for Charles: not because Charles was an ill-paid clerk, nor because Charles’s was a retentive firm conspiring with medical officers to defeat his patriotic ambition, but merely because on this day of all days he had to remain cooped up in the city, poor devil.
He put his head out of the kitchen window and inhaled the summer air in long rapturous draughts. Jove, what a day for picnicking!
‘Hullo!’ cried Betty, at his back. ‘What do you think you’re achieving by that? You can’t stop to do your breathing exercises now. Why, you haven’t packed the sandwiches yet!’
Arnold wheeled round and saluted her inmilitary fashion—a form of humour then in vogue. ‘Sorry, sir!... Anyhow, have you finished washing up your dixies?’
Betty regarded him with severity. ‘Yes, of course. Haven’t I got my hat on and waiting for you!’
He repeated the question reflectively. ‘Haven’t I got my hat on and waiting for you?... In what sense is your hat waiting for me, Betty? As the dear general said in Bernard Shaw, I’m only a silly soldier-man. Don’t harass my poor intelligence.’
‘Oh, grammar!’ She annihilated grammar with one pout. Her quick fingers stacked the sandwiches, and wrapped them in grease paper snatched from the table drawer. ‘Come along.... No,I’mgoing to carry the haversack. You bring the thermos.’
They stepped out of the bungalow and into rural Buckinghamshire. It was certainly a unique morning. Earth had never before been so fresh, breathed such fragrance; never before had the sky bent so intimately over her. After an hour’s walking down narrow lanes between sweet-smelling hedgerows, and over hills bordered by pinewoods, the two friends turned into a field-path. Tall feathery grasses, red-brown dock-flowers and yellow charlock trembled ever so slightly as in a trance ofecstasy; clover and ladies’-fingers, buttercups and celandine seemed to Arnold’s imagination to be so many mute faces, absurdly knowing, wonderfully content. When they reached their second stile he paused, and Betty with him. The meadow beyond was a symphony in green and yellow: a curving sweep of long grass and buttercups, dazzled with sunlight; and on the far side, by a pond, black-and-white cows were browsing in the shadow of tall elms, some dreaming over a celestial cud, some stooping to the water, some cropping the jade-green grass with soft enfolding lips.
‘How still it looks,’ said Betty.
He nodded, drowsed by beauty, yet stabbed by beauty’s pain. He wondered if he were seeing this vision of England for the last time. ‘And how alive,’ he answered. ‘It’s as if the whole field were breathing and feeling. Dare we go into it? It’s like walking over some one’s face.’
Perhaps in that moment that three-days-hence future thrust its ugly face into Betty’s. Perhaps she recalled Arnold’s solitary lapse from soldierly reticence, when he had said: ‘It’s not the actual fighting or the danger. It’s the filth. And chance sights. A decaying human hand sticking out of the side of a trench—things like that.’ Perhaps she recalledthis, for her face grew unaccountably tense.
‘Come along, Arnold, that’s where we’re going to have lunch. By that stream.’ She scrambled over the stile before he could offer to help her. He followed in a more leisurely fashion, a little disappointed that she had broken the spell of that meadow’s loveliness.
They sauntered across the field, and climbed another stile. Then, skirting the hedge to the left, they followed the brook until they found an agreeable resting-place on the sloping grassed bank. They sat down a few yards from the pond where, as in a picture, the cows were grouped, knee-deep in cool grass. Into that little lake, which reflected the sky’s blue and gold, the brook ran clear over a pebbly bed. Arnold, embracing his knees, rested his chin on them and stared into the water, admiring the contours and colours of the smooth, delicately-enamelled stones, and straining the imagination to share the lives of the minute creatures that were borne past in the stream. Betty watched him with a covert sidelong look.
A unique morning, yes; and a unique friendship of which Arnold was immeasurably proud. Beautifully at peace, he found delight in contemplating their relationship. He and Betty were the most staunch of comrades. There was implicit trust between them, unshakablefidelity, and never a thought of love. He could not believe that ever before had a man and a girl achieved such intimacy without being betrayed into a wish for a more passionate symbol of that intimacy than mere talk. But to Arnold, who was still in his earliest twenties, talk was the best thing in the world. And what talks he had had with Betty! With what glorious candour she had disclosed to him the secret places of her mind, places to which even her mother and sisters had never been admitted! For Arnold it was a fascinating and a sacred experience; and if Betty’s respect for his intellect was exaggerated, her absolute trust in his honour was at least well-founded. It was this absolute trust that added to their friendship the delicious flavour of romance. They exchanged ideas—on life, on religion, on sex, especially on sex—with utter unreserve, and with no hint of concession to vulgar notions of propriety.
‘Look at those jolly little red worms,’ said Arnold, pointing to the water. ‘I used to dote on those things when I was a kid.’
‘They’re lovely.’ Betty paused before adding, a trifle consciously: ‘Childhood’s the best time, isn’t it? I wish I had a baby.’
He glanced up with quick interest. ‘Well, why not?’
‘Ah, why! I’ve been married five years. At first we couldn’t afford it, and now—well, something’s wrong. For two years or more we’ve been hoping for a child.’
‘Rotten luck!’ Arnold looked back at the stream.
‘Yes. I wanted to tell you. You see, there’s something wrong with Charlie.’
Arnold became alarmed. ‘Something ... physiological?’
‘Yes. The doctor told him. Nothing very dreadful, I believe, in the ordinary way. But it makes it improbable that he’ll ever have a child.’
‘And he wants one?’
Betty turned her head away for one moment. ‘Iwant one; I want one bitterly. And he too, in his way.’
Arnold kept his gaze steadily upon the moving water, lest he should see her tears. He was shocked to think that this girl, so robust, so affectionate, so ripe for motherhood, should be cheated by the accident of marriage of a tremendous experience. And why must it be so? In a sensible society would it be so? Before he had begun to work out all the implications of that challenge, Betty spoke again.
He was amazed to hear her phrasing hisown thoughts. ‘If people were decent-minded, it wouldn’t so much matter,’ she said. ‘There could be a temporary marriage with someone else.’
Arnold was delighted with this proof of her emancipation. ‘Exactly. Nothing simpler. But society won’t change in a hurry. No use waiting for society. It rests with you and Charlie.’
‘He would agree, of course. He would do anything for my happiness.’
Arnold glowed in agreement. Charles was a good fellow, the best fellow in the world; he had a level head and a wonderfully rational outlook. Nothing niggardly about Charles.... And then an extraordinary thought presented itself. Why could not he himself give Betty her heart’s desire? Could she possibly have any such notion in her mind? Was it possible that she liked him enough for that? The dream blossomed in his imagination. He saw the baby laughing up at him from its cradle; saw it growing up as the son of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Cowley. He himself would see the boy—for a boy it would be—only occasionally, and he would be known as ‘Uncle Arnold’ or some such nonsense. The situation would be quite impossibly romantic, like something in a novel, and yet atriumph of decency and good sense over vulgar middle-class morality. Betty and he would resume their friendship unchanged and desiring no change. His respect for her was invincible. She was the wife of his friend, and that she would always be. He conceived the whole episode dispassionately, an act of pure friendship. Was it possible that she...? No, it was not possible. Talk was all very well, but confronted with the need for action she would falter. His thoughts had been mere presumption. Some other man, perhaps, but he—he could not expect so great an honour, and certainly he could not seek it. If she had meant that she would have said so. Of that he was sure. He dared not make a suggestion that might be repellent to her: she would be so cruelly embarrassed, and the perfection of their comradeship would be marred for ever.
And yet, in a situation so excessively delicate, he must venture something if he wished to be her friend. He tried to say: ‘You know I too would do anything to make you happy.’ But the words as they formed in his mind frightened him. How could he make her realize the utter purity and loyalty of his desires?
Despite his bewilderment he felt the moment to be exquisitely rich in beauty and in destiny.The pause lengthened. At last he stammered, ‘In that event, of course, you would ask ... some friend.’
‘Yes.’ Betty’s tone was cold. ‘Forgive me for boring you.’ She jumped up. ‘I’m getting stiff. Shall we move on?’
Something had gone wrong. Arnold grappled feverishly with the incomprehensible. Had he said too much? No, too little. Betty was already walking away. He could see only her back. When he caught her up, the sight of her pride made him angry with himself; yet he felt tongue-tied. He knew that he had failed her in a supreme crisis. Could he have had that opportunity again he would for her sake have risked all, and said, ‘Let me be the father of your child.’ But she was talking now, rather volubly and consciously, of indifferent things. Nothing would ever be the same again. Anger, jealous anger, flamed in his heart against the child, never to be born, who stood like a ghost between them, severing their friendship.