PART FOURThey came and went and are not,And come no more anew,And all the years and seasonsThat ever can ensueMust now be worse and few.PART FOURITHE days that followed were confused and anxious, as the days before had been. There was no sudden change in life because the war had stopped. The change from war to peace was as hard to believe as the change from peace to war had been, and less complete.Christmas came, and we had a Christmas tree. We had crackers and cakes, and we danced round it in a ring.‘It is the first peace Christmas,’ we said. ‘It ought to be gay.’ And I think the children enjoyed it, though Eleanor did not care much for things that were not useful.Early in the New Year we had influenza again; everybody had influenza about then. Eleanor and Rachel had it first, then Walter and the maids, and last of all, John. He was the most ill, and I thought he would die; but in the end he got better, and our life went on as before.Guy was married in February. He was married at Portsmouth where Diana’s father was stationed; in a red-brick church on a hill. I went to the wedding, but Walter did not go.Before that there was a party at Yearsly, to welcome Diana. It was not a real party, because of Hugo; a dinner to the tenants, but no dancing in the hall as there would have been. There were presents for Guy and Diana; a silver tray, and a tea-pot; and they all came to see Diana.She stood with Guy in the hall; he could stand with crutches now, and they all came and shook hands with them. Old Joseph came, and Mathew, both their sons had been killed, and the Elliots from the farm, whose son was missing, like Hugo. The young men were not back, those who were still alive, and the girls were mostly away, in factories and shops, but all the old people came, and I thought how old they looked.I thought they liked Diana, and for the same reason that Guy did. She stood very straight and tall, in a white, shimmering dress. She wore a string of pearls that Cousin John had given her; she had chosen that as a present.‘I adore pearls!’ she said.Cousin Delia too had given her a necklace of old paste, little old pieces of paste set into flowers; it had belonged to Mary Geraldine, and Cousin Delia used to wear it, now she gave it to Diana, and she did not care for it.She called me into her room—that was the evening before. . . .‘Oh, my dear!’ she said, ‘just look what she has given me! It’s quite too marvellous, and awfully quaint, of course, but I simply couldn’t wear it, could I? Will the old duck mind, do you think, if I don’t? I wouldn’t hurt her for worlds!’She clasped it round her neck, and made a face in the glass.‘I should look too awfully odd, shouldn’t I, now, like that? Belonged to some old grandmother, she says.. . .I’m no good at the antique stunt!’ She flashed round at me, with her laughing, dancing eyes. ‘Not my line, you know, is it? Don’t you agree?’And I didn’t know what to say, for what she said was true; it didn’t look right on her; it made her look loud and crude; she made it look weak and poor. But I loved that necklace so, on Cousin Delia. She had worn it when we were children, and Hugo had loved it too.I said:‘I can’t judge. We knew that necklace too well. . . .’And she put out her tongue at me, and laughed again.‘You are a priceless crowd!’ she said. ‘You live in a world of your own, all long ago, and out of date, and things as they used to be!. . .Guy’d be the same, if I’d let him, but I won’t, I warn you, so there!. . .I suppose I must wear this to-morrow, and I shall look a fright!’But she did not wear the old necklace. She wore the new big pearls, and she did look very lovely, and Guy was proud of her.I asked what she thought of Yearsly, for I could not make out what she thought.She said:‘Oh, simply topping, but it does give one the hump!’I said:‘I think of it as such a happy place.’She said:‘Do you? What a scream! I feel like being in church. Perhaps though, you like being in church, and feeling very good?’I said I didn’t think so.She said:‘It’s so subdued, it makes me want to shout. . .and that die-away sort of music that Guy and his mother do. . .oh I know it’s very classy. . .but it doesn’t appeal to me, too much like church, again. . .Guy’s got a decent voice too, he sings a lot with me, jolly different songs,’ and she smiled mischievously, his mother wouldn’t like them!‘Of course, the garden’s jolly, but the house is awfully dark. I’d cut down half the trees. . .they give me the creeps at night, all swishing on the windows. . .and I’d put on new paint, and lots of jolly curtains instead of those faded things that look as though they’d fall to pieces. I like stripes,’ she said, ‘I’d have a red carpet, or perhaps black, if the walls and curtains were bright.. . .I love doing up rooms! I’ve done them all at home; the “mater” doesn’t mind.’And then she laughed again.‘I love to shock you,’ she said. ‘You look as though I’d burnt a bible! Ta-ta!’And she ran away.Guy said:‘Isn’t Dinah lovely? I love to see her run!’He came up just then, limping, on his crutches.We turned along the terrace, and walked on, slowly.‘You know, Helen,’ he said, ‘I can’t think what she sees in me. . .I must seem such a dull old buffer to her. . .especially now. I wish you could see her dance! You know, Helen,’ he said again, ‘she reminds me sometimes of you, when you used to dance. . .and I can’t dance with her!’I thought:‘What can I say?’I was very sorry for Guy.I said:‘She is very good tempered, and she even laughs at herself. . . .’Guy said:‘You don’t much like her, and I don’t think Mother does, but you will when you know her better, I feel quite sure of that.’I said:‘Yes, I am sure we shall; she takes a little knowing.’I said:‘I expect she is shy.’But I did not think she was shy.Mollie was at the wedding, and Ralph Freeman and I, and some cousins of Cousin Delia’s, and Grandmother, of course, and that was all on our side. The rest were Dinah’s people. She told us to call her Dinah; she said that every one did.IIThat Summer, Walter was appointed to a Readership at Oxford. It was a better post than the one he had before, at Grey College, and he was glad to get it.He said:‘I shall have time at last to write my book.’And so we left our house in Hampstead, and I was glad to leave it. It looked shabbier and more forlorn when we left it, than when we came. For a time, when we lived there first, it had been better; when the garden was in order, and the bulbs came up in the Spring; but the grass was all ragged again now, and I had planted no bulbs that Autumn. The paint we had put on, inside the house, was chipped and scratched already. Outside, it had never been done as we had meant to do it, and the extra wear and dirt of six years was over everything. The bath was more worn than ever, for we had not had it re-enamelled, and the greasy patch on the wall, behind the cedar mop, was bigger and darker.I was glad to go, and I did not mind much where we went. There were schools for the children in Oxford, and Walter longed to be there.He said:‘It is the only place where people think.’I did not find that at all, but I suppose that they thought about different things.We went down to Oxford and looked at houses. We did not enjoy looking at them as we had the first time. We stayed at the hotel, where Mollie and I had stayed with Cousin Delia for our Commemoration dance. It seemed quite different now, and all the town seemed different from what it used to seem when Guy and Hugo were at college and we used to come and see them. We looked at a great many houses and at last we took this one, where we live now. It is strange to me to realize that we have lived here, already, almost twice as long as we lived at Hampstead; so much was happening then and so little now; one year is like another now, only the children grow bigger, and we grow older, and I suppose it will go on, just like this, until we die.We moved to Oxford in November, just a year after the Armistice. We moved our furniture and our pictures and our books, and put them into new places in the new house. I put the alabaster bowl on the new chimney-piece, and the candlesticks that George and Mollie had given me. They looked all wrong in this room with the ornate chimney-piece and the coloured panes in the window.And I thought:‘What does it matter? What does anything matter now?’Cousin Delia sent me Hugo’s statue of the Delphic charioteer, and I put it in the corner, on a shelf all to itself just as Hugo used to have it in his room at Clifford’s Inn; our room was not like his even when that was there, but I liked to have it there.People came to call on me, a great many people. They meant to be kind to me, I knew that. They wanted me to join all sorts of societies and to do all sorts of things. They asked me if I was musical; if I took an interest in politics, or infant welfare. And it seemed to me, when they asked me that I was not interested in anything at all.They thought so too, I think.Walter was vexed with me. He said that I ought to make friends with some of the ladies that came to see me; he said they would think me stuck up, that I gave myself airs. I didn’t understand how they could think that. I don’t now. Walter said that I would find that I had lots of things in common with some of them, if only I would try, and I expect that is quite true, but somehow I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t make the effort. I felt then, and I still do, as though there were no room for new people in my life any more. I should never care for new friends as I did for the old ones. When one has had the best of all, second best seems not worth having.Mollie came to see us. She helped me with the house; we arranged the books together, and the pictures, and all the little things. She stayed a little longer, and I thought:‘There is still Mollie. . .if she can go on, I can.’But she could not stay long. She was going to work again at her Biological institute, and she had to go back. She said she would come again, she said she would often come, and she does come, and stay with us quite often. Even Walter is glad when she comes; he says it is her intellectual interests that have kept her so sweet and serene; he calls it so intelligent. I should not put it in that way, I think it is something much deeper and more fundamental in Mollie, than her interest in biology, that makes her what she is; but it does not matter much what we call it, we mean, really, the same thing. And often when she is not there, when I am discouraged and downhearted, and wonder if it is worth while going on, I think of Mollie, as I do of Cousin Delia, and I am ashamed of my own poorness of spirit, and I think again, how wonderful they are.IIIJust before Christmas time, my Grandmother fell ill. She had grown very old and frail in the last years. The war had worn her out.I went to her at Campden Hill Square. It was like long ago, before I married Walter; I had not been to stay there, for more than a night, since then.Grandmother said that she was glad to have me there.‘It is like old times,’ she said.They said she would not get better; they said that she was too old. She might last a few weeks, not more, the doctor said.And so I stayed with her, and she talked a great deal to me, mostly about my father when he was a little boy, and all that had happened then, nearly sixty years before, and when she was first married, and about my grandfather, when he was young.And I thought:‘Time does not matter. There is no time for her.’And I thought:‘It will be like that for me too, before long.’Two days before she died, I was sitting in her room, her sitting-room upstairs, where she always used to sit, and she was by the fire, in her own big armchair, for she would not stay in bed, and she began to talk of much more recent things, of the War, and of Hugo, and then of Walter and me.‘Dear child,’ she said, ‘I am glad that you married him.. . .I have wondered, but I am glad. He will always be the same. . .you know the worst of him, and it is not a bad worst.’I don’t know what I said. I was on the floor beside her, and she stroked my head as she talked.‘You know,’ she said, ‘poor Hugo. . .that never would have done. I was very much afraid, at one time, that you would marry him. Poor, dear Hugo. . .he would not have been a good husband. . .it is better as it is. . . .’And I felt that I could not bear it. . .I felt I must tell her everything, that it was all a mistake. . .that everything was wrong.. . .I looked into the fire, and the words rose up to my lips, and I nearly told her then, but I am glad that I did not.I thought:‘Why should I say it? She is so very old, she is going to die. . .she need never know at all. If souls should be immortal, she will know about it then. . .but I don’t believe they are. I think that she will end. . .I think Hugo has ended.’And so I smiled at her.And she said:‘You are happy? I think that you are happy, my dear?’And I said:‘Yes, Grandmother, I am quite happy, now.’She said:‘There are ups and downs.. . .There are always ups and downs. . .one must take the bad with the good. It will all be better now that the War is over.’And then she said:‘Poor Delia! I am truly sorry for her. She idolized her Hugo. . .she never saw his faults. . .and now, I don’t believe that she cares much for Guy’s wife.’I said:‘She never says so. I am sure she tries to like her.’Grandmother looked up sharply; she smiled, more as she used to smile:She said:‘I have seen her, you know. She would not be easy to like! But there it is, my dear,. . .you must take the bad with the good!. . .Guy is alive and married. . .that is much better than being dead.’And then she talked again about my father when he was little.And I thought:‘How odd it is, that she did not care for Hugo.’I thought:‘You can never tell why people like each other.’Two days later, she died. She was buried at Yearsly. The house in Campden Hill Square was sold, and some of her things were sold. I had not room for much. Cousin Delia had some, and she helped me with it all. And that was a chapter closed.Cousin Delia did not die. She did not seem very different from what she had always been, and she often talked of Hugo as though he were still alive.IVGuy’s first baby was born that Spring. It was a girl, and it was called Delia. Guy and Diana lived in London now. Guy had gone into business; Diana said he must make money, and there was no money in the Bar, at least, not for years and years. She said that she knew very well what it was like to be poor; she said that her ‘Pater’ was poor, ‘poor as a barn-door rat, and that’s no fun, you bet!’So Guy gave up the Bar; he said that he did not mind about it, and he went into business. I don’t know what he did in his business, but it seemed that he made more money in that way, though Diana said that it was still not enough.And then, Cousin John died too. He was hardly ill at all, only a few days.I thought:‘Every one is dying. Who will be left alive? Young people died in the War, and old people now it is over.’And there was another funeral in the little Yearsly church, and a tablet for Cousin John, on the wall, near the tablet for Hugo.Now Guy and Diana were to move to Yearsly. Cousin Delia would not stay there, though Guy had asked her to.She said:‘It would not do, it would not do for Diana.’And so she packed her things, and I went and stayed with her, and helped her pack. I took John with me; he was three years old then, and he played in the fields at Yearsly, as Hugo used to play. We went through all the things, Cousin Delia and I. We sorted out the cupboards, and the drawers, and the boxes of letters. It had all to be left in order for Diana to take it over.‘I hope she will care for the place,’ Cousin Delia said. ‘I hope she will get to love it, in time, as I have loved it.’We were both thinking of Hugo, and how she had not known him, and how to us he was there in every place and thing.I was with her there, for a week. It was in October, and the trees in the High Wood were red and bright, like flames. I have never seen the trees so bright as they were then.I went and walked in the wood, the last day I was there. I went and sat down on the leaves, beside the Happy Tree. The tree trunks stood out clear in the spaces of the wood, grey and distinct against the flaming leaves, and the sun was shining down through the brilliant leaves and underfoot as well, the ground was red, and shining, and I felt, suddenly, that beauty was still alive. It was like a flare of trumpets or a shout of triumph.And I thought:‘Is this “A lightening before death”?’And I thought:‘Death does not matter—death and life are one!’And I thought:‘This is truth, this glory of flaming trees!’And I felt a burst of joy.I felt:‘This still goes on.’I felt:‘What do I matter, or all that matters to me?’And I felt that it was for Hugo, this chorus of his trees.I felt:‘This is his wood. The trees are singing for him.’And I felt:‘I have understood. . .I have understood at last!’And I went down from the wood, after a long time. And I met Cousin Delia coming out of the walled garden. Her arms were full of flowers, dahlias, and chrysanthemums. Smoke was rising up, very blue, from behind the garden wall, and she looked happy too.I went up to her and said:‘I was in the wood. The trees were like trumpets blowing. . .“And he went over, and the trumpets sounded for him, on the other side.”. . .It was like that to-day!’And she said:‘I know. I was in the wood, this morning.’And I went indoors with her, and we put the flowers in water. And the next day, I went back to Oxford, with John.Cousin Delia went away to a little house, near Bath. Nunky went with her, and Mrs. Jeyes, the cook. She took the deerhounds with her, and she made a garden. I go to see her sometimes, and sometimes I take John.VI have been back twice to Yearsly since Cousin Delia left.Guy has asked me to go oftener, and Diana is kind and friendly, but I do not think she would like it if I were to go there often. That is quite natural; I should not fit in with her friends.But, she says:‘Come when you like. . .just send a P.C. and turn up!’And I say:‘Thank you, Dinah, that’s awfully good of you!’But I know she wouldn’t like it if I did, and I think she knows that I know, and anyhow, apart from that, I should not want to go often.It is all so different now, and I loved it as it was. I suppose it is growing old that makes one dislike changes. Diana has changed a great many things, just as she said she would.The house looks smarter now; there is new paint and new wall-paper. It is not exactly ugly, for Diana has a taste of her own, and I think she has taken trouble to make it just as she likes. The old brocade has gone, but the curtains are not striped; they are of a brilliant cretonne, with very big, pink flowers, and the paint inside, is yellow, bright yellow like mustard. Diana says it is the latest thing, pink-curtains and yellow paint; she says that every one is having that now.She has put chairs in the hall, big leather chairs and tables; she calls it a lounge hall, and they sit in there a great deal, and smoke. Diana is always smoking, and all her friends smoke too. They sit on the little tables, as a rule, instead of the chairs. And there is a very big gramophone; I think it is the biggest gramophone I have seen. Diana’s friends are all very well dressed, and most of them paint their faces; Diana does not paint; her own colour is too lovely to need it; I think she grows more lovely every time I see her.She has five children now; three girls and two boys. She is nicest with her children; she romps with them like a big tiger with cubs.The eldest boy is called Hugo. He is not at all like our Hugo. Diana thinks he is, but she never saw him. She says that the people round all say that he is; they would say that, of course, because he has the same name. He has dark eyes, that is true, but not the least like Hugo’s. He is just like Diana, and his eyes are like her eyes. He is a splendid child, big and strong and merry. He laughs and fights his brother and sisters, and he is always running. He breaks things and does not mind, he hurts people and isn’t sorry. It sounds strange to me to hear them call him Hugo.They are all fine children, all strong and well and cheerful. The house is full of noise, laughing and screaming and scuffling. I am glad there are children at Yearsly. There are five of them, and there were only three of us. I am glad they are there and yet it is almost more different than if they were not. They live so differently from the way we used to live, and they never play in the wood at all. But I think sometimes, that they are better fitted for life than we were. I think they are tougher than we were, and less illusioned.One of the children, the second girl, is unlike the others; she is only five now, hardly more than a baby, but she is much gentler than the rest and more devoted to Guy. I think that she will be a help to Guy some day, and he, perhaps, to her, when she grows up, and I sometimes wish that I could see more of that little girl.They have put in central heating, and electric light. It is more like an hotel now, and less like a loved house, but it is very comfortable, and there are two new bathrooms, white-tiled, like the bathroom I used to want.Old Joseph is still there, I think Guy has insisted on keeping him, but Mathew is pensioned off, for there are no more horses now. There are two motor-cars, one big, and one smaller, and a very smart chauffeur, called Septimus Ward. Jayne, the butler, died soon after Cousin John, and there is a smart new butler, quite different from Jayne.There are lots of little dogs, Pekingese, with bows, but no big dogs. Diana plays games a good deal, but she never goes for walks. She has her own car, the smaller of the two. It is a ‘Sports model Lancia,’ painted red, like a pillar-box, and she does speed tests, and hill trials, in a fur cap with long ear-pieces. She has a red leather coat, with fur up round her throat, and very big fur gauntlets, right up to her elbows. She always goes about in her car, even into the village. There is only room for two, and she sometimes takes one of the children. She has a very loud horn, and she blows it a great deal.I think she enjoys her life; she is often laughing. When she is annoyed, she is cross and sulks, like a child. She makes scenes with Guy, in public, and doesn’t mind who hears. At first, I minded that very much, I was so sorry for Guy, but it doesn’t seem to matter, it is just like a child in a temper; she forgets all she has said, and every one has to forget, and they do, apparently, and it all goes on as before.They have made a racquets court out of part of the old stable. Diana plays racquets well, and Guy can still play a bit.Guy is still in business. He goes up to the city every morning, and comes back in the evening. I think he must be quite rich; they seem rich, when one is there.I think Guy is happy; it is very hard to know. He walks about with a stick, and his hair is quite grey; he looks older than he is, and he is now forty-four. I wonder very often what he thinks about it all; but of course he does not tell me, and of course I do not ask.The trees have been thinned out, and many have been cut down. There are none close up to the wall of the house now, as there used to be, and the branches would not tap now on the window-pane of my window if I slept in my old room; but Diana’s maid sleeps there now, and I dare say she likes it better without the trees.The first time I went back, they had not touched the wood, but the last time that I went, the Happy Tree had gone. I went up in the wood as soon as I got there, and looked for the Happy Tree, and I could not believe it had gone. It gave me an odd feeling, as though I must be asleep, and I walked all about, to try and find where it was, and there was the place where it used to be, and just a big stump was there.And I found Guy walking about, with his stick, in front of the house.And I said:‘Oh Guy. . .the tree. . .you know, the Happy Tree. . . .’And Guy looked at me so queerly, for a moment, with his face screwed up, and I was not sure at first, if he was angry. . . .And then he said:‘Yes. It was cut down while I was away, last autumn. Dinah had it done. She did not know, of course, that it was a special tree.’And I said:‘No, of course not. . .she could not have known.’And I thought:‘He had not told her that!’We did not talk about it. We just walked up and down, and Guy talked about his children, and I talked about mine.The seats in front of the house were all painted bright green. They were painted every year, and the paths were always raked.It is right to rake gravel paths, and to keep the edges trimmed. It ought to look much nicer, but I don’t think it does, somehow.VIAnd now it is ten years since the war ended; ten years all but a few weeks. These years have gone much more quickly than the years before them did. People always tell one that, that the years go faster and faster, as one grows older. Nothing happens now, and so much was happening before.The children are growing up; even John is ten. He goes to school here; there is a good school, but I suppose he will have to go away when he is a little older. I don’t know what I shall do when John goes away. But I suppose when the time comes it will be like everything else. One thinks:‘I cannot bear it, if that happens!’And then it does happen, and one does bear it, and everything goes on, just the same as before.I don’t know how I should have lived all these years without John. He is often very naughty, much naughtier than Eleanor or Rachel have ever been. I am not clever with my children as Cousin Delia was with hers. I often wish that he could have the childhood that I had, at Yearsly, with her, he would understand that, he understands a great many things. I read stories to John that Cousin Delia used to read to me, and poetry sometimes too. I think he will like poetry; not as Hugo did, not so much nor so young, but he sees the point of it even now as Eleanor and Rachel never did, and of all that kind of thing. It is a pleasure to me to read to John, and I think sometimes, of all the books we will read together when he is older, books that I read with Hugo in the hay, at Yearsly, in the long summers, and then sometimes I am afraid that I am building too much on his being what I want him to be, and that he will not be like that at all when he is older. . .but I shall always love John, whatever he grows into. . . .Mollie said that I should be thankful for John, and I am, I have been always.Eleanor likes books that give her information. She likes facts and statistics, and she does very well at school, much better than John or Rachel. They say she is very clever, that she will get a scholarship. That will please Walter. He is proud of Eleanor, but I think he loves Rachel best. She is more alive; she is not so good as Eleanor, nor so naughty as John, not so fair as Eleanor, nor so dark as John. She does her lessons well, but she likes to play at games. I don’t think life will be hard for Rachel.I think Walter is happy. His book came out last year. It was published by the University Press, and that was just as he wanted. Not many people bought it, but he said that did not matter, he had not expected that; it was praised in learned journals, very highly praised. Several German professors wrote to Walter about it. Two came to see him, with special dispensations from the Home Office, because they were Enemy Aliens still. They were very polite to Walter, and complimented me on my ‘so distinguished man’; they said he was ‘world-famous’ for his proto-Hittite script.I am glad Walter is happy, or at least, happy for him.. . .I don’t think he could be happy, as Hugo or I would be. He is less cross now, and kinder. He likes his work in college, and he has time for work of his own as well. He has started another book that will last about ten years, and he goes for walks with his friends: those two friends of his both came back; one of them teaches Ancient History, and the other Philosophy, but it doesn’t make much difference; they like to talk to Walter, and he likes to talk to them.Walter is not different, really from what he was when we were married; he is less fierce, perhaps, because he is more assured; he knows more where he is, and other people know. But he is not really different, though he said that he would change, and I said people didn’t, and yet I have myself. . .I have changed much more. . .that is funny, I think, how little people know.Last Spring, when the blossom was out, I went down to New College, and looked at the cherry tree that we used to see from Hugo’s window. I suppose it is just the same now, as it always was, but I do not feel the same about it now. There are other young men in Hugo’s college rooms, three generations of young men have been in those rooms since we came here, and others, of course, before that. It is twenty years now since Hugo was there.And now it is my birthday, and I am forty; and Hugo, if he were alive, would be forty-two and a half. That seems impossible; I cannot think of Hugo as not young.And there are the leaves coming down. There are always leaves and trees. . .and always coming down. . .naturally. . .every year. . .why do I notice that?And this is all that has happened. It does not seem very much. It does not seem worth writing about. I was happy when I was a child, and I married the wrong person, and some one I loved dearly was killed in the war. . .that is all. And all those things must be true of thousands of people.
They came and went and are not,And come no more anew,And all the years and seasonsThat ever can ensueMust now be worse and few.
They came and went and are not,And come no more anew,And all the years and seasonsThat ever can ensueMust now be worse and few.
They came and went and are not,
And come no more anew,
And all the years and seasons
That ever can ensue
Must now be worse and few.
PART FOUR
THE days that followed were confused and anxious, as the days before had been. There was no sudden change in life because the war had stopped. The change from war to peace was as hard to believe as the change from peace to war had been, and less complete.
Christmas came, and we had a Christmas tree. We had crackers and cakes, and we danced round it in a ring.
‘It is the first peace Christmas,’ we said. ‘It ought to be gay.’ And I think the children enjoyed it, though Eleanor did not care much for things that were not useful.
Early in the New Year we had influenza again; everybody had influenza about then. Eleanor and Rachel had it first, then Walter and the maids, and last of all, John. He was the most ill, and I thought he would die; but in the end he got better, and our life went on as before.
Guy was married in February. He was married at Portsmouth where Diana’s father was stationed; in a red-brick church on a hill. I went to the wedding, but Walter did not go.
Before that there was a party at Yearsly, to welcome Diana. It was not a real party, because of Hugo; a dinner to the tenants, but no dancing in the hall as there would have been. There were presents for Guy and Diana; a silver tray, and a tea-pot; and they all came to see Diana.
She stood with Guy in the hall; he could stand with crutches now, and they all came and shook hands with them. Old Joseph came, and Mathew, both their sons had been killed, and the Elliots from the farm, whose son was missing, like Hugo. The young men were not back, those who were still alive, and the girls were mostly away, in factories and shops, but all the old people came, and I thought how old they looked.
I thought they liked Diana, and for the same reason that Guy did. She stood very straight and tall, in a white, shimmering dress. She wore a string of pearls that Cousin John had given her; she had chosen that as a present.
‘I adore pearls!’ she said.
Cousin Delia too had given her a necklace of old paste, little old pieces of paste set into flowers; it had belonged to Mary Geraldine, and Cousin Delia used to wear it, now she gave it to Diana, and she did not care for it.
She called me into her room—that was the evening before. . . .
‘Oh, my dear!’ she said, ‘just look what she has given me! It’s quite too marvellous, and awfully quaint, of course, but I simply couldn’t wear it, could I? Will the old duck mind, do you think, if I don’t? I wouldn’t hurt her for worlds!’
She clasped it round her neck, and made a face in the glass.
‘I should look too awfully odd, shouldn’t I, now, like that? Belonged to some old grandmother, she says.. . .I’m no good at the antique stunt!’ She flashed round at me, with her laughing, dancing eyes. ‘Not my line, you know, is it? Don’t you agree?’
And I didn’t know what to say, for what she said was true; it didn’t look right on her; it made her look loud and crude; she made it look weak and poor. But I loved that necklace so, on Cousin Delia. She had worn it when we were children, and Hugo had loved it too.
I said:
‘I can’t judge. We knew that necklace too well. . . .’
And she put out her tongue at me, and laughed again.
‘You are a priceless crowd!’ she said. ‘You live in a world of your own, all long ago, and out of date, and things as they used to be!. . .Guy’d be the same, if I’d let him, but I won’t, I warn you, so there!. . .I suppose I must wear this to-morrow, and I shall look a fright!’
But she did not wear the old necklace. She wore the new big pearls, and she did look very lovely, and Guy was proud of her.
I asked what she thought of Yearsly, for I could not make out what she thought.
She said:
‘Oh, simply topping, but it does give one the hump!’
I said:
‘I think of it as such a happy place.’
She said:
‘Do you? What a scream! I feel like being in church. Perhaps though, you like being in church, and feeling very good?’
I said I didn’t think so.
She said:
‘It’s so subdued, it makes me want to shout. . .and that die-away sort of music that Guy and his mother do. . .oh I know it’s very classy. . .but it doesn’t appeal to me, too much like church, again. . .Guy’s got a decent voice too, he sings a lot with me, jolly different songs,’ and she smiled mischievously, his mother wouldn’t like them!
‘Of course, the garden’s jolly, but the house is awfully dark. I’d cut down half the trees. . .they give me the creeps at night, all swishing on the windows. . .and I’d put on new paint, and lots of jolly curtains instead of those faded things that look as though they’d fall to pieces. I like stripes,’ she said, ‘I’d have a red carpet, or perhaps black, if the walls and curtains were bright.. . .I love doing up rooms! I’ve done them all at home; the “mater” doesn’t mind.’
And then she laughed again.
‘I love to shock you,’ she said. ‘You look as though I’d burnt a bible! Ta-ta!’
And she ran away.
Guy said:
‘Isn’t Dinah lovely? I love to see her run!’
He came up just then, limping, on his crutches.
We turned along the terrace, and walked on, slowly.
‘You know, Helen,’ he said, ‘I can’t think what she sees in me. . .I must seem such a dull old buffer to her. . .especially now. I wish you could see her dance! You know, Helen,’ he said again, ‘she reminds me sometimes of you, when you used to dance. . .and I can’t dance with her!’
I thought:
‘What can I say?’
I was very sorry for Guy.
I said:
‘She is very good tempered, and she even laughs at herself. . . .’
Guy said:
‘You don’t much like her, and I don’t think Mother does, but you will when you know her better, I feel quite sure of that.’
I said:
‘Yes, I am sure we shall; she takes a little knowing.’
I said:
‘I expect she is shy.’
But I did not think she was shy.
Mollie was at the wedding, and Ralph Freeman and I, and some cousins of Cousin Delia’s, and Grandmother, of course, and that was all on our side. The rest were Dinah’s people. She told us to call her Dinah; she said that every one did.
That Summer, Walter was appointed to a Readership at Oxford. It was a better post than the one he had before, at Grey College, and he was glad to get it.
He said:
‘I shall have time at last to write my book.’
And so we left our house in Hampstead, and I was glad to leave it. It looked shabbier and more forlorn when we left it, than when we came. For a time, when we lived there first, it had been better; when the garden was in order, and the bulbs came up in the Spring; but the grass was all ragged again now, and I had planted no bulbs that Autumn. The paint we had put on, inside the house, was chipped and scratched already. Outside, it had never been done as we had meant to do it, and the extra wear and dirt of six years was over everything. The bath was more worn than ever, for we had not had it re-enamelled, and the greasy patch on the wall, behind the cedar mop, was bigger and darker.
I was glad to go, and I did not mind much where we went. There were schools for the children in Oxford, and Walter longed to be there.
He said:
‘It is the only place where people think.’
I did not find that at all, but I suppose that they thought about different things.
We went down to Oxford and looked at houses. We did not enjoy looking at them as we had the first time. We stayed at the hotel, where Mollie and I had stayed with Cousin Delia for our Commemoration dance. It seemed quite different now, and all the town seemed different from what it used to seem when Guy and Hugo were at college and we used to come and see them. We looked at a great many houses and at last we took this one, where we live now. It is strange to me to realize that we have lived here, already, almost twice as long as we lived at Hampstead; so much was happening then and so little now; one year is like another now, only the children grow bigger, and we grow older, and I suppose it will go on, just like this, until we die.
We moved to Oxford in November, just a year after the Armistice. We moved our furniture and our pictures and our books, and put them into new places in the new house. I put the alabaster bowl on the new chimney-piece, and the candlesticks that George and Mollie had given me. They looked all wrong in this room with the ornate chimney-piece and the coloured panes in the window.
And I thought:
‘What does it matter? What does anything matter now?’
Cousin Delia sent me Hugo’s statue of the Delphic charioteer, and I put it in the corner, on a shelf all to itself just as Hugo used to have it in his room at Clifford’s Inn; our room was not like his even when that was there, but I liked to have it there.
People came to call on me, a great many people. They meant to be kind to me, I knew that. They wanted me to join all sorts of societies and to do all sorts of things. They asked me if I was musical; if I took an interest in politics, or infant welfare. And it seemed to me, when they asked me that I was not interested in anything at all.
They thought so too, I think.
Walter was vexed with me. He said that I ought to make friends with some of the ladies that came to see me; he said they would think me stuck up, that I gave myself airs. I didn’t understand how they could think that. I don’t now. Walter said that I would find that I had lots of things in common with some of them, if only I would try, and I expect that is quite true, but somehow I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t make the effort. I felt then, and I still do, as though there were no room for new people in my life any more. I should never care for new friends as I did for the old ones. When one has had the best of all, second best seems not worth having.
Mollie came to see us. She helped me with the house; we arranged the books together, and the pictures, and all the little things. She stayed a little longer, and I thought:
‘There is still Mollie. . .if she can go on, I can.’
But she could not stay long. She was going to work again at her Biological institute, and she had to go back. She said she would come again, she said she would often come, and she does come, and stay with us quite often. Even Walter is glad when she comes; he says it is her intellectual interests that have kept her so sweet and serene; he calls it so intelligent. I should not put it in that way, I think it is something much deeper and more fundamental in Mollie, than her interest in biology, that makes her what she is; but it does not matter much what we call it, we mean, really, the same thing. And often when she is not there, when I am discouraged and downhearted, and wonder if it is worth while going on, I think of Mollie, as I do of Cousin Delia, and I am ashamed of my own poorness of spirit, and I think again, how wonderful they are.
Just before Christmas time, my Grandmother fell ill. She had grown very old and frail in the last years. The war had worn her out.
I went to her at Campden Hill Square. It was like long ago, before I married Walter; I had not been to stay there, for more than a night, since then.
Grandmother said that she was glad to have me there.
‘It is like old times,’ she said.
They said she would not get better; they said that she was too old. She might last a few weeks, not more, the doctor said.
And so I stayed with her, and she talked a great deal to me, mostly about my father when he was a little boy, and all that had happened then, nearly sixty years before, and when she was first married, and about my grandfather, when he was young.
And I thought:
‘Time does not matter. There is no time for her.’
And I thought:
‘It will be like that for me too, before long.’
Two days before she died, I was sitting in her room, her sitting-room upstairs, where she always used to sit, and she was by the fire, in her own big armchair, for she would not stay in bed, and she began to talk of much more recent things, of the War, and of Hugo, and then of Walter and me.
‘Dear child,’ she said, ‘I am glad that you married him.. . .I have wondered, but I am glad. He will always be the same. . .you know the worst of him, and it is not a bad worst.’
I don’t know what I said. I was on the floor beside her, and she stroked my head as she talked.
‘You know,’ she said, ‘poor Hugo. . .that never would have done. I was very much afraid, at one time, that you would marry him. Poor, dear Hugo. . .he would not have been a good husband. . .it is better as it is. . . .’
And I felt that I could not bear it. . .I felt I must tell her everything, that it was all a mistake. . .that everything was wrong.. . .I looked into the fire, and the words rose up to my lips, and I nearly told her then, but I am glad that I did not.
I thought:
‘Why should I say it? She is so very old, she is going to die. . .she need never know at all. If souls should be immortal, she will know about it then. . .but I don’t believe they are. I think that she will end. . .I think Hugo has ended.’
And so I smiled at her.
And she said:
‘You are happy? I think that you are happy, my dear?’
And I said:
‘Yes, Grandmother, I am quite happy, now.’
She said:
‘There are ups and downs.. . .There are always ups and downs. . .one must take the bad with the good. It will all be better now that the War is over.’
And then she said:
‘Poor Delia! I am truly sorry for her. She idolized her Hugo. . .she never saw his faults. . .and now, I don’t believe that she cares much for Guy’s wife.’
I said:
‘She never says so. I am sure she tries to like her.’
Grandmother looked up sharply; she smiled, more as she used to smile:
She said:
‘I have seen her, you know. She would not be easy to like! But there it is, my dear,. . .you must take the bad with the good!. . .Guy is alive and married. . .that is much better than being dead.’
And then she talked again about my father when he was little.
And I thought:
‘How odd it is, that she did not care for Hugo.’
I thought:
‘You can never tell why people like each other.’
Two days later, she died. She was buried at Yearsly. The house in Campden Hill Square was sold, and some of her things were sold. I had not room for much. Cousin Delia had some, and she helped me with it all. And that was a chapter closed.
Cousin Delia did not die. She did not seem very different from what she had always been, and she often talked of Hugo as though he were still alive.
Guy’s first baby was born that Spring. It was a girl, and it was called Delia. Guy and Diana lived in London now. Guy had gone into business; Diana said he must make money, and there was no money in the Bar, at least, not for years and years. She said that she knew very well what it was like to be poor; she said that her ‘Pater’ was poor, ‘poor as a barn-door rat, and that’s no fun, you bet!’
So Guy gave up the Bar; he said that he did not mind about it, and he went into business. I don’t know what he did in his business, but it seemed that he made more money in that way, though Diana said that it was still not enough.
And then, Cousin John died too. He was hardly ill at all, only a few days.
I thought:
‘Every one is dying. Who will be left alive? Young people died in the War, and old people now it is over.’
And there was another funeral in the little Yearsly church, and a tablet for Cousin John, on the wall, near the tablet for Hugo.
Now Guy and Diana were to move to Yearsly. Cousin Delia would not stay there, though Guy had asked her to.
She said:
‘It would not do, it would not do for Diana.’
And so she packed her things, and I went and stayed with her, and helped her pack. I took John with me; he was three years old then, and he played in the fields at Yearsly, as Hugo used to play. We went through all the things, Cousin Delia and I. We sorted out the cupboards, and the drawers, and the boxes of letters. It had all to be left in order for Diana to take it over.
‘I hope she will care for the place,’ Cousin Delia said. ‘I hope she will get to love it, in time, as I have loved it.’
We were both thinking of Hugo, and how she had not known him, and how to us he was there in every place and thing.
I was with her there, for a week. It was in October, and the trees in the High Wood were red and bright, like flames. I have never seen the trees so bright as they were then.
I went and walked in the wood, the last day I was there. I went and sat down on the leaves, beside the Happy Tree. The tree trunks stood out clear in the spaces of the wood, grey and distinct against the flaming leaves, and the sun was shining down through the brilliant leaves and underfoot as well, the ground was red, and shining, and I felt, suddenly, that beauty was still alive. It was like a flare of trumpets or a shout of triumph.
And I thought:
‘Is this “A lightening before death”?’
And I thought:
‘Death does not matter—death and life are one!’
And I thought:
‘This is truth, this glory of flaming trees!’
And I felt a burst of joy.
I felt:
‘This still goes on.’
I felt:
‘What do I matter, or all that matters to me?’
And I felt that it was for Hugo, this chorus of his trees.
I felt:
‘This is his wood. The trees are singing for him.’
And I felt:
‘I have understood. . .I have understood at last!’
And I went down from the wood, after a long time. And I met Cousin Delia coming out of the walled garden. Her arms were full of flowers, dahlias, and chrysanthemums. Smoke was rising up, very blue, from behind the garden wall, and she looked happy too.
I went up to her and said:
‘I was in the wood. The trees were like trumpets blowing. . .“And he went over, and the trumpets sounded for him, on the other side.”. . .It was like that to-day!’
And she said:
‘I know. I was in the wood, this morning.’
And I went indoors with her, and we put the flowers in water. And the next day, I went back to Oxford, with John.
Cousin Delia went away to a little house, near Bath. Nunky went with her, and Mrs. Jeyes, the cook. She took the deerhounds with her, and she made a garden. I go to see her sometimes, and sometimes I take John.
I have been back twice to Yearsly since Cousin Delia left.
Guy has asked me to go oftener, and Diana is kind and friendly, but I do not think she would like it if I were to go there often. That is quite natural; I should not fit in with her friends.
But, she says:
‘Come when you like. . .just send a P.C. and turn up!’
And I say:
‘Thank you, Dinah, that’s awfully good of you!’
But I know she wouldn’t like it if I did, and I think she knows that I know, and anyhow, apart from that, I should not want to go often.
It is all so different now, and I loved it as it was. I suppose it is growing old that makes one dislike changes. Diana has changed a great many things, just as she said she would.
The house looks smarter now; there is new paint and new wall-paper. It is not exactly ugly, for Diana has a taste of her own, and I think she has taken trouble to make it just as she likes. The old brocade has gone, but the curtains are not striped; they are of a brilliant cretonne, with very big, pink flowers, and the paint inside, is yellow, bright yellow like mustard. Diana says it is the latest thing, pink-curtains and yellow paint; she says that every one is having that now.
She has put chairs in the hall, big leather chairs and tables; she calls it a lounge hall, and they sit in there a great deal, and smoke. Diana is always smoking, and all her friends smoke too. They sit on the little tables, as a rule, instead of the chairs. And there is a very big gramophone; I think it is the biggest gramophone I have seen. Diana’s friends are all very well dressed, and most of them paint their faces; Diana does not paint; her own colour is too lovely to need it; I think she grows more lovely every time I see her.
She has five children now; three girls and two boys. She is nicest with her children; she romps with them like a big tiger with cubs.
The eldest boy is called Hugo. He is not at all like our Hugo. Diana thinks he is, but she never saw him. She says that the people round all say that he is; they would say that, of course, because he has the same name. He has dark eyes, that is true, but not the least like Hugo’s. He is just like Diana, and his eyes are like her eyes. He is a splendid child, big and strong and merry. He laughs and fights his brother and sisters, and he is always running. He breaks things and does not mind, he hurts people and isn’t sorry. It sounds strange to me to hear them call him Hugo.
They are all fine children, all strong and well and cheerful. The house is full of noise, laughing and screaming and scuffling. I am glad there are children at Yearsly. There are five of them, and there were only three of us. I am glad they are there and yet it is almost more different than if they were not. They live so differently from the way we used to live, and they never play in the wood at all. But I think sometimes, that they are better fitted for life than we were. I think they are tougher than we were, and less illusioned.
One of the children, the second girl, is unlike the others; she is only five now, hardly more than a baby, but she is much gentler than the rest and more devoted to Guy. I think that she will be a help to Guy some day, and he, perhaps, to her, when she grows up, and I sometimes wish that I could see more of that little girl.
They have put in central heating, and electric light. It is more like an hotel now, and less like a loved house, but it is very comfortable, and there are two new bathrooms, white-tiled, like the bathroom I used to want.
Old Joseph is still there, I think Guy has insisted on keeping him, but Mathew is pensioned off, for there are no more horses now. There are two motor-cars, one big, and one smaller, and a very smart chauffeur, called Septimus Ward. Jayne, the butler, died soon after Cousin John, and there is a smart new butler, quite different from Jayne.
There are lots of little dogs, Pekingese, with bows, but no big dogs. Diana plays games a good deal, but she never goes for walks. She has her own car, the smaller of the two. It is a ‘Sports model Lancia,’ painted red, like a pillar-box, and she does speed tests, and hill trials, in a fur cap with long ear-pieces. She has a red leather coat, with fur up round her throat, and very big fur gauntlets, right up to her elbows. She always goes about in her car, even into the village. There is only room for two, and she sometimes takes one of the children. She has a very loud horn, and she blows it a great deal.
I think she enjoys her life; she is often laughing. When she is annoyed, she is cross and sulks, like a child. She makes scenes with Guy, in public, and doesn’t mind who hears. At first, I minded that very much, I was so sorry for Guy, but it doesn’t seem to matter, it is just like a child in a temper; she forgets all she has said, and every one has to forget, and they do, apparently, and it all goes on as before.
They have made a racquets court out of part of the old stable. Diana plays racquets well, and Guy can still play a bit.
Guy is still in business. He goes up to the city every morning, and comes back in the evening. I think he must be quite rich; they seem rich, when one is there.
I think Guy is happy; it is very hard to know. He walks about with a stick, and his hair is quite grey; he looks older than he is, and he is now forty-four. I wonder very often what he thinks about it all; but of course he does not tell me, and of course I do not ask.
The trees have been thinned out, and many have been cut down. There are none close up to the wall of the house now, as there used to be, and the branches would not tap now on the window-pane of my window if I slept in my old room; but Diana’s maid sleeps there now, and I dare say she likes it better without the trees.
The first time I went back, they had not touched the wood, but the last time that I went, the Happy Tree had gone. I went up in the wood as soon as I got there, and looked for the Happy Tree, and I could not believe it had gone. It gave me an odd feeling, as though I must be asleep, and I walked all about, to try and find where it was, and there was the place where it used to be, and just a big stump was there.
And I found Guy walking about, with his stick, in front of the house.
And I said:
‘Oh Guy. . .the tree. . .you know, the Happy Tree. . . .’
And Guy looked at me so queerly, for a moment, with his face screwed up, and I was not sure at first, if he was angry. . . .
And then he said:
‘Yes. It was cut down while I was away, last autumn. Dinah had it done. She did not know, of course, that it was a special tree.’
And I said:
‘No, of course not. . .she could not have known.’
And I thought:
‘He had not told her that!’
We did not talk about it. We just walked up and down, and Guy talked about his children, and I talked about mine.
The seats in front of the house were all painted bright green. They were painted every year, and the paths were always raked.
It is right to rake gravel paths, and to keep the edges trimmed. It ought to look much nicer, but I don’t think it does, somehow.
And now it is ten years since the war ended; ten years all but a few weeks. These years have gone much more quickly than the years before them did. People always tell one that, that the years go faster and faster, as one grows older. Nothing happens now, and so much was happening before.
The children are growing up; even John is ten. He goes to school here; there is a good school, but I suppose he will have to go away when he is a little older. I don’t know what I shall do when John goes away. But I suppose when the time comes it will be like everything else. One thinks:
‘I cannot bear it, if that happens!’
And then it does happen, and one does bear it, and everything goes on, just the same as before.
I don’t know how I should have lived all these years without John. He is often very naughty, much naughtier than Eleanor or Rachel have ever been. I am not clever with my children as Cousin Delia was with hers. I often wish that he could have the childhood that I had, at Yearsly, with her, he would understand that, he understands a great many things. I read stories to John that Cousin Delia used to read to me, and poetry sometimes too. I think he will like poetry; not as Hugo did, not so much nor so young, but he sees the point of it even now as Eleanor and Rachel never did, and of all that kind of thing. It is a pleasure to me to read to John, and I think sometimes, of all the books we will read together when he is older, books that I read with Hugo in the hay, at Yearsly, in the long summers, and then sometimes I am afraid that I am building too much on his being what I want him to be, and that he will not be like that at all when he is older. . .but I shall always love John, whatever he grows into. . . .Mollie said that I should be thankful for John, and I am, I have been always.
Eleanor likes books that give her information. She likes facts and statistics, and she does very well at school, much better than John or Rachel. They say she is very clever, that she will get a scholarship. That will please Walter. He is proud of Eleanor, but I think he loves Rachel best. She is more alive; she is not so good as Eleanor, nor so naughty as John, not so fair as Eleanor, nor so dark as John. She does her lessons well, but she likes to play at games. I don’t think life will be hard for Rachel.
I think Walter is happy. His book came out last year. It was published by the University Press, and that was just as he wanted. Not many people bought it, but he said that did not matter, he had not expected that; it was praised in learned journals, very highly praised. Several German professors wrote to Walter about it. Two came to see him, with special dispensations from the Home Office, because they were Enemy Aliens still. They were very polite to Walter, and complimented me on my ‘so distinguished man’; they said he was ‘world-famous’ for his proto-Hittite script.
I am glad Walter is happy, or at least, happy for him.. . .I don’t think he could be happy, as Hugo or I would be. He is less cross now, and kinder. He likes his work in college, and he has time for work of his own as well. He has started another book that will last about ten years, and he goes for walks with his friends: those two friends of his both came back; one of them teaches Ancient History, and the other Philosophy, but it doesn’t make much difference; they like to talk to Walter, and he likes to talk to them.
Walter is not different, really from what he was when we were married; he is less fierce, perhaps, because he is more assured; he knows more where he is, and other people know. But he is not really different, though he said that he would change, and I said people didn’t, and yet I have myself. . .I have changed much more. . .that is funny, I think, how little people know.
Last Spring, when the blossom was out, I went down to New College, and looked at the cherry tree that we used to see from Hugo’s window. I suppose it is just the same now, as it always was, but I do not feel the same about it now. There are other young men in Hugo’s college rooms, three generations of young men have been in those rooms since we came here, and others, of course, before that. It is twenty years now since Hugo was there.
And now it is my birthday, and I am forty; and Hugo, if he were alive, would be forty-two and a half. That seems impossible; I cannot think of Hugo as not young.
And there are the leaves coming down. There are always leaves and trees. . .and always coming down. . .naturally. . .every year. . .why do I notice that?
And this is all that has happened. It does not seem very much. It does not seem worth writing about. I was happy when I was a child, and I married the wrong person, and some one I loved dearly was killed in the war. . .that is all. And all those things must be true of thousands of people.