Chapter 37

"_It's with men like these that I want to work, because I believe that they will prepare the place for the foundation of a decent commonwealth. They aren't miracle-mongers, thank God, like John Marsh and Galway and Mineely. They aren't up in the sky to-day and down in the mud to-morrow. They keep to the level._

"_Then there's the Plunkett House lot. You remember, I told you about Sir Horace Plunkett and the Co-operative Movement. Well, I want to get Crews and Jordan and Saxon to link themselves on to the Plunkett House people and form the nucleus of a new Irish Group. There are a few of the men at Trinity College who will come into it, but I'm afraid all the men at the National University are under the influence of Marsh and MacDonagh and the sloppy romantics._

"_You see, dear, don't you, that this job of making a commonwealth of worth in Ireland is a long and difficult one. That's why we've got to be very patient. Everything's against us. We have a contemptible press, a cowardly crowd of corrupt politicians, a greedy people, an ignorant and bigoted priesthood (that includes the Protestant clergy) and a complete lack of social consciousness and plan of life. But then, what's life for, if it isn't to cope with difficulties like that...._"

6

There was snow, thick and long-lying, on the ground when he reached Boveyhayne, and the _crunch-crunch_ of it under their feet, as Mary and he walked home, gave him a feeling of pleasure, and the cold, bracing air exhilarated him so that he laughed at things which would otherwise barely have made him smile. The antics of Rachel's daughter, as related to him by Mary, seemed extraordinarily entertaining, and when he drew Mary's arm in his and pressed it tightly, he felt that there was nothing in heaven or on earth more to be desired than the love of a woman and the love of a child. He had a sense of age, of a passed boundary, that made him feel much older than Mary. "Here I am, listening to her as she talks gaily about a child's pranks, nodding my head and laughing, too ... and in a little while I shall tell her everything ... and then I shall go ... and we will not laugh again together. I'm holding her arm closely in mine, and presently I shall kiss her lips, and she will put her arms about me with the careless intimacy of lovers ... and then I shall tell her everything ... and she will kiss me no more ... and our intimacy will shrivel up!..."

He wished to prolong his pleasure in this walk through the snow, and so he took her back to the Manor by long roads and roundabout ways. They did not climb up the old path over the cliff because that was so much shorter than the hair-pin road.... "I must tell her soon," he said to himself, "but before I tell her, I must feel the most of her love for me!"

He listened to her, not for what she was saying, but for the sound of her voice, and made short answers to her so that he might interrupt the flow of her speech as little as possible. When he returned along this road, he would come alone and for the last time, and so, that his memory of her might be full, he would be no more than her auditor and watcher. Just to have her by his side, her arm in his, and hear her ... that was sufficient.

They walked through the village and when they came to Boveyhayne lane, he said to her, "Isn't there a longer way, Mary!" and she laughed at him, bantering him because of his sudden desire for exercise; but she yielded to him, and they took the longer road that led them past the Roman quarries to the fir tree, standing in isolation where the main roads meet.

"Mary," he said, as they came in sight of the house, "I want to tell you something ... something important!..."

"Yes, Quinny!"

"But not now, dear. To-night! Or to-morrow, perhaps!"

She pinched his cheek in a pretence at anger. "You were always very vague, Quinny!" she said.

"I know," he answered. "It's a kind of ... cowardice, that, isn't it? I'm vague because I dislike ... am afraid ... to be definite. I'm a frightful coward, Mary!..."

He might approach the subject by these devious ways, he told himself. He had not meant to talk to her about his failure in courage until she and he could be alone in the evening ... this walk together was to be the final lovers' stroll, unmarred by any bitterness ... but even in his effort to postpone the time of telling, he had prepared to tell her ... and perhaps it was better that she should know now. Here, indeed, in this snowy silence, they were free from any intrusion. It might not be possible to make his confession to her without interruption from Rachel or Mrs. Graham ... and some feeling for the fitness of things made him decide that this outdoor scene was a better place for his purpose than the lamplit interior of the Manor. Through the blown branches of the hedges he could see the thick sheets of snow spread over the fields. The boughs of the fruit-trees in the orchard showed very black beneath their white covering, as if they felt cold, and he looted away quickly to the haystacks in the farmyard that seemed so warm in spite of the snow. The dusk was drawing in, and the grey sky was darkening for the night....

"Mary," he said, so abruptly that she looked up at him enquiringly. "Let's walk back a little way...."

"But, Quinny, it's getting late. They'll wonder what's happened to us!"

"I want to tell you ... now, Mary!"

He compelled her to turn, as he spoke, and they walked slowly back towards the fir tree.

"What is it, Quinny?" she asked tenderly, as if she would comfort him.

"I ... I want to tell you something!"

"Yes?"

"I hardly know how to begin. It's very difficult, dear...."

"What is it, Quinny?" she demanded, more anxiously.

But still he would not tell her ... he must have her love a little longer.

"Mary, I love you so much, dear ... oh, I feel like a fool when I try to tell you how much I love you!"

"I know you love me, Quinny!"

"And now ... this very minute ... I love you far more than I've ever loved you. Every bit of me is in love with you, Mary. You're very sweet and dear!..."

She had a sense of impending disaster, but she did not express it in her words. "And I love you, Quinny!" she said. "I can't love you more than I've always loved you!..."

"Could you love me less than you've always loved me?" he asked, turning and standing before her so that his eyes were looking into hers.

"I don't know," she answered. "I've never tried!"

He did not say any more for a few moments, but stood with his hands on her shoulders, looking steadily into her eyes, while she looked steadily into his. Then he took his hands from her shoulders and drew her into the shelter of his arms, and kissed her, letting his lips lie long on hers.

"What do you want to tell me?" she said in a whisper.

7

Then he told her.

"I wrote to you when I was at Ballymartin," he said, "but I did not post the letter. I brought it with me. I meant to destroy it because I thought it was too emotional, and then I thought that perhaps I had better let you see it so that you might judge me, not just as I am now, talking to you quietly like this, but as I was when I wrote it!"

He took the letter from his pocket and gave it to her.

"I had to tell you, Mary. I couldn't marry you without letting you know what kind of man I am. I'm too frightened to go to the Front. At the bottom of all my excuses, that's the truth."

She did not speak, but stood with his letter in her hands, turning it over....

"I've tried to persuade myself," he went on, "that I'm of special account, that I ought not to go to the war, but I know very well that in a time like this, no one is of special account. Gilbert said something like that at Tre'Arrdur Bay when I told him that his life was of greater value than the life of ... of a clerk. I suppose, the finer a man is, the more willing he is to take his share in war, and if that's true, I'm not really a fine man. I'm simply a coward, hoarding up my life in a cupboard, like a miser hoarding up his money. I should have been the first to spend myself ... like Gilbert and Ninian. I'm the only one of the Improved Tories who hasn't gone! ... Oh, I couldn't offer you myself, dear. I'm too mean ... I'm a failure in fineness.... I used to feel contempt for Jimphy Jayne ... but he didn't hesitate for a moment. It never entered his head not to go. The moment the war began, Gilbert enlisted, and I suppose Ninian must have left that railway the very minute he heard the news. I was never quite ... never quite on their level, Mary, and I don't suppose I ever shall be now!"

She moved slightly, as if she were tired of remaining in one position, and were shifting to an easier one, but still she did not speak, nor did she raise her eyes to look at him.

"I'm not fit to be your husband," he said. "I'm not fit to be any woman's husband, but much less yours. Even now, when I 'm standing here talking to you in this safety, the thought of ... of being out there makes me shiver with fear. It's the thought of ... of dying!... I think and think of all those young chaps, all the fellows I knew, robbed of their right to live and love, as I love you, and work and make their end in decency and peace ... and I can't bear it. I want to save myself from the wreckage ... to hide myself in safety until this ... this horror is ended!" He paused for a while, as if he were searching for words and then he went on. "There was an officer in my carriage to-day ... going on to Whimple ... and he told me about poison gas ... the men died in frightful agony, he said ... and then he talked about machine guns.... 'They can perforate a man like a postage stamp,' he said.... Isn't it vile, Mary?"

Her head was still bent, and as she did not make an answer to him, he turned to look away from her. He remembered how Sheila Morgan, in her anger at his cowardice, had struck him in the face and had furiously bidden him to leave her.... Mary would not strike him, but she, too, would bid him to go from her....

He felt her hand on his arm.

"Quinny!" she said very softly, and he turned to find her standing nearer to him and looking up at him with no less love than she had looked at him before he had made his confession to her.

"I don't love you, Quinny, only for what's fine in you," she said, and her speech was full of hesitation as if she could not adequately express her meaning. "I love you ... for _all_ of you. I just take the bad with the good, and ... and make the best of it, dear!"

"You still want me, Mary?..."

"My dear," she said, half laughing and half crying, "I've always wanted you!... Oh, what's the good," she went on with an impetuous rush of words, "of loving a man only when he comes up to your expectations. I want to love you even when you don't come up to my expectations, Quinny, and I do love you, dear. It hasn't anything to do with whether you're brave or not brave, or good or bad, or great or common. I just love you ... don't you see?... because you're _you_!..."

He stared at her incredulously. He had been so certain that she would bid him leave her when she learned of his cowardice.

"But!..."

"Come home," she said. "You must be very tired, and cold!"

She put her arm in his, and drew him homewards, and he yielded to her like a little child.

As they turned the corner of the apple-orchard, they could see lights shining from the windows of the Manor, making a warm splash on the snow that lay in drifts about the garden. There was a great quietness that was broken now and then by the twittering of birds in the hedges as they nestled for the night, or the cries made by the screech-owls, hooting in the copse.

8

Mrs. Graham and Rachel had left them alone for a while, after dinner, and as he sat, with her at his feet, fondling her hair, she spoke of her feeling for him again.

"I've wondered sometimes," she said, "about your not joining ... it seemed odd ... but I thought that perhaps there was something that would explain it. I'd like you to join, Quinny ... I can't pretend that I wouldn't ... but I don't feel that I ought to ask you to do so. If I were a man I should join, I think, but I'm not a man, and I'm not likely to have to suffer any of the things that a man has to suffer if he goes ... and so I don't say anything. I don't know why I'd like you to go ... I ought to be glad that you haven't gone because I love you and I don't want to lose you ... but all the same I'd like you to go. It isn't just because other men have gone, and I don't feel any desire for revenge because Ninian's been killed ... it's just because England's England, I suppose...." She laughed a little nervously. "I can hardly expect you to feel about England as I do. You're Irish!.."

"I've made that excuse for myself, Mary. Don't you make it for me. I know inside me that the war isn't England's war ... it's the world's war. John Marsh admits that much. He doesn't like English rule in Ireland, but he doesn't pretend that German rule would be better ... not seriously, anyhow. No, dear, I haven't that excuse. I know that if we lose this war, the world will be a worse place to live in than it is. I haven't any conscientious objection ... I don't feel that we are in the wrong ... I feel that we're in the right ... that we never were so right as we are. I'm simply anxious to save my skin. And even if I felt that John Marsh were right in being anti-English, I don't feel that I have any right to take up that attitude. England's done no wrong to my family.... You see, dear, I haven't any excuse that's worth while ... except the wish to preserve my life ... and that's a poor excuse. When I think of being at the Front, I think of myself as dead ... lying out there ... without any of the decencies ... until I'm offensive to the men who were my friends ... until they sicken at the stench of _me_!..."

"Don't, dear!" she murmured.

"Perhaps I shall conquer this ... this meanness. I want to conquer it. I want to behave as I believe. I believe that there are things one should be glad to fight for and die for ... and I want to feel glad to fight for them and be ready to die for them. But now I feel most that I want to be safe ... to go on living and living and enjoying things...."

"But can you enjoy things if they're not worth dying for, Quinny? If England weren't worthy dying for, would it be worth living in! That's how I feel!"

"That's how I _think_, Mary, but it isn't how I _feel_. I feel that I want to be safe no matter what happens ... if civilisation is to go to smash and we're to be driven back to savagery, distrusting and being distrusted ... I feel that I don't care ... that I want to be safe, to go on living, even if I have to live in a cave and hide from everything.... Oh, my dear, don't you see what a poor thing I am!"

"Yes," she said simply.

"And yet you're willing to marry me?"

"Yes. I can't help loving you, any more than I can help loving my country. I can't explain it and I don't want to explain it. If I were a man and England were in the wrong, I'd fight for England just because she's England. Everything makes me feel like that. When Ninian was killed, something went on saying, 'You're English! You mustn't cry! You're English!' And when I look at the trees outside, I feel that they're English, too, and that they're telling me I'm English ... that somehow they're special trees, different from the trees in other countries ... that they've got something that I've got, and that I've got something they've got ... something that a French tree or a German tree hasn't got.... Oh, I know it's silly, but I can't help it ... and when I used to walk about the lanes and fields after Ninian's death ... I felt that the birds and the grass and the ferns and everything were saying 'You're English!' and I wanted to say back to them, 'You're English, too!...' I suppose people feel like that everywhere ... those friends of yours in Ireland must feel like that about Ireland ... and Germans, too!..."

He nodded his head. "It's a madness, this nationality," he said, "but you can't get a cure for it. Even I feel it!"

"Quinny!"

"Yes, Mary!"

There was a nervous note in her voice. She got up, so that she was on her knees, and fingered the lapels of his coat.

"Quinny!" she said again, and he waited for her to proceed. "I ... I want us to get married ... soon! You'll probably go into the Army ... nobody could go on feeling as you do, and not go in ... and I'd like us to ... to have had some time together ... before you go. I don't want to be married to you just ... just a day or two before you go. I ... I want to have lived with you and to ... to have taken care of your house ... with you in it!..."

He folded her in his arms.

"You will, Quinny?" she said.

"Yes," he answered.

THE ELEVENTH CHAPTER

1

They were to be married as soon as Lent was over. Mrs. Graham, reluctant to lose Mary, had pleaded for delay, urging that Ballymartin was so far from Boveyhaven that she would seldom see her. "Two days' post," she protested.

"But you'll come and stay with us, mother," Mary declared, "and we'll come and stay with you!"

It would be quite easy for Henry to come to Devonshire, for he could carry his work about with him. Then Mrs. Graham had yielded to them, and it was settled that the marriage was to take place at the beginning of May. Neither Mary nor he had spoken again of the question of enlistment. She had said all that was in her mind about it, and what followed was for him to decide.

He went back to Ballymartin. There were things to be done at home in preparation for the coming of a bride. The house had not known a mistress since his mother's death, and his father had been too preoccupied with his agricultural experiments to bother greatly about the interior of his house. So long as he could find things more or less where he had left them, Mr. Quinn had been content.

"You won't overhaul it too much, Quinny?" Mary said to him, "because I'd like to do some of that!"

He had promised that he would do no more than was immediately necessary; and then he went.

"I shall have to go to Dublin," he had told her. "There'll be a lot of stuff to settle with lawyers!" Her settlement, for example. "I'll go home first, then on to Dublin, and then back here. I shall get to Boveyhayne just after Easter!"

2

Mr. Quinn had not greatly bothered about the interior of the house, but Hannah had, and although there were things that needed to be done, there was less than he had imagined.

"I'm going to be married, Hannah!" he said to her soon after he had arrived home.

"Are you, now?" she exclaimed.

"Yes. You remember Mr. Graham?..."

"Ay, poor sowl, I mind him ... the nice-spoken, well-behaved lad he was!..."

"Well, I'm going to marry his sister!"

"It'll be quaren nice to think o' this house havin' a mistress in it again, an' wee weans, mebbe. I was here, a young girl, when your father brought your mother home ... I mind it well ... she was a quiet woman, an' she stud in the hall there as nervous as a child 'til I went forrit to her, an' said, 'Ye're right an' welcome, ma'am!', an' then she plucked up her heart, an' she give me a wee bit of a smile, an' said 'Thank ye, Hannah!' for your father told her who I was. An' she used to come an' talk to me afore you were born ... she was terrible frightened, poor woman. Ay, she was terrible frightened of havin' you! Your father couldn't make her out at all. It was a quare pity!"

He let her ramble on, for he wanted now to hear about his mother, of whom he knew so little. There was a portrait of her in the house, a fair, slight, timid-looking woman who seemed to be shrinking out of the frame. It was odd to think that she was his mother, this frightened woman of whom he had no memory whatever, for whom he had no tender feeling. He had loved his father deeply, but he had no love for his mother. How could he feel love for her? He had never known her!... But now he wanted to know all that Hannah knew about her, for Hannah perhaps had known more about her than any one. Hannah had cared for her, pitied her....

"Yes, Hannah!" he said, so that she might proceed.

"She was sure she was goin' to die, an' I had the quare work to keep her quiet. An' she was terrible feard of dyin'!"

He listened to her with a strange feeling of pain. All that he had endured at the thought of fighting had been endured by his mother at the thought of giving him birth. He felt that now, at last, he knew his mother and could sympathise with her and love her.

"But sure what was the sense of bein' afeard of that," Hannah Went on. "God wouldn't be hard on the like of her, the poor, innocent woman. I toul' lies til her, God forgive me, an' let on to her that people made out that it was worse nor it was to have a child ... but she had a despert bad time of it, for she was a weak woman, with no body in her at all, an' a poor will to suffer things. She never was the better of you!" She smiled at him sadly. "Never! An' she took no interest in nothin' after that ... she could hardly bear to look at you ... an' you her own wee son. She didn't live long after you come, an' mebbe it was as well, for God never made her to contend with anything. I was quaren fond of her. Ye had to like her, she was that helpless. She couldn't thole any one next or near her but myself ... and so I got fond of her, for a body has to like people that depends on them. Will your wife be a fair lady or a dark lady, Master Henry?"

He realised that she wished him to describe Mary to her.

"She's dark," he said. "Not at all like her brother!"

"Ay, he was the big, fair man that was a credit to a woman to have!"

"I have her photograph upstairs," Henry went on, "I'll go and get it. You'd like to see it, wouldn't you?"

"Deed an' I would," she answered.

He got the photograph and gave it to her, and she took it in her hands and looked at it very steadily.

"She's a comely-lookin' girl," she said, handing it to him again. "She has sweet eyes an' a proud way of holdin' her head. She shud be a good wife to you. I'll be glad to see her here, for dear knows, it's lonesome sittin' in the house with no one to look after. I miss your da sore, Master Henry, an' it's seldom you're here now!"

"I'll be here much more in future, Hannah!"

"Well, thank God for that! I like well to see the quality in their houses, an' them not to be runnin' here an' runnin' there, an' not thinkin' of their own place an' their own people. An' I pray to God you'll have fine childher, an' I'll be well-spared to see them growin' up to be a credit to you!"

The old woman's patient service and love seemed very noble to him, and he went to her and took her hand. "You're the only mother I've ever known, Hannah!" he said. "You've always been very good to me!"

"An' why wouldn't I be good to you?" she exclaimed, raising her fine blue eyes to his. "Aren't you the only child I ever had to rear? Dear bless you, son, what else would I be but good to you?"

And suddenly she put her arms about him and kissed him passionately, and as she kissed him, she cried:

"God only knows what I'm girnin' for!" she exclaimed, releasing him and drying her eyes.

3