ill. I saw Cousin Delia, and I saw in her face that she did not
think he would live.
I said:
‘Is Guy any better?’
She said:
‘Not yet; he may get better.’
Guy did get better, very slowly indeed. He would live, they said, he would walk again, but he would be lame always. I could not imagine Guy lame, walking about with a stick.
Cousin Delia said only:
‘I am so glad that he will live.’
There was, it seemed, something unconquerable in Guy.
I saw him in September. He looked ill, and almost old. Guy on his back, not moving, seemed all wrong; and his hair was turning grey.
He smiled at me.
He began, at once, to joke.
It was bad luck, he said, to be laid out like this, just at the very end.
‘I might have been in at the death,’ he said, ‘when I had kept going so long! Hugo has beaten me, good old Hugo!’
I talked about Hugo, and the letters I had had from him lately, and of the war ending, and how every one was saying that it must end very soon.
Then Diana came in. She was a V.A.D. Her eyes danced and sparkled under her white coif; she was so tall and strong and full of life, and she moved as though all movement were delight. She came to bring Guy tea, in a feeding cup, on a tray.
Guy introduced her to me, and she smiled at me, and at him. She put her arm under his head to raise him up; she gave him his tea to drink like a little child. She arranged his pillows deftly, with her strong white hands, and I watched Guy’s eyes as they followed her about the room, and I thought:
‘Guy is going to marry that girl . . .’
And I thought of Mollie, at Salonika, with George dead.
And I thought:
‘What chance has Mollie, against that joy and youth?’
And I thought:
‘Guy has forgotten Mollie . . .’
And I thought, as I watched her walk:
‘I know what she feels like. . . . I felt like that, once. . . . I can remember it. . . .’
And then I thought:
‘That is why Walter wanted me . . . do they always want that in us?’
And then I thought:
‘Guy is like Walter, now, in that way, and he wants her . . .’
Guy smiled at her as one might at a loved child.
‘You see,’ he said to me, ‘I have good care; I ought to get well very soon, oughtn’t I?’
She said:
‘You are getting well; we are very pleased with you!’
He said:
‘She loves the war; she thinks it is a splendid war, don’t you, Dinah?’
And she laughed, and her eyes danced.
‘Oh, top hole,’ she said, ‘simply topping!’
Guy said:
‘That is so refreshing. “_A quelqu’un le malheur est bon!_”’
And I thought:
‘She is not horrid; she doesn’t understand.’
I thought:
‘She is very lovely, and very young.’
She said:
‘There’s a dance to-night, at Bengy’s . . . you know . . . jazz of course . . . simply divine! simply divine! Old 31 is coming . . . his leg’s nearly all right. . . . It’s rotten,’ she said, ‘that you can’t come!’
And Guy said:
‘Awfully rotten!’
I thought:
‘How can she talk like that to Guy? Doesn’t she know that he will not dance any more?’
It was time for me to go, and Diana came with me to the top of the stairs.
‘Awfully good of you to come,’ she said, ‘he wanted to see you. . . . Come again when you can; he gets awfully blue, you know, at times. . . I buck him up a bit, chaff him, you know, and that sort of thing, but it’s jolly rotten really . . . bucked him up no end seeing you. . . .’
She was kind to me, she meant to be kind. She was explaining Guy to me; he was hers now, but she would not shut us out.
I wondered if she was kind to Cousin Delia too, and what Cousin Delia thought of her.
About a fortnight later they were engaged. Her name was Diana Sotheby; her father was the captain of a battleship; she was very ‘well connected,’ people told us, and twenty years old.
Cousin Delia said:
‘She is lovely, and I think she is fond of Guy. They will be married when Guy is better; when he is out of hospital.’
She wrote to Mollie in Salonika, and so did I. I don’t know at all if Guy wrote too.
Cousin Delia went back to Yearsly, and still the war went on.
We invited Diana to tea. Walter did not like her.
‘A dreadful young woman,’ he said, ‘I don’t know what Guy is about!’
I said:
‘You see, she is not lame, at all, in any way.’
Walter said:
‘Don’t be silly, Helen! There are plenty of young women who are not lame. I suppose Guy thinks her pretty.’
I said:
‘She is pretty.’
XXXII
News of the war kept coming; better and better news. The Germans were falling back now, all along the line. The German Front was breaking, the Allied troops were pressing forward everywhere. Bulgaria made peace, then Austria. President Wilson and the German Government were exchanging notes on peace.
‘It will end now very soon . . . any week . . . any day. . . Germany is beaten. . . . The war is won now. . .’ people said.
And then, on October 11th, Hugo was ‘wounded and missing.’
I read his name in the Casualty List, in the morning, at breakfast:
‘Hugo John Laurier, Second Rifle Brigade.’
Wounded and missing . . . wounded and missing . . . wounded and missing . . .
I thought:
‘It is not true . . . it is quite impossible . . .’
I thought:
‘It is quite certain that there must be a mistake . . .’
I thought:
‘. . . But the war is over now . . . so nearly over . . . that could not happen now . . .’
I stared at the words till my eyes ached. They seemed to grow larger and darker than the other words on the page.
I had not expected it.
Walter said:
‘Is there any news?’
And I said:
‘Yes . . . there is something . . . about the Americans . . . they have been fighting somewhere, I think.’
Walter said:
‘That is not important, what about the German retreat??’
I turned over the pages of the newspaper, and began to read aloud. My voice sounded to myself very odd, and remote, and unnatural, but Walter did not notice it.
I read that the German Front was breaking, that Allied troops were pressing forward at all points. I could not tell if the words I read made sense, but he seemed satisfied.
I could not tell him about Hugo. He did not care for Hugo enough.
After breakfast, I bathed the baby, and took the little girls for their walk. The morning passed so uneventfully, in so ordinary a way, that I thought again:
‘That could not have been true!’
When they were in bed for their midday rest I took the paper up again and looked, and it was there:
‘Hugo John Laurier, Second Rifle Brigade . . .’
And I turned all cold . . . cold like a stone . . . and I thought:
‘I must see Guy . . . I must see Guy at once . . .’
I could not go out yet, not till the afternoon; then I went upstairs and put on my hat and coat; then I went out and along to the tube station, and got into the tube. I changed at Leicester Square, and got into another tube, and that went very fast, and I got to Dover Street. Then I got out and walked into Park Lane, and along Park Lane to the hospital where Guy was. It was not the time for visitors, not for another hour, the nurse told me so at the door, but I said it was important, I said it was bad news. She looked at me hard, oddly I thought too, and then she told me to wait. She went away and came back, and then she told me to go upstairs. I knew my way to Guy well enough by this time, and I walked up the stairs, wondering what to do.
Diana met me at the top of the stairs. She smiled her flashing smile.
‘Hulloa,’ she said, ‘what a funny time to come!’
I said:
‘Has Guy seen the paper yet, this morning’s paper I mean?’
And she said:
‘I don’t know; I don’t think he has yet to-day.’
I said:
‘His brother is missing . . . it is in the paper to-day. . .’
She said:
‘I say! . . . how rotten! . . . how absolutely rotten!’
The smile died from her face.
‘Poor old chap,’ she said, ‘he’ll be awfully cut up! He thought no end of his brother . . . must have been jolly decent,’ she said, and then: ‘I suppose you knew him too?’
I said:
‘Yes, I did know him.’
She said:
‘Was he like Guy?’
I said:
‘No, different from Guy.’
And then I sat down on the stairs . . . and the whole place seemed to swim . . . the stairs and the banisters . . . and the doors of the rooms in the passage . . . bright mahogany doors with panels that shone like glass . . . and she said:
‘I say, what’s up? I say, you do look rotten!’
And she stared at me, perplexed.
Then she said:
‘I’ll get you some tea . . . that’ll buck you up no end!’
She said:
‘Come on to my room, I’ve got a decent chair.’
I said:
‘I’d rather stay here, thank you. I’m going away in a minute.’
She said:
‘Aren’t you going to see Guy?’
I said:
‘You had better tell him. I don’t think I can.’
I said:
‘His mother will be coming. She is sure to come and see Guy.’
Diana gave a whistle.
‘Lord! There will be an upset! . . . Our wedding’ll be put off . . . if Guy’s brother’s killed . . . sure to be, don’t you think?’
I said good-bye to Diana.
She gave me a cup of tea.
I thought:
‘I must go to Yearsly, to Cousin Delia now. . . .’
I got into a bus in Piccadilly, and off it at Waterloo. I walked up the long sloping entrance, under the bridge.
The station was very big and full of people. The wide arch of the roof seemed bigger than usual, higher, and further off. It seemed very full of smoke and noise.
I went to the booking-office where we always went for our tickets, but it was shut.
I thought:
‘There is no train . . . I cannot go to Yearsly . . .’
I came out again from the booking-office, to the open space of the station.
There were lights in the station, and people shouting; a porter was shouting at me; then he knocked me with a barrow, and hurt my knee.
I thought:
‘It is no use going . . . why should I go to her? She has Cousin John . . . and the people . . . and the garden . . . and the trees . . . everything there will be sorry . . . everything there loved Hugo . . . what use could I be to her . . . or she to me?’
I thought:
‘It is beyond that . . . beyond being good at all. . . .’
And I turned and went out of the station, and down the long sloping road, and under the bridge again. And there was the noise of the traffic, of trams, and buses, and cars, and people thick all round me, and shops, and the smell of fish . . . and there was mud in the street, and the pavement too was muddy. . . . The shops gleamed darkly through the chinks of the shutters, and the people jostled and bustled round me, about the shops.
I thought:
‘I must get away . . . I cannot bear these people . . .’
It was beginning to rain now. I turned down a side street, away from the crowd and the noise. The rain beat against my face, cold, steady October rain. I thought of the open country, in France, as I had seen it in pictures. Shell holes half full of water, distorted piles of wire, stunted remnants of trees . . . and the cold rain beating down. . . .
I walked on, faster and faster; I was almost running now. I knocked into some one . . . a policeman . . . I begged his pardon and hurried on. I felt that I must get away, by myself, alone, and the longing for this, superseded everything else. But there was nowhere to go . . . only houses, and streets, and people . . . and at home, there was no room where I could be alone.
I began to be out of breath. I stood still. My skirt was all wet now, it clung about my knees. I leaned with my hand against a lamp post. There was a seat beside it, and I sat down. I bent down in the shadow, and covered my eyes; and still I could not think. The rain beat down on the nape of my neck. It trickled down my back under the collar of my coat . . . and then, I was calling Hugo. . . . I called to him through the rain and the darkness, across the expanse of sea and land. . . . I stretched out my hands to him, and called again, and I felt that he must hear me, if he was anywhere. Was he somewhere lying alone, deserted, and wounded? I pressed my hands against my eyes, trying to see in the dark, to force myself to see, to hear his voice, answering me through the emptiness of the night. But I saw and heard nothing. Only whirligigs of light, as my fingers pressed against my eyeballs, and the splashing sound of rain on the pavement and in the puddles, and it was very cold.
I got up again from the seat, and turned to go home. I had come much farther than I knew, and it took a long time to find the way.
When I got home, Walter opened the door. There was light behind him in the hall, and I saw him black against the light.
He said:
‘Where in the world have you been? I waited an hour for dinner!’
The rain dripped off from my clothes, in a pool, on the step where I stood. I saw it dark, like a blot, growing bigger, in the light from the door.
I said:
‘Hugo is missing. You didn’t know, I think.’
Walter stood very still; then he pulled me into the hall.
‘When did you hear?’ he asked. ‘How do you know?’
I said:
‘This morning, at breakfast. It was in _The Times_, you know.’
He said:
‘You never told me! Why didn’t you tell me then?’
I said:
‘I couldn’t tell you. It was too bad for that.’
We stood and looked at each other.
I thought:
‘He doesn’t care . . .’
He put out his hands towards me and drew me close to him.
‘My poor dear Helen,’ he said. ‘Oh, my poor dear!’
XXXIII
The next day, came a letter from Cousin Delia, a short, quiet note, that was like her.
‘You will have seen yesterday that Hugo is missing. We have no further news of him,’ she wrote. ‘His father has been to the War Office, but they can tell him nothing more. Hugo was missing on the ninth after the taking of Cambrai. They could not collect all the wounded on that day, and when they did so, he was not among them. There was very heavy shelling on both days, and it is probable that he was killed. I am making inquiries at the hospitals for men of his battalion who were in that fighting, and I will let you know if I have any news.’
I read and reread her letter, and I wondered, as I had often wondered, at the calm of Cousin Delia, and I thought that she would die if she lost Hugo. Quietly, calmly, as she had lived, she would die.
And I thought all day of Yearsly, of the old brick walls, and the apple blossom, and Guy and Hugo, calling from the trees; and I thought of Cousin Delia in the garden as she had been when we were little, with her long yellow gloves, and her shady garden hat.
And I thought:
‘That is all over. The world has gone on since then.’
And my own grief became part of the world’s grief, and my own loss, part of the world’s loss.
And then, when Sunday came, I wrote to Hugo. I had written to him every Sunday since February, when he came home.
‘Hugo, my darling . . . they say that you are dead . . . killed . . . blown to pieces . . . not there anywhere any more. . . . I can’t believe it, for the world is going on . . . it looks just the same now, as it always did . . . and I can’t believe in a world without you in it . . . anywhere at all, for I think, Hugo, that you were the world to me. . .
‘They said: “When the leaves fall, you shall have peace.” Do you remember that? . . . they are falling now. . . .I can see them . . . from the poplar tree at the gate, yellow, dirty leaves that fall in the street . . . but you said that it must not be like that . . . we came away from that picture. . . . Have you got peace Hugo, now? . . . silence and peace, after tremendous noise? . . . I try to think of it like that, but it is difficult. . . . I can only think that you are gone away . . . out of everything . . . that I shall never see you again . . . and then it seems as though some one was laughing at me . . . .some horrible devil, and it can’t be true. . . .’
I addressed the letter and posted it. I don’t know where it went, or what happened to it.
Two days later, a letter came from Hugo. I saw it on the hall floor, where it had fallen through the letter-box.
And I thought:
‘He has answered me. He is not dead at all!’
I broke the envelope open, and I tried to read it, and I could not read it at first . . . the letters swam together, it seemed all blurred and indistinct, and I had to stand still and wait. And then, I tried again, and I read the date: October 8th, 1918. October 8th. That was more than a week ago. That was before he was killed. . . .
I looked at the address, and it told me nothing; illusive, non-committal as the addresses always were, but the writing was Hugo’s:
‘Helen dear,’ it ran, ‘I must write to you to-night, for I think we shall be busy to-morrow. Here it is quiet for the moment, and I have had a happy day. I saw cows and an old woman in a village . . . a piece of a village still . . . and I saw an old orchard that had been destroyed last year . . . and the stumps of the trees had flowered, the broken stumps of the trees . . . they had apples growing on them, round red apples, and there was grass over the stones already, and moss. I was glad to see it. And there were dahlias flowering at one end of the orchard, where there had been a garden, and there was a little tree, the sprout of a tree, where a clump of trees must have been. It was a birch, very tiny, by the edge of a pond, and its leaves were falling, tiny, golden leaves, and floating on the water.
‘There was a robin and a mouse, a wild mouse. It has made me very happy. It was like Faith and Hope and Charity . . . do you know what I mean? I wish I could see you to-night, Helen . . . but I believe I shall soon. Somehow, I don’t mind the thought of to-morrow as much as I generally do. It is nearly the end now.
‘The mouse was sitting up, looking at me in the shadow of the birch tree, and then it scuttled away under the leaves. Do you remember the mouse at Yearsly, in the Frog Pond? on the stones? It made me think of that. And now, good-night, my dear. . . .’
And that was all.
I thought:
‘Hugo was happy.’
It seemed to me at the moment, that what happened afterwards, could hardly count, and I felt his letter, after all, an answer to mine.
October wore to a close. The certainty of peace grew clearer day by day, but no news came of Hugo. No news ever came.
Cousin Delia came to see me once, and I saw Guy. He spoke of Hugo a little but not much; Diana was there.
He was to leave the hospital soon, in two or three weeks, they said. He was to go to Yearsly. They would be married later, after the New Year.
XXXIV
And then, on Armistice Day, something seemed to snap inside my head. I was out with the children at eleven o’clock, when the guns were fired and the bells began to ring. And it was then, at that moment, that it snapped, and it seemed as though I was mad for a time, and I did not understand what I was doing.
I thought:
‘It is too late . . . it is a month too late! . . . I do not want it now. . . .’
I thought:
‘If Hugo is killed, why should not all be killed? . . . it is silly to stop the fighting now . . .’
I took the children home and put them to rest. Then I took John, who was tiny, with me, and went out into the street. I walked to the Tube station, and got into a train. I got out at Charing Cross and walked across St. James’s Park, towards Victoria. It seemed to me that the world had gone mad. People were shouting, and yelling, and waving their hats; the bells were ringing still, there was a hubbub of noise; lorries crowded with munition workers whirled past me, one after the other, with shouting and singing and the raucous whirr of rattles. The king had been addressing the crowd at Buckingham Palace, and I found myself caught in the rush of people coming away. Taxi-cabs dashed past me, crammed to overflowing; officers hung out of the windows or sprawled across the roofs, blowing whistles and cheering. The crowd seethed and pressed along Victoria Street; people on the tops of omnibuses stood up and waved their arms.
And I thought:
‘Why do they do it? What do they understand?’
I thought:
‘They did not mind the war . . . they could have stopped it, these hundreds and hundreds of people, waving their arms. . . .’
I thought:
‘They did not mind it or they would not shout like this . . . they would make war again, these people that shout. . . .’
And I felt that I could not bear it, that I must get away.
I wondered why I had come, and where I was going. I did not know. I had no plan. I think I had come to Victoria because of Hugo, because I last saw him there. But now, I did not go into the station. I turned aside, and went along outside it, by the high, blind wall in Buckingham Palace Road, and then I turned over a bridge, the railway bridge that is there. I walked on and on, and I got away from the crowd, but the noise was everywhere.
John seemed very heavy, much heavier than I had thought. He began to cry and I rocked him, and still we went on through the grey, drizzling streets. We came to the Embankment, not far from Chelsea Bridge, and there was a seat. I sat down on the seat. I fed John there, and rocked him to sleep. I felt suddenly, now, quite weak and exhausted, as though I could not go on, and it seemed to me that I understood now, for the first time, that Hugo was dead.
I do not know how long I sat there. I know I was very cold, and so was John. He woke, and cried again, and I walked on. I came to Albert Bridge, and passed it, towards the chimneys. When I reached Mollie’s flat, I looked up, and the windows were open. I was not surprised at all.
I went up the stairs, with John, and knocked on Mollie’s door, and the knocking sounded loud, in a pause of the noise outside.
Mollie opened the door.
She cried out, as though she were startled, and stood back.
I walked past her into the room, and dropped down on the sofa. It was a low sofa, and I felt as though I were falling a long way, down and down and down.
Mollie was kneeling on the floor beside me. She took John from me, and laid him on a cushion. She made up the fire and put the kettle on to boil. Then she rubbed my hands, and asked me questions, in her low, quiet voice, that I had not heard for so long. And I lay back and watched her, as she moved about the room, and I felt in a strange dream, as though the past had come back.
I said:
‘Hugo is dead.’
She said:
‘I know. I heard from his mother.’ Her clear eyes darkened: ‘And you?’
I said:
‘Oh, that is all . . .’
Mollie was looking at me, and I looked at the fire.
‘I see,’ she said at last. ‘Poor Helen!’
I said:
‘Yes, that is all . . . I can’t bear it any longer. . . .’
Mollie asked:
‘Did you know you would find me here?’
I said:
‘No. How should I know? I just came away.’
Outside, along the Embankment, the shouting lorries passed, and the crowds, and the rattles, and the noise rose and fell, in irregular, intermittent waves. Bursts of singing floated in at the window, drunken, vulgar singing, of loud voices, cat calls, and shrill, unnatural laughter.
And I shivered, and buried my face, and Mollie comforted me.
She gave me tea to drink, and I felt better, and I realized then, for the first time, that it was strange to find her here.
I said:
‘So you are back!’
She said:
‘I came yesterday.’
And then I looked at Mollie, and I saw that she too was unhappy, and then I thought of George, and I put out my hand to her:
‘Mollie,’ I said, ‘George too. . . . I had not forgotten George . . .’
She said:
‘You should not forget him. He cared for you most of all.’
I said:
‘He never told me . . .’
She said:
‘What was the use?’
I said:
‘Guy is going to be married. You know that too, I expect??’
Mollie bent her head.
‘Yes, I know that too,’ she said.
I said:
‘Mollie, how can you bear it? What have you left at all?’
Mollie looked away. She was kneeling still on the floor, and the firelight danced on her cheek, turned so, away from me, and up the lines of her hair. And I saw that she too looked older, and I saw grey streaks in her hair; and I thought of Guy and Diana, and I felt that I hated Guy.
She said:
‘I don’t know yet. I shall find something soon. Life will go on again. I know in my mind that it must.’
She said:
‘Is Guy very happy? What is Diana like?’
I said:
‘She is very young, lovely, and hard as steel.’
She said:
‘We can’t choose for Guy. Perhaps that is right for him.’
I said:
‘It is not right! I think Guy’s soul has died!’
Mollie smiled at me:
‘You are not changed so much, really,’ she said, and touched my hand. And then John stirred and cried, and I picked him up again, and laid my cheek against his, and I felt that I had John, and that he was life for me.
Mollie said:
‘You are lucky, Helen, to have that baby!’
I said:
‘Yes, and I have two others . . . but they are not like this.’
And then I talked to Mollie, about everything that had happened; about Walter, and Maud, and his mother, and how I was beaten by it all, and how little use I had been.
And then about Hugo’s coming, and all that we did together.
I said:
‘We saw pictures, and heard music, and then we walked about and talked. We went to the station, and there was no train, but there was one in the morning, and I saw him off in a fog . . . it was all foggy’ . . . and I seemed to see it again, as I talked about it, the station filled with smoke, and the lights, and the thin, sharp fog . . . and Hugo’s train going out, away, round the bend of the line . . .
And she said:
‘Is that all, Helen?’
I said:
‘What more could there be? Only everything was different for me after he came and went. You see, we had made a promise, both to go on to the end. It seemed to me, at first, that he had broken his promise; but he hadn’t really, of course; I see that clearly now. It was the end for him, for the war was really ended; but I must go on longer. . . . We had to do different things. . . .’
She said:
‘Is that Hugo’s baby?’
And I said:
‘How I wish it were! But not all my wishing can make it . . . and he had no child of his own!’
She said:
‘Forgive me, Helen!’
I said:
‘It’s no case of forgiving. These things don’t happen really . . . not with people like us.’
‘No, not with you and Hugo. . . . I should have known,’ she said.
We sat and talked together till very late that night. The lamps were lit outside, those cheerless, darkened lamps, and the noise in the streets went on.
We bathed John by the fire, in George’s big blue basin and we put him to sleep on the sofa, and then we made our supper.
And Mollie talked of Salonika and what she had done there, and we talked of little things, little everyday things, and I stayed there that night, and in the morning, it was better.
The next day I went home. I told Walter where I had been. I told him that I got caught in the crowd, and that Mollie had come back, and he did not ask me questions.
I wondered sometimes, with Walter, how much he understood.
And that was the first day after the Armistice. The beginning of the time that has been, since the War.