The Complete Project Gutenberg Works of Galsworthy

J >> John Galsworthy >> The Complete Project Gutenberg Works of Galsworthy


"Come with me, miss."

Noel went. He was rather lame, had grey whiskers, and a ghostly thin
resemblance to her uncle Bob, which perhaps had been the reason why she
had chosen him. 64

"Brother goin' out, miss?"

Noel nodded.

"Ah! It's a crool war. I shan't be sorry when it's over. Goin' out and
comin' in, we see some sad sights 'ere. Wonderful spirit they've got,
too. I never look at the clock now but what I think: 'There you go,
slow-coach! I'd like to set you on to the day the boys come back!' When
I puts a bag in: 'Another for 'ell' I thinks. And so it is, miss, from
all I can 'ear. I've got a son out there meself. It's 'ere they'll come
along. You stand quiet and keep a lookout, and you'll get a few minutes
with him when he's done with 'is men. I wouldn't move, if I were you;
he'll come to you, all right--can't miss you, there.' And, looking at
her face, he thought: 'Astonishin' what a lot o' brothers go. Wot oh!
Poor little missy! A little lady, too. Wonderful collected she is.
It's 'ard!'" And trying to find something consoling to say, he mumbled
out: "You couldn't be in a better place for seen'im off. Good night,
miss; anything else I can do for you?"

"No, thank you; you're very kind."

He looked back once or twice at her blue-clad figure standing very still.
He had left her against a little oasis of piled-up empty milk-cans, far
down the platform where a few civilians in similar case were scattered.
The trainway was empty as yet. In the grey immensity of the station and
the turmoil of its noise, she felt neither lonely nor conscious of others
waiting; too absorbed in the one thought of seeing him and touching him
again. The empty train began backing in, stopped, and telescoped with a
series of little clattering bangs, backed on again, and subsided to rest.
Noel turned her eyes towards the station arch ways. Already she felt
tremulous, as though the regiment were sending before it the vibration of
its march.

She had not as yet seen a troop-train start, and vague images of brave
array, of a flag fluttering, and the stir of drums, beset her. Suddenly
she saw a brown swirling mass down there at the very edge, out of which a
thin brown trickle emerged towards her; no sound of music, no waved flag.
She had a longing to rush down to the barrier, but remembering the words
of the porter, stayed where she was, with her hands tightly squeezed
together. The trickle became a stream, a flood, the head of which began
to reach her. With a turbulence of voices, sunburnt men, burdened up to
the nose, passed, with rifles jutting at all angles; she strained her
eyes, staring into that stream as one might into a walking wood, to
isolate a single tree. Her head reeled with the strain of it, and the
effort to catch his voice among the hubbub of all those cheery, common,
happy-go-lucky sounds. Some who saw her clucked their tongues, some went
by silent, others seemed to scan her as though she might be what they
were looking for. And ever the stream and the hubbub melted into the
train, and yet came pouring on. And still she waited motionless, with an
awful fear. How could he ever find her, or she him? Then she saw that
others of those waiting had found their men. And the longing to rush up
and down the platform almost overcame her; but still she waited. And
suddenly she saw him with two other officer boys, close to the carriages,
coming slowly down towards her. She stood with her eyes fixed on his
face; they passed, and she nearly cried out. Then he turned, broke away
from the other two, and came straight to her. He had seen her before she
had seen him. He was very flushed, had a little fixed frown between his
blue eyes and a set jaw. They stood looking at each other, their hands
hard gripped; all the emotion of last night welling up within them, so
that to speak would have been to break down. The milk-cans formed a kind
of shelter, and they stood so close together that none could see their
faces. Noel was the first to master her power of speech; her words came
out, dainty as ever, through trembling lips:

"Write to me as much as ever you can, Cyril. I'm going to be a nurse at
once. And the first leave you get, I shall come to you--don't forget."

"Forget! Move a little back, darling; they can't see us here. Kiss me!"
She moved back, thrust her face forward so that he need not stoop, and
put her lips up to his. Then, feeling that she might swoon and fall over
among the cans, she withdrew her mouth, leaving her forehead against his
lips. He murmured:

"Was it all right when you got in last night?"

"Yes; I said good-bye for you."

"Oh! Noel--I've been afraid--I oughtn't--I oughtn't--"

"Yes, yes; nothing can take you from me now."

"You have got pluck. More than!"

Along whistle sounded. Morland grasped her hands convulsively:

"Good-bye, my little wife! Don't fret. Goodbye! I must go. God bless
you, Noel!"

"I love you."

They looked at each other, just another moment, then she took her hands
from his and stood back in the shadow of the milk-cans, rigid, following
him with her eyes till he was lost in the train.

Every carriage window was full of those brown figures and red-brown
faces, hands were waving vaguely, voices calling vaguely, here and there
one cheered; someone leaning far out started to sing: "If auld
acquaintance--" But Noel stood quite still in the shadow of the
milk-cans, her lips drawn in, her hands hard clenched in front of her;
and young Morland at his window gazed back at her.


2

How she came to be sitting in Trafalgar Square she did not know. Tears
had formed a mist between her and all that seething, summer-evening
crowd. Her eyes mechanically followed the wandering search-lights, those
new milky ways, quartering the heavens and leading nowhere. All was
wonderfully beautiful, the sky a deep dark blue, the moonlight whitening
the spire of St. Martin's, and everywhere endowing the great blacked-out
buildings with dream-life. Even the lions had come to life, and stared
out over this moonlit desert of little human figures too small to be
worth the stretching out of a paw. She sat there, aching dreadfully, as
if the longing of every bereaved heart in all the town had settled in
her. She felt it tonight a thousand times worse; for last night she had
been drugged on the new sensation of love triumphantly fulfilled. Now
she felt as if life had placed her in the corner of a huge silent room,
blown out the flame of joy, and locked the door. A little dry sob came
from her. The hay-fields and Cyril, with shirt unbuttoned at the neck,
pitching hay and gazing at her while she dabbled her fork in the thin
leavings. The bright river, and their boat grounded on the shallows, and
the swallows flitting over them. And that long dance, with the feel of
his hand between her shoulder-blades! Memories so sweet and sharp that
she almost cried out. She saw again their dark grassy courtyard in the
Abbey, and the white owl flying over them. The white owl! Flying there
again to-night, with no lovers on the grass below! She could only
picture Cyril now as a brown atom in that swirling brown flood of men,
flowing to a huge brown sea. Those cruel minutes on the platform, when
she had searched and searched the walking wood for her, one tree, seemed
to have burned themselves into her eyes. Cyril was lost, she could not
single him out, all blurred among those thousand other shapes. And
suddenly she thought: 'And I--I'm lost to him; he's never seen me at
home, never seen me in London; he won't be able to imagine me. It's all
in the past, only the past--for both of us. Is there anybody so
unhappy?' And the town's voices-wheels, and passing feet, whistles,
talk, laughter--seemed to answer callously: 'Not one.' She looked at her
wrist-watch; like his, it had luminous hands: 'Half-past ten' was
greenishly imprinted there. She got up in dismay. They would think she
was lost, or run over, or something silly! She could not find an empty
taxi, and began to walk, uncertain of her way at night. At last she
stopped a policeman, and said:

"Which is the way towards Bloomsbury, please? I can't find a taxi." The
man looked at her, and took time to think it over; then he said:

"They're linin' up for the theatres," and looked at her again. Something
seemed to move in his mechanism:

"I'm goin' that way, miss. If you like, you can step along with me."
Noel stepped along.

"The streets aren't what they ought to be," the policeman said. "What
with the darkness, and the war turning the girls heads--you'd be
surprised the number of them that comes out. It's the soldiers, of
course."

Noel felt her cheeks burning.

"I daresay you wouldn't have noticed it," the policeman went on: "but
this war's a funny thing. The streets are gayer and more crowded at
night than I've ever seen them; it's a fair picnic all the time. What
we're goin' to settle down to when peace comes, I don't know. I suppose
you find it quiet enough up your way, miss?"

"Yes," said Noel; "quite quiet."

"No soldiers up in Bloomsbury. You got anyone in the Army, miss?"

Noel nodded.

"Ah! It's anxious times for ladies. What with the Zeps, and their
brothers and all in France, it's 'arassin'. I've lost a brother meself,
and I've got a boy out there in the Garden of Eden; his mother carries on
dreadful about him. What we shall think of it when it's all over, I
can't tell. These Huns are a wicked tough lot!"

Noel looked at him; a tall man, regular and orderly, with one of those
perfectly decent faces so often seen in the London police.

"I'm sorry you've lost someone," she said. "I haven't lost anyone very
near, yet."

"Well, let's 'ope you won't, miss. These times make you feel for others,
an' that's something. I've noticed a great change in folks you'd never
think would feel for anyone. And yet I've seen some wicked things too;
we do, in the police. Some of these English wives of aliens, and
'armless little German bakers, an' Austrians, and what-not: they get a
crool time. It's their misfortune, not their fault, that's what I think;
and the way they get served--well, it makes you ashamed o' bein' English
sometimes--it does straight: And the women are the worst. I said to my
wife only last night, I said: 'They call themselves Christians,' I said,
'but for all the charity that's in 'em they might as well be Huns.' She
couldn't see it-not she!' Well, why do they drop bombs?' she says.
'What!' I said, 'those English wives and bakers drop bombs? Don't be
silly,' I said. 'They're as innocent as we.' It's the innocent that gets
punished for the guilty. 'But they're all spies,' she says. 'Oh!' I
said, 'old lady! Now really! At your time of life!' But there it is;
you can't get a woman to see reason. It's readin' the papers. I often
think they must be written by women--beggin' your pardon, miss--but
reely, the 'ysterics and the 'atred--they're a fair knockout. D'you find
much hatred in your household, miss?"

Noel shook her head. "No; my father's a clergyman, you see."

"Ah!" said the policeman. And in the glance he bestowed on her could be
seen an added respect.

"Of course," he went on, "you're bound to have a sense of justice against
these Huns; some of their ways of goin' on have been above the limit.
But what I always think is--of course I don't say these things--no use to
make yourself unpopular--but to meself I often think: Take 'em man for
man, and you'd find 'em much the same as we are, I daresay. It's the
vicious way they're brought up, of actin' in the mass, that's made 'em
such a crool lot. I see a good bit of crowds in my profession, and I've
a very low opinion of them. Crowds are the most blunderin' blighted
things that ever was. They're like an angry woman with a bandage over
her eyes, an' you can't have anything more dangerous than that. These
Germans, it seems, are always in a crowd. They get a state o' mind read
out to them by Bill Kaser and all that bloody-minded lot, an' they never
stop to think for themselves."

"I suppose they'd be shot if they did," said Noel.

"Well, there is that," said the policeman reflectively. "They've brought
discipline to an 'igh pitch, no doubt. An' if you ask me,"--he lowered
his voice till it was almost lost in his chin-strap, "we'll be runnin'
'em a good second 'ere, before long. The things we 'ave to protect now
are gettin' beyond a joke. There's the City against lights, there's the
streets against darkness, there's the aliens, there's the aliens' shops,
there's the Belgians, there's the British wives, there's the soldiers
against the women, there's the women against the soldiers, there's the
Peace Party, there's 'orses against croolty, there's a Cabinet Minister
every now an' then; and now we've got these Conchies. And, mind you,
they haven't raised our pay; no war wages in the police. So far as I can
see, there's only one good result of the war--the burglaries are off.
But there again, you wait a bit and see if we don't have a prize crop of
'm, or my name's not 'Arris."

"You must have an awfully exciting life!" said Noel.

The policeman looked down at her sideways, without lowering his face, as
only a policeman can, and said indulgently:

"We're used to it, you see; there's no excitement in what you're used to.
They find that in the trenches, I'm told. Take our seamen--there's lots
of 'em been blown up over and over again, and there they go and sign on
again next day. That's where the Germans make their mistake! England in
war-time! I think a lot, you know, on my go; you can't 'elp it--the mind
will work--an' the more I think, the more I see the fightin' spirit in
the people. We don't make a fuss about it like Bill Kaser. But you
watch a little shopman, one o' those fellows who's had his house bombed;
you watch the way he looks at the mess--sort of disgusted. You watch his
face, and you see he's got his teeth into it. You watch one of our
Tommies on 'is crutches, with the sweat pourin' off his forehead an' 'is
eyes all strainy, stumpin' along--that gives you an idea! I pity these
Peace fellows, reely I pity them; they don't know what they're up
against. I expect there's times when you wish you was a man, don't you,
miss? I'm sure there's times when I feel I'd like to go in the trenches.
That's the worst o' my job; you can't be a human bein'--not in the full
sense of the word. You mustn't let your passions rise, you mustn't
drink, you mustn't talk; it's a narrow walk o' life. Well, here you are,
miss; your Square's the next turnin' to the right. Good night and thank
you for your conversation."

Noel held out her hand. "Good night!" she said.

The policeman took her hand with a queer, flattered embarrassment.

"Good night, miss," he said again. "I see you've got a trouble; and I'm
sure I hope it'll turn out for the best."

Noel gave his huge hand a squeeze; her eyes had filled with tears, and
she turned quickly up towards the Square, where a dark figure was coming
towards her, in whom she recognised her father. His face was worn and
harassed; he walked irresolutely, like a man who has lost something.

"Nollie!" he said. "Thank God!" In his voice was an infinite relief.
"My child, where have you been?"

"It's all right, Daddy. Cyril has just gone to the front. I've been
seeing him off from Charing Cross."

Pierson slipped his arm round her. They entered the house without
speaking....
3

By the rail of his transport, as far--about two feet--as he could get
from anyone, Cyril Morland stood watching Calais, a dream city, brighten
out of the heat and grow solid. He could hear the guns already, the
voice of his new life-talking in the distance. It came with its strange
excitement into a being held by soft and marvellous memories, by one long
vision of Noel and the moonlit grass, under the dark Abbey wall. This
moment of passage from wonder to wonder was quite too much for a boy
unused to introspection, and he stood staring stupidly at Calais, while
the thunder of his new life came rolling in on that passionate moonlit
dream.




VII

After the emotions of those last three days Pierson woke with the feeling
a ship must have when it makes landfall. Such reliefs are natural, and
as a rule delusive; for events are as much the parents of the future as
they were the children of the past. To be at home with both his girls,
and resting--for his holiday would not be over for ten days--was like old
times. Now George was going on so well Gratian would be herself again;
now Cyril Morland was gone Noel would lose that sudden youthful love
fever. Perhaps in two or three days if George continued to progress, one
might go off with Noel somewhere for one's last week. In the meantime
the old house, wherein was gathered so much remembrance of happiness and
pain, was just as restful as anywhere else, and the companionship of his
girls would be as sweet as on any of their past rambling holidays in
Wales or Ireland. And that first morning of perfect idleness--for no one
knew he was back in London--pottering, and playing the piano in the
homely drawing-room where nothing to speak of was changed since his
wife's day, was very pleasant. He had not yet seen the girls, for Noel
did not come down to breakfast, and Gratian was with George.

Discovery that there was still a barrier between him and them came but
slowly in the next two days. He would not acknowledge it, yet it was
there, in their voices, in their movements--rather an absence of
something old than the presence of something new. It was as if each had
said to him: "We love you, but you are not in our secrets--and you must
not be, for you would try to destroy them." They showed no fear of him,
but seemed to be pushing him unconsciously away, lest he should restrain
or alter what was very dear to them. They were both fond of him, but
their natures had set foot on definitely diverging paths. The closer the
affection, the more watchful they were against interference by that
affection. Noel had a look on her face, half dazed, half proud, which
touched, yet vexed him. What had he done to forfeit her
confidence--surely she must see how natural and right his opposition had
been! He made one great effort to show the real sympathy he felt for
her. But she only said: "I can't talk of Cyril, Daddy; I simply can't!"
And he, who easily shrank into his shell, could not but acquiesce in her
reserve.

With Gratian it was different. He knew that an encounter was before him;
a struggle between him and her husband--for characteristically he set the
change in her, the defection of her faith, down to George, not to
spontaneous thought and feeling in herself. He dreaded and yet looked
forward to this encounter. It came on the third day, when Laird was up,
lying on that very sofa where Pierson had sat listening to Gratian's
confession of disbelief. Except for putting in his head to say good
morning, he had not yet seen his son-in-law: The young doctor could not
look fragile, the build of his face, with that law and those heavy
cheekbones was too much against it, but there was about him enough of the
look of having come through a hard fight to give Pierson's heart a
squeeze.

"Well, George," he said, "you gave us a dreadful fright! I thank God's
mercy." With that half-mechanical phrase he had flung an unconscious
challenge. Laird looked up whimsically.

"So you really think God merciful, sir?"

"Don't let us argue, George; you're not strong enough."

"Oh! I'm pining for something to bite on."

Pierson looked at Gratian, and said softly:

"God's mercy is infinite, and you know it is."

Laird also looked at Gratian, before he answered:

"God's mercy is surely the amount of mercy man has succeeded in arriving
at. How much that is, this war tells you, sir."

Pierson flushed. "I don't follow you," he said painfully. "How can you
say such things, when you yourself are only just No; I refuse to argue,
George; I refuse."

Laird stretched out his hand to his wife, who came to him, and stood
clasping it with her own. "Well, I'm going to argue," he said; "I'm
simply bursting with it. I challenge you, sir, to show me where there's
any sign of altruistic pity, except in man. Mother love doesn't
count--mother and child are too much one."

The curious smile had come already, on both their faces.

"My dear George, is not man the highest work of God, and mercy the
highest quality in man?"

"Not a bit. If geological time be taken as twenty-four hours, man's
existence on earth so far equals just two seconds of it; after a few more
seconds, when man has been frozen off the earth, geological time will
stretch for as long again, before the earth bumps into something, and
becomes nebula once more. God's hands haven't been particularly full,
sir, have they--two seconds out of twenty-four hours--if man is His pet
concern? And as to mercy being the highest quality in, man, that's only
a modern fashion of talking. Man's highest quality is the sense of
proportion, for that's what keeps him alive; and mercy, logically
pursued, would kill him off. It's a sort of a luxury or by-product."

"George! You can have no music in your soul! Science is such a little
thing, if you could only see."

"Show me a bigger, sir."

"Faith."

"In what?"

"In what has been revealed to us."

"Ah! There it is again! By whom--how?

"By God Himself--through our Lord."

A faint flush rose in Laird's yellow face, and his eyes brightened.

"Christ," he said; "if He existed, which some people, as you know, doubt,
was a very beautiful character; there have been others. But to ask us to
believe in His supernaturalness or divinity at this time of day is to ask
us to walk through the world blindfold. And that's what you do, don't
you?"

Again Pierson looked at his daughter's face. She was standing quite
still, with her eyes fixed on her husband. Somehow he was aware that all
these words of the sick man's were for her benefit. Anger, and a sort of
despair rose within him, and he said painfully:

"I cannot explain. There are things that I can't make clear, because you
are wilfully blind to all that I believe in. For what do you imagine we
are fighting this great war, if it is not to reestablish the belief in
love as the guiding principle of life?"

Laird shook his head. "We are fighting to redress a balance, which was
in danger of being lost."

"The balance of power?"

"Heavens!--no! The balance of philosophy."

Pierson smiled. "That sounds very clever, George; but again, I don't
follow you."

"The balance between the sayings: 'Might is Right,' and 'Right is Might.'
They're both half-truth, but the first was beating the other out of the
field. All the rest of it is cant, you know. And by the way, sir, your
Church is solid for punishment of the evildoer. Where's mercy there?
Either its God is not merciful, or else it doesn't believe in its God."

"Just punishment does not preclude mercy, George."

"It does in Nature."

"Ah! Nature, George--always Nature. God transcends Nature."

"Then why does He give it a free rein? A man too fond of drink, or
women--how much mercy does he get from Nature? His overindulgence brings
its exact equivalent of penalty; let him pray to God as much as he
likes--unless he alters his ways he gets no mercy. If he does alter his
ways, he gets no mercy either; he just gets Nature's due reward. We
English who have neglected brain and education--how much mercy are we
getting in this war? Mercy's a man-made ornament, disease, or
luxury--call it what you will. Except that, I've nothing to say against
it. On the contrary, I am all for it."

Once more Pierson looked at his daughter. Something in her face hurt
him--the silent intensity with which she was hanging on her husband's
words, the eager search of her eyes. And he turned to the door, saying:

"This is bad for you, George."

He saw Gratian put her hand on her husband's forehead, and
thought--jealously: 'How can I save my poor girl from this infidelity?
Are my twenty years of care to go for nothing, against this modern
spirit?'

Down in his study, the words went through his mind: "Holy, holy, holy,
Merciful and Mighty!" And going to the little piano in the corner, he
opened it, and began playing the hymn. He played it softly on the shabby
keys of this thirty-year old friend, which had been with him since
College days; and sang it softly in his worn voice.

A sound made him look up. Gratian had come in. She put her hand on his
shoulder, and said:

"I know it hurts you, Dad. But we've got to find out for ourselves,
haven't we? All the time you and George were talking, I felt that you
didn't see that it's I who've changed. It's not what he thinks, but what
I've come to think of my own accord. I wish you'd understand that I've
got a mind of my own, Dad."

Pierson looked up with amazement.

"Of course you have a mind."

Gratian shook her head. "No, you thought my mind was yours; and now you
think it's George's. But it's my own. When you were my age weren't you
trying hard to find the truth yourself, and differing from your father?"