II
The maid, who one Saturday in July opened the door to Jimmy Fort, had never heard the name of Laird, for she was but a unit in the ceaseless procession which pass through the boarding-houses of places subject to air-raids. Placing him in a sitting-room, she said she would find Miss ‘Allow. There he waited, turning the leaves of an illustrated Journal, wherein Society beauties; starving Servians, actresses with pretty legs, prize dogs, sinking ships, Royalties, shells bursting, and padres reading funeral services, testified to the catholicity of the public taste, but did not assuage his nerves. What if their address were not known here? Why, in his fear of putting things to the test, had he let this month go by? An old lady was sitting by the hearth, knitting, the click of whose needles blended with the buzzing of a large bee on the window-pane. ‘She may know,’ he thought, ‘she looks as if she’d been here for ever.’ And approaching her, he said:
“I can assure you those socks are very much appreciated, ma’am.”
The old lady bridled over her spectacles.
“It passes the time,” she said.
“Oh, more than that; it helps to win the war, ma’am.”
The old lady’s lips moved at the corners; she did not answer. ‘Deaf!’ he thought.
“May I ask if you knew my friends, Doctor and Mrs. Laird, and Miss Pierson?”
The old lady cackled gently.
“Oh, yes! A pretty young girl; as pretty as life. She used to sit with me. Quite a pleasure to watch her; such large eyes she had.”
“Where have they gone? Can you tell me?”
“Oh, I don’t know at all.”
It was a little cold douche on his heart. He longed to say: ‘Stop knitting a minute, please. It’s my life, to know.’ But the tune of the needles answered: ‘It’s my life to knit.’ And he turned away to the window.
“She used to sit just there; quite still; quite still.”
Fort looked down at the window-seat. So, she used to sit just here, quite still.
“What a dreadful war this is!” said the old lady. “Have you been at the front?”
“Yes.”
“To think of the poor young girls who’ll never have husbands! I’m sure I think it’s dreadful.”
“Yes,” said Fort; “it’s dreadful – ” And then a voice from the doorway said:
“Did you want Doctor and Mrs. Laird, sir? East Bungalow their address is; it’s a little way out on the North Road. Anyone will tell you.”
With a sigh of relief Fort looked gratefully at the old lady who had called Noel as pretty as life. “Good afternoon, ma’am.”
“Good afternoon.” The needles clicked, and little movements occurred at the corners of her mouth. Fort went out. He could not find a vehicle, and was a long time walking. The Bungalow was ugly, of yellow brick pointed with red. It lay about two-thirds up between the main road and cliffs, and had a rock-garden and a glaring, brand-new look, in the afternoon sunlight. He opened the gate, uttering one of those prayers which come so glibly from unbelievers when they want anything. A baby’s crying answered it, and he thought with ecstasy: ‘Heaven, she is here!’ Passing the rock-garden he could see a lawn at the back of the house and a perambulator out there under a holm-oak tree, and Noel – surely Noel herself! Hardening his heart, he went forward. In a lilac sunbonnet she was bending over the perambulator. He trod softly on the grass, and was quite close before she heard him. He had prepared no words, but just held out his hand. The baby, interested in the shadow failing across its pram, ceased crying. Noel took his hand. Under the sunbonnet, which hid her hair, she seemed older and paler, as if she felt the heat. He had no feeling that she was glad to see him.
“How do you do? Have you seen Gratian; she ought to be in.”
“I didn’t come to see her; I came to see you.”
Noel turned to the baby.
“Here he is.”
Fort stood at the end of the perambulator, and looked at that other fellow’s baby. In the shade of the hood, with the frilly clothes, it seemed to him lying with its head downhill. It had scratched its snub nose and bumpy forehead, and it stared up at its mother with blue eyes, which seemed to have no underlids so fat were its cheeks.
“I wonder what they think about,” he said.
Noel put her finger into the baby’s fist.
“They only think when they want some thing.”
“That’s a deep saying: but his eyes are awfully interested in you.”
Noel smiled; and very slowly the baby’s curly mouth unclosed, and discovered his toothlessness.
“He’s a darling,” she said in a whisper.
‘And so are you,’ he thought, ‘if only I dared say it!’
“Daddy is here,” she said suddenly, without looking up. “He’s sailing for Egypt the day after to-morrow. He doesn’t like you.”
Fort’s heart gave a jump. Why did she tell him that, unless – unless she was just a little on his side?
“I expected that,” he said. “I’m a sinner, as you know.”
Noel looked up at him. “Sin!” she said, and bent again over her baby. The word, the tone in which she said it, crouching over her baby, gave him the thought: ‘If it weren’t for that little creature, I shouldn’t have a dog’s chance.’ He said, “I’ll go and see your father. Is he in?”
“I think so.”
“May I come to-morrow?”
“It’s Sunday; and Daddy’s last day.”
“Ah! Of course.” He did not dare look back, to see if her gaze was following him, but he thought: ‘Chance or no chance, I’m going to fight for her tooth and nail.’
In a room darkened against the evening sun Pierson was sitting on a sofa reading. The sight of that figure in khaki disconcerted Fort, who had not realised that there would be this metamorphosis. The narrow face, clean-shaven now, with its deep-set eyes and compressed lips, looked more priestly than ever, in spite of this brown garb. He felt his hope suddenly to be very forlorn indeed. And rushing at the fence, he began abruptly:
“I’ve come to ask you, sir, for your permission to marry Noel, if she will have me.”
He had thought Pierson’s face gentle; it was not gentle now. “Did you know I was here, then, Captain Fort?”
“I saw Noel in the garden. I’ve said nothing to her, of course. But she told me you were starting to-morrow for Egypt, so I shall have no other chance.”
“I am sorry you have come. It is not for me to judge, but I don’t think you will make Noel happy.”
“May I ask you why, sir?”
“Captain Fort, the world’s judgment of these things is not mine; but since you ask me. I will tell you frankly. My cousin Leila has a claim on you. It is her you should ask to marry you.”
“I did ask her; she refused.”
“I know. She would not refuse you again if you went out to her.”
“I am not free to go out to her; besides, she would refuse. She knows I don’t love her, and never have.”
“Never have?”
“No.”
“Then why – ”
“Because I’m a man, I suppose, and a fool”
“If it was simply, ‘because you are a man’ as you call it, it is clear that no principle or faith governs you. And yet you ask me to give you Noel; my poor Noel, who wants the love and protection not of a ‘man’ but of a good man. No, Captain Fort, no!”
Fort bit his lips. “I’m clearly not a good man in your sense of the word; but I love her terribly, and I would protect her. I don’t in the least know whether she’ll have me. I don’t expect her to, naturally. But I warn you that I mean to ask her, and to wait for her. I’m so much in love that I can do nothing else.”
“The man who is truly in love does what is best for the one he loves.” Fort bent his head; he felt as if he were at school again, confronting his head-master. “That’s true,” he said. “And I shall never trade on her position. If she can’t feel anything for me now or in the future, I shan’t trouble her, you may be sure of that. But if by some wonderful chance she should, I know I can make her happy, sir.”
“She is a child.”
“No, she’s not a child,” said Fort stubbornly.
Pierson touched the lapel of his new tunic. “Captain Fort, I am going far away from her, and leaving her without protection. I trust to your chivalry not to ask her, till I come back.”
Fort threw back his head. “No, no, I won’t accept that position. With or without your presence the facts will be the same. Either she can love me, or she can’t. If she can, she’ll be happier with me. If she can’t, there’s an end of it.”
Pierson came slowly up to him. “In my view,” he said, “you are as bound to Leila as if you were married to her.”
“You can’t, expect me to take the priest’s view, sir.”
Pierson’s lips trembled.
“You call it a priest’s view; I think it is only the view of a man of honour.”
Fort reddened. “That’s for my conscience,” he said stubbornly. “I can’t tell you, and I’m not going to, how things began. I was a fool. But I did my best, and I know that Leila doesn’t think I’m bound. If she had, she would never have gone. When there’s no feeling – there never was real feeling on my side – and when there’s this terribly real feeling for Noel, which I never sought, which I tried to keep down, which I ran away from – ”
“Did you?”
“Yes. To go on with the other was foul. I should have thought you might have seen that, sir; but I did go on with it. It was Leila who made an end.”
“Leila behaved nobly, I think.”
“She was splendid; but that doesn’t make me a brute.”.
Pierson turned away to the window, whence he must see Noel.
“It is repugnant to me,” he said. “Is there never to be any purity in her life?”
“Is there never to be any life for her? At your rate, sir, there will be none. I’m no worse than other men, and I love her more than they could.”
For fully a minute Pierson stood silent, before he said: “Forgive me if I’ve spoken harshly. I didn’t mean to. I love her intensely; I wish for nothing but her good. But all my life I have believed that for a man there is only one woman – for a woman only one man.”
“Then, Sir,” Fort burst out, “you wish her – ”
Pierson had put his hand up, as if to ward off a blow; and, angry though he was, Fort stopped.
“We are all made of flesh and blood,” he continued coldly, “and it seems to me that you think we aren’t.”
“We have spirits too, Captain Fort.” The voice was suddenly so gentle that Fort’s anger evaporated.
“I have a great respect for you, sir; but a greater love for Noel, and nothing in this world will prevent me trying to give my life to her.”
A smile quivered over Pierson’s face. “If you try, then I can but pray that you will fail.”
Fort did not answer, and went out.
He walked slowly away from the bungalow, with his head down, sore, angry, and yet-relieved. He knew where he stood; nor did he feel that he had been worsted – those strictures had not touched him. Convicted of immorality, he remained conscious of private justifications, in a way that human beings have. Only one little corner of memory, unseen and uncriticised by his opponent, troubled him. He pardoned himself the rest; the one thing he did not pardon was the fact that he had known Noel before his liaison with Leila commenced; had even let Leila sweep him away on, an evening when he had been in Noel’s company. For that he felt a real disgust with himself. And all the way back to the station he kept thinking: ‘How could I? I deserve to lose her! Still, I shall try; but not now – not yet!’ And, wearily enough, he took the train back to town.
III
Both girls rose early that last day, and went with their father to Communion. As Gratian had said to George: “It’s nothing to me now, but it will mean a lot to him out there, as a memory of us. So I must go.” And he had answered: “Quite right, my dear. Let him have all he can get of you both to-day. I’ll keep out of the way, and be back the last thing at night.” Their father’s smile when he saw them waiting for him went straight to both their hearts. It was a delicious day, and the early freshness had not yet dried out of the air, when they were walking home to breakfast. Each girl had slipped a hand under his arm. ‘It’s like Moses or was it Aaron?’ Noel thought absurdly Memory had complete hold of her. All the old days! Nursery hours on Sundays after tea, stories out of the huge Bible bound in mother-o’pearl, with photogravures of the Holy Land – palms, and hills, and goats, and little Eastern figures, and funny boats on the Sea of Galilee, and camels – always camels. The book would be on his knee, and they one on each arm of his chair, waiting eagerly for the pages to be turned so that a new picture came. And there would be the feel of his cheek, prickly against theirs; and the old names with the old glamour – to Gratian, Joshua, Daniel, Mordecai, Peter; to Noel Absalom because of his hair, and Haman because she liked the sound, and Ruth because she was pretty and John because he leaned on Jesus’ breast. Neither of them cared for Job or David, and Elijah and Elisha they detested because they hated the name Eliza. And later days by firelight in the drawing-room, roasting chestnuts just before evening church, and telling ghost stories, and trying to make Daddy eat his share. And hours beside him at the piano, each eager for her special hymns – for Gratian, “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” “Lead, Kindly Light,” and “O God Our Help”; for Noel, “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” the one with “The Hosts of Midian” in it, and “For Those in Peril on the Sea.” And carols! Ah! And Choristers! Noel had loved one deeply – the word “chorister” was so enchanting; and because of his whiteness, and hair which had no grease on it, but stood up all bright; she had never spoken to him – a far worship, like that for a star. And always, always Daddy had been gentle; sometimes angry, but always gentle; and they sometimes not at all! And mixed up with it all, the dogs they had had, and the cats they had had, and the cockatoo, and the governesses, and their red cloaks, and the curates, and the pantomimes, and “Peter Pan,” and “Alice in Wonderland” – Daddy sitting between them, so that one could snuggle up. And later, the school-days, the hockey, the prizes, the holidays, the rush into his arms; and the great and wonderful yearly exodus to far places, fishing and bathing; walks and drives; rides and climbs, always with him. And concerts and Shakespeare plays in the Christmas and Easter holidays; and the walk home through the streets – all lighted in those days – one on each side of him. And this was the end! They waited on him at breakfast: they kept stealing glances at him, photographing him in their minds. Gratian got her camera and did actually photograph him in the morning sunlight with Noel, without Noel, with the baby; against all regulations for the defence of the realm. It was Noel who suggested: “Daddy, let’s take lunch out and go for all day on the cliffs, us three, and forget there’s a war.”
So easy to say, so difficult to do, with the boom of the guns travelling to their ears along the grass, mingled with the buzz of insects. Yet that hum of summer, the innumerable voices of tiny lives, gossamer things all as alive as they, and as important to their frail selves; and the white clouds, few and so slow-moving, and the remote strange purity which clings to the chalky downs, all this white and green and blue of land and sea had its peace, which crept into the spirits of those three alone with Nature, this once more, the last time for – who could say how long? They talked, by tacit agreement, of nothing but what had happened before the war began, while the flock of the blown dandelions drifted past. Pierson sat cross-legged on the grass, without his cap, suffering a little still from the stiffness of his unwonted garments. And the girls lay one on each side of him, half critical, and half admiring. Noel could not bear his collar.
“If you had a soft collar you’d be lovely, Daddy. Perhaps out there they’ll let you take it off. It must be fearfully hot in Egypt. Oh! I wish I were going. I wish I were going everywhere in the world. Some day!” Presently he read to them, Murray’s “Hippolytus” of Euripides. And now and then Gratian and he discussed a passage. But Noel lay silent, looking at the sky. Whenever his voice ceased, there was the song of the larks, and very faint, the distant mutter of the guns.
They stayed up there till past six, and it was time to go and have tea before Evening Service. Those hours in the baking sun had drawn virtue out of them; they were silent and melancholy all the evening. Noel was the first to go up to her bedroom. She went without saying good night – she knew her father would come to her room that last evening. George had not yet come in; and Gratian was left alone with Pierson in the drawing-room, round whose single lamp, in spite of close-drawn curtains, moths were circling: She moved over to him on the sofa.
“Dad, promise me not to worry about Nollie; we’ll take care of her.”
“She can only take care of herself, Gracie, and will she? Did you know that Captain Fort was here yesterday?”
“She told me.”
“What is her feeling about him?”
“I don’t think she knows. Nollie dreams along, and then suddenly rushes.”
“I wish she were safe from that man.”
“But, Dad, why? George likes him and so do I.”
A big grey moth was fluttering against the lamp. Pierson got up and caught it in the curve of his palm. “Poor thing! You’re like my Nollie; so soft, and dreamy, so feckless, so reckless.” And going to the curtains, he thrust his hand through, and released the moth.
“Dad!” said Gratian suddenly, “we can only find out for ourselves, even if we do singe our wings in doing it. We’ve been reading James’s ‘Pragmatism.’ George says the only chapter that’s important is missing – the one on ethics, to show that what we do is not wrong till it’s proved wrong by the result. I suppose he was afraid to deliver that lecture.”
Pierson’s face wore the smile which always came on it when he had to deal with George, the smile which said: “Ah, George, that’s very clever; but I know.”
“My dear,” he said, “that doctrine is the most dangerous in the world. I am surprised at George.”
“I don’t think George is in danger, Dad.”
“George is a man of wide experience and strong judgment and character; but think how fatal it would be for Nollie, my poor Nollie, whom a little gust can blow into the candle.”
“All the same,” said Gratian stubbornly, “I don’t think anyone can be good or worth anything unless they judge for themselves and take risks.”
Pierson went close to her; his face was quivering.
“Don’t let us differ on this last night; I must go up to Nollie for a minute, and then to bed. I shan’t see you to-morrow; you mustn’t get up; I can bear parting better like this. And my train goes at eight. God bless you, Gracie; give George my love. I know, I have always known that he’s a good man, though we do fight so. Good-bye, my darling.”
He went out with his cheeks wet from Gratian’s tears, and stood in the porch a minute to recover his composure. The shadow of the house stretched velvet and blunt over the rock-garden. A night-jar was spinning; the churring sound affected him oddly. The last English night-bird he would hear. England! What a night-to say good-bye! ‘My country!’ he thought; ‘my beautiful country!’ The dew was lying thick and silvery already on the little patch of grass-the last dew, the last scent of an English night. The call of a bugle floated out. “England!” he prayed; “God be about you!” A little sound answered from across the grass, like an old man’s cough, and the scrape and rattle of a chain. A face emerged at the edge of the house’s shadow; bearded and horned like that of Pan, it seemed to stare at him. And he saw the dim grey form of the garden goat, heard it scuttle round the stake to which it was tethered, as though alarmed at this visitor to its’ domain.
He went up the half-flight of stairs to Noel’s narrow little room, next the nursery. No voice answered his tap. It was dark, but he could see her at the window, leaning far out, with her chin on her hands.
“Nollie!”
She answered without turning: “Such a lovely night, Daddy. Come and look! I’d like to set the goat free, only he’d eat the rock plants. But it is his night, isn’t it? He ought to be running and skipping in it: it’s such a shame to tie things up. Did you never, feel wild in your heart, Daddy?”
“Always, I think, Nollie; too wild. It’s been hard to tame oneself.”
Noel slipped her hand through his arm. “Let’s go and take the goat and skip together on the hills. If only we had a penny whistle! Did you hear the bugle? The bugle and the goat!”
Pierson pressed the hand against him.
“Nollie, be good while I’m away. You know what I don’t want. I told you in my letter.” He looked at her cheek, and dared say no more. Her face had its “fey” look again.
“Don’t you feel,” she said suddenly, “on a night like this, all the things, all the things – the stars have lives, Daddy, and the moon has a big life, and the shadows have, and the moths and the birds and the goats and the trees, and the flowers, and all of us – escaped? Oh! Daddy, why is there a war? And why are people so bound and so unhappy? Don’t tell me it’s God – don’t!”
Pierson could not answer, for there came into his mind the Greek song he had been reading aloud that afternoon —
“O for a deep and dewy Spring,
With runlets cold to draw and drink,
And a great meadow blossoming,
Long-grassed, and poplars in a ring,
To rest me by the brink.
O take me to the mountain, O,
Past the great pines and through the wood,
Up where the lean hounds softly go,
A-whine for wild things’ blood,
And madly flies the dappled roe,
O God, to shout and speed them there;
An arrow by my chestnut hair
Drawn tight and one keen glimmering spear
Ah! if I could!”
All that in life had been to him unknown, of venture and wild savour; all the emotion he had stifled; the swift Pan he had denied; the sharp fruits, the burning suns, the dark pools, the unearthly moonlight, which were not of God – all came with the breath of that old song, and the look on the girl’s face. And he covered his eyes.
Noel’s hand tugged at his arm. “Isn’t beauty terribly alive,” she murmured, “like a lovely person? it makes you ache to kiss it.”
His lips felt parched. “There is a beauty beyond all that,” he said stubbornly.
“Where?”
“Holiness, duty, faith. O Nollie, my love!” But Noel’s hand tightened on his arm.
“Shall I tell you what I should like?” she whispered. “To take God’s hand and show Him things. I’m certain He’s not seen everything.”
A shudder went through Pierson, one of those queer sudden shivers, which come from a strange note in a voice, or a new sharp scent or sight.
“My dear, what things you say!”
“But He hasn’t, and it’s time He did. We’d creep, and peep, and see it all for once, as He can’t in His churches. Daddy, oh! Daddy! I can’t bear it any more; to think of them being killed on a night like this; killed and killed so that they never see it all again – never see it – never see it!” She sank down, and covered her face with her arms.
“I can’t, I can’t! Oh! take it all away, the cruelty! Why does it come – why the stars and the flowers, if God doesn’t care any more than that?”
Horribly affected he stood bending over her, stroking her head. Then the habit of a hundred death-beds helped him. “Come, Nollie! This life is but a minute. We must all die.”
“But not they – not so young!” She clung to his knees, and looked up. “Daddy, I don’t want you to go; promise me to come back!”
The childishness of those words brought back his balance.
“My dear sweetheart, of course! Come, Nollie, get up. The sun’s been too much for you.”
Noel got up, and put her hands on her father’s shoulders. “Forgive me for all my badness, and all my badness to come, especially all my badness to come!”
Pierson smiled. “I shall always forgive you, Nollie; but there won’t be – there mustn’t be any badness to come. I pray God to keep you, and make you like your mother.”
“Mother never had a devil, like you and me.”
He was silent from surprise. How did this child know the devil of wild feeling he had fought against year after year; until with the many years he had felt it weakening within him! She whispered on: “I don’t hate my devil.
“Why should I? – it’s part of me. Every day when the sun sets, I’ll think of you, Daddy; and you might do the same – that’ll keep me good. I shan’t come to the station tomorrow, I should only cry. And I shan’t say good-bye now. It’s unlucky.”
She flung her arms round him; and half smothered by that fervent embrace, he kissed her cheeks and hair. Freed of each other at last, he stood for a moment looking at her by the moonlight.
“There never was anyone more loving than you; Nollie!” he said quietly. “Remember my letter. And good night, my love!” Then, afraid to stay another second, he went quickly out of the dark little room…
George Laird, returning half an hour later, heard a voice saying softly: “George, George!”
Looking up, he saw a little white blur at the window, and Noel’s face just visible.
“George, let the goat loose, just for to-night, to please me.”
Something in that voice, and in the gesture of her stretched-out arm moved George in a queer way, although, as Pierson had once said, he had no music in his soul. He loosed the goat.