The Last September Part 19

Denise said: "Well, I do think people are extraordinary." They both sat down and yawned. All these trees; it was quite extraordinary. "Is that Lois's cousin?"

"More or less."

"Well, I always did think she was an odd girl."

"Ssh, there's Sir Richard writing in the library- Denise, just look through, sideways. He's such a type."

"O-oh ... yes. Is he a knight or a baronet?"

"Well, I don't see how he could have been knighted."

"My dear, Ssssh!"

"He's deaf. Oh, darling, look at those little teeny black cows. Those are Kerry cows. They farm, you know; they have heaps of cattle."

"I always meant to ask you: are there Kilkenny cats?"

"Really," said Mrs. Vermont, annoyed, as her friend yawned again and she felt her own jaw quiver, "when one thinks these are the people we are defending! I wonder if they'll offer us any coffee. What I think about Irish hospitality: either they almost knock you down or they don't look at you. Or I tell you what, we might go out to the garden and get some plums. Only I would like you to see the drawing-room. I wish these were Livvy's people; the boys say her house smells-I hope you aren't bored, darling?-I mean, what I mean about Livvy; she does grow on you. I can't think what Gerald sees in this family, I must say. It isn't even as if Lois-"

"Of course, I always did think she was an odd girl."

At this point Sir Richard, who was not deaf, came out in despair. He said this was too bad; he couldn't think what could have become of Lois. "We might shout," he said helplessly.

"Your nephew has been shouting."

"Still," said Sir Richard, and shouted again. "How are you all getting on?" he said kindly, when he had recovered his breath.

Betty said with dignity: "There may be going to be an offensive."

"Sssh," whispered Denise, pinching her elbow.

"Though I ought not really to tell you."

"Never mind," said Sir Richard, "I don't suppose it will come to anything. Besides, now the days are drawing in- But this is too bad really; most unfortunate that my wife should not be here to receive you. She will be most distressed."

"Oh, but we just dropped in. As I said to Denise, what is the good of being in Ireland if one isn't a bit unconventional?"

"She will be most distressed."

"Don't bother! We've been admiring your darling cows."

"I'll just go in and inquire," said Sir Richard firmly and disappeared, shutting the gla.s.s door.

Denise said she would get the giggles: a seizure did seem to be imminent. "Well, I must say, Gerald is well out of this family."

"But my dear, is he?"

"Something's happened. He's black-even Timmy noticed. I said to Timmy: 'You must find out'- 'cause I think, don't you, that when men get together ...You see, I can't-though I can't bear to see the boy suffer."

"But I thought you said you-"

"Well, I've seen him in the distance and he didn't look like himself at all. But he hasn't been near us, or to the Club, or into the Fogartys'. And as I was saying to Mrs. Fogarty-"

"It seems to me he's been treated rottenly. If it were one of our boys, my dear, I should be fur-rious."

"All the same, I do want to see Lois... ."

"What he sees in her, I cannot imagine. She's what I should call rather affected-"

"Sssh-Oh, hullo, Lois!" they cried in unison.

Lois, unbecomingly bright, came up from the beech walk.

"Oh, hullo," she said. "Splendid!"

"We've just been talking about you."

"O-oh. Can't you stay to lunch?"

"No can do; we're off to the Thompsons'. My dear, aren't you thrilled about Livvy and David! Isn't it marvellous?"

"Thrilled, it's absolutely marvellous. Do stay to lunch-I mean," she said agitatedly, "do come back to tea? Oh no, we shall all be out. Oh, how rotten. Or come to tennis-no, I believe there won't be any more tennis; Laurence is going back to Oxford and the rain's washed all the marking off the court. Perhaps we could have a dance or something-"

The two young wives eyed her lightly and curiously; their looks ran over her form like spiders. They were so womanly, she could have turned and fled back down the beech walk. "Donne ch'avette intelletto d'amore," she thought to herself wildly. And the pause, the suspicion of some deformity that these ladies produced in her became so acute that she smiled more widely. She b.u.t.toned her cardigan up to the top, then unb.u.t.toned it.

"Oh, but don't go now," she said, but looked at the Ford, longingly.

"Oh, we must, we have been here hours, watching your darling cows."

"I'm afraid they're very much in the distance. Does Aunt Myra-?"

"Oh, we'd hate to disturb her. Unless we might all run around the garden-?"

"It's locked and I've lost the key. I feel quite an outcast. That's what has been the matter the whole morning. Do have something to eat-have some biscuits?"

"Unless we just come into the drawing-room for one moment?"

"I always think drawing-rooms in the morning are so depressing."

Denise said she did not see how the same room could be much different, but it was no good; Lois seemed determined to keep them out. From the way she shifted her feet and stared round you would have said she was expecting bad news momentarily; she talked so much that they hadn't a chance to express themselves. She went in for a tin of pet.i.ts beurres and offered it with an odd air rather propitiatory. Lady Naylor called from an upstairs window that this was too bad, that she was so much distressed, she would be down immediately. "She spends whole mornings with the cook," said Lois, "I cannot think what they do. I believe they fence verbally. More biscuits?"

"No, we shall spoil our din-dins. Denise, we must go. I hear old Mr. Thompson is a terrible ogre. Any messages in Clonmore, Lois? Any messages to Gerald?"

Lois thought she must blush, but did not; even her blood stood still.

"I should ask him," said Denise, "why he didn't send you a message. I think it was odd of him; I should be fur-rious." Lois saw, with interest, a ripple of light down their dresses; they nudged each other. There must be something odd about her, really, if they had noticed; she must clearly be outside life.

"How is the gramophone?" she asked enthusiastically.

"Don't ask. Gerald is going to Cork to bring back a new one ... We thought we might all go too, it would be a rag."

"Marvellous!"

"Look, I'll just run Denise in to have a look at the drawing-room."

"I shouldn't, really. I haven't done the flowers."

"Gerald says all your looking-gla.s.ses make him feel sleepy. He's a funny boy, in a way," said Betty innocently. "You don't think we ought to wait till we've seen your aunt? She won't be offended?"

"I shouldn't really; she's probably been delayed." Lady Naylor did, in fact, arrive on the steps in time to make exclamations of despair as they drove away. "Too bad, too bad!" she called. "You must come again soon! ... Really, Lois, you might have found them some fruit or something. Fancy puffing them out with biscuits at this hour."

"I tell you what I think it is about Lois," said Betty cosily, nestling down in the car as the trees rushed over. "I think he's left her"

Denise agreed. "A boy needs keeping, if you know what I mean." Betty also told her what she thought about the Naylor family: they were going down in the world. "I should not be surprised if they never used that drawing-room," she said viciously. "It smells of damp. Myself, I do like a house to be bright and homy."

The world did not stand still, though the household at Danielstown and the Thompsons' lunch party took no account of it. The shocking news reached Clonmore about eight o'clock. It crashed upon the unknowing-ness of the town like a wave that for two hours, since the event, had been standing and toppling, imminent. The news crept down streets from door to door like a dull wind, fingering the nerves, pausing. In the hotel bars heads went this way and that way, quick with suspicion. The Fogartys' Eileen, called to the door while she was clearing away the supper, cried, "G.o.d help him!" and stumbled up to Mr. Fogarty's door, blubbered. Mr. Fogarty dropped his gla.s.s and stood bent some time like an animal, chin on the mantelpiece. Philosophy did not help; in his thickening brain actuality turned like a mill-wheel. His wife, magnificent in her disbelief, ran out, wisps blowing, round the square and through the vindictively silent town.

Barracks were closed, she could not get past the guards; for once she was at a loss, among strangers. She thought mechanically "His mother," and pressed her hands up under her vast and useless bosom. Trees in the square, uneasy, shifted dulled leaves that should already have fallen under the darkness. The shocking news, brought in at the barrack-gates officially, produced an abashed silence, hard repercussions, darkness of thought and a loud glare of electricity. In Gerald's room some new music for the jazz band, caught in a draught, flopped over and over. An orderly put it away, shocked. All night some windows let out, over their sandbags, a squeamish, defiant yellow.

Mrs. Vermont heard when Timmy had just gone out; he was to be out all night with a patrol. She was to sleep alone, she could not bear it. Past fear, she ran to the Rolfes' hut. She spent the night there, sobbing, tearing off with her teeth the lace right round her handkerchief. Captain Rolfe kept bringing her hot whisky. "I can't, I can't, not whisky: it's awful." They all felt naked and were ashamed of each other, as though they had been wrecked. From the hut floor-where they had danced-the wicker furniture seemed to rise and waver.

"Percy, where did he-how was he-?"

"Through the head."

"Then it didn't-?"

"Oh, no. Probably instantaneous."

"Oh, don't! Oh, Percy, how can you!"

Denise repeated: "I can't believe it." And while the others queerly, furtively stared, she tried to press from her hair the waves she had had put in that morning. "You know, I can't believe it. Can you, Betty? It's so ... extraordinary."

"Why can't we all go home? Why did we stay here? Why don't we all go home? That's what I can't understand."

"Percy, can you believe it? I mean, I remember him coming in and standing against this table-"

"Oh, don't-Percy, what became of them? Where did they go? Those devils!"

"Oh, got right away."

"Didn't anyone hear anything, any firing? I mean, didn't it make a noise? ... Couldn't they be tortured-why should they just be hanged or shot? Oh, I do think, I mean I do think when you think-"

"Well, we've got to get 'em, haven't we? Look, just try-"

"Oh, I can't, I tell you- Why can't we all go home?"

"Percy, leave her alone! O G.o.d, my head; I shall cut my hair off. I mean, he came in and stood there against that table. Why did they get just Gerald?--Oh, yes, I know there was the sergeant-but he won't die; I know he won't die ... I can't believe it. Percy, can you believe it? Percy, say something!"

Betty sobbed: "I should like to- Oh, I should like to- Those beasts, those beasts."

"Look, you two girls go to bed."

"Oh, how can we!"

"Oh, why isn't Timmy here! I mean, when I think of Timmy, and out all night-I can't understand the King, I can't understand the Government: I think it's awful."

But they went to bed-Percy spent the night on two chairs-and lay in what seemed to both an unnatural contiguity, reclasping each other's fingers, talking of "him," of "you know who" and "that boy" in the eager voices, low-pitched and breaking, kept as a rule to discuss the intimacies of their marriages. In the same moment they fell, dimly shocked at each other, asleep. Then Denise saw Lois clearly, standing affectedly on the Danielstown steps with a tin of biscuits, a room full of mirrors behind her. And Betty woke with surprise to hear herself say: "What I mean is, it seems so odd that he shouldn't really have meant anything."

They heard an early bugle shivering in the rain.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

MR. DAVENTRY arrived before the postman. He had not paid an unofficial visit since he had been in Ireland; it seemed to him odd there should be nothing to search for, n.o.body to interrogate. It was early, wet tarnished branches came cheerfully through the mist. He had come to the gate with a convoy on its way over to Ballyhinch; two lorries had ground into silence and waited for him at the gate, alarming the cottagers. He walked up the avenue lightly and rapidly: nothing, at the stage things had reached for him, mattered. And superciliously he returned the stare of the house.

He rang and made his demand. Lois came out slowly, dumb with all she must begin to say-for who could an anxious waiting officer be but Gerald? "Really ..." Lady Naylor had remarked, with a glance at the clock, advising her to put down her table napkin. And Francie, smiling, had covered up her egg for her.

"You?" she now said, while everything, the importance of everything, faintly altered. "Come and have breakfast."

He told her that there had been a catastrophe yesterday, west of Clonmore: a patrol with an officer and an N.C.O. had been ambushed, fired on at a crossroads. The officer-Lesworth-was instantly killed, the N.C.O. shot in the stomach. The enemy made off across country, they did not care for sustained fire, in in spite of the hedges. The men did what they could for the sergeant.

"Will he die?"

"Probably."

"And Gerald was killed."

"Yes. Would you-?"

"I'm all right, thank you."

"Right you are." He turned round and stood with his back to her. She asked what time it had happened; he said about six o'clock. She thought how accurate Gerald was and how anxious, last time, he had been to establish just when she had been happy because of him, on what day, for how long. "They'd been out all the afternoon?" They both saw the amazed white road and dust, displaced by the fall, slowly settling. "As a matter of fact," said Daventry, "we are mostly ready for things. I don't suppose-if he knew at all-it mattered." "No, I don't suppose, to oneself, it ever would matter much." But she thought of Gerald in the surprise of death. He gave himself up to surprise with peculiar candour.

"Thank you for coming."

"I was pa.s.sing this way anyhow."

"But still, there was no reason why you should take the trouble."

Daventry glanced at her, then at the gravel under his feet, without speculation. Cold and ironical, he was a stay; he was not expecting anything of her. He finally said: "It seemed practical. Would you like me to-shall I just let the others know?" She nodded, wondering where to go, how long to stay there, how to come back. Her mind flooded with trivialities. She wondered who would go up to the tennis this afternoon, if there would be anyone left who did not know, who would expect him; she wondered what would become of the jazz band. She saw that for days ahead she must not deny humanity, she would have no privacy. "As a matter of fact, they are expecting me back to breakfast."

But at the thought of Francie's tender and proud smile, covering up her egg, she was enlightened and steadied by grief, as at the touch of finger-tips. She went into the house and up to the top to find what was waiting. Life, seen whole for a moment, was one act of apprehension, the apprehension of death. Daventry, staring after her in memory-she was, after all, a woman-went into the hall. Here, it pleased him to think of Gerald socially circ.u.mspect under the portraits.