This Is the End Part 19

"Great Scott, Bill," said Jay. "I thought you were busy sapping in France. Were you anywhere near Kew?"

I do not know if you will remember the name of young William Morgan. I think I have only mentioned him once or twice.

"I got back on leave two hours ago," said Mr. Morgan. "I have been waiting here thirty-two minutes. I saw Kew every day last week, and I was with him when he died, three hours before I came away yesterday."

Jay was silent. She opened the door, and in the sitting-room she placed--very carefully--two chairs looking at each other across the table.

"Jay," said William Morgan, "I am deadly afraid of doing this badly. Kew and I talked a good deal before it happened, and there was a good deal he wanted me to tell you. All the way back in the train and on the boat I have been writing notes to remind me what I had to say to you. I hope you don't mind. I hope you don't think it callous."

"No," said Jay.

"He was very anxious you should know the truth about it, because he said he had never lied to you. He was always sure that if he were shot it would be in the back while he was lacing his boots, or at some other unromantic moment. And in that case he said he could lie to Anonyma and your cousin vicariously through the War Office, which would write to them about Glory, and Duty, and Thanks Due. But he wanted me to write to you, and tell you how it happened, and tell you that death was just an ordinary old thing, no more romantic than anything else, without a capital letter, and that one died as one had lived--in a little ordinary way--and that there was no such thing as Glory between people who didn't lie to each other. I am telling you all this from my notes. I should never have thought of any of it for myself, as you know. I hope you don't mind."

"No," said Jay. She heard what he said, yet she was not listening. Her mind was listening to things heard a very long time ago. She heard herself and Kew in confidential chorus, saying those laboriously simple prayers that Anonyma used to teach them. She heard again the swishing that their feet used to make in the leaves of Kensington Gardens. Kew's was the louder swish by right. She thought of him as an admirable big brother of eight, with a round face and blunt feet and very hard hands.

She heard the comfortable roar of the nursery fire, and the comfortable sound of autumn rain baffled by the window; she saw the early winter breakfast by lamplight, and the red nursery carpet that had an oblong track worn away round the table by the frequent game of "Little Men Jumping." She heard the voice of Kew clamouring against the voice of Nana because he would not eat his bacon-fat. On those days there was a horrid resurrection at luncheon of the bacon-fat uneaten at breakfast.

"As it happened," continued Mr. Morgan, no longer white, but very red, "he wasn't killed in an advance, or anything grand. He told me to tell you, so I am telling you. He was killed by a sniper while he was setting a trap of his own invention to catch the rats as they came over the parapet. He was shot in the chest very early yesterday morning, and he lived about four hours. He was not in much pain, he even laughed a little once or twice to think he should have lived and died so consistently. He told me that he had never seen a moment's real romantic fighting; he had never once felt patriotic or dramatic or dutiful, he said. He wandered a little, I think, because he seemed worried about the rats that might be caught in the trap he had set. He seemed to mix up the rats and the Boches. He said that these creatures didn't know they were vermin, they just thought they were honest average animals doing their bit, and then suddenly killed by a malignant chaos. My notes are very hurried. I am afraid I am repeating myself."

Jay remembered the mouse they once caught, and kept in a bottle for a day, and the palace they made for it out of stones and mud and moss, and the sun-bath of patted mud they made by the door of the palace. But the mouse, when it was installed, flashed straight out of the front door, and jumped the sun-bath, and knocked down a daisy, and was never seen again.

But Jay and Kew used to believe that on moonlit nights it came back to the palace, and brought its wife and children, and was grateful to the palace builders.

"A few days before he was killed," said Mr. Morgan, "he told me that he had lied so successfully all his life that quite a lot of people thought him a most admirable young man. He said Anonyma once brought him into a book, and when he read that book he saw how lying paid, as long as one didn't lie to absolutely everybody. He said if he died Anonyma would write something very nice upon his memorial bra.s.s about a pure heart or everlasting life, and he thought you would smile a little at that. He said that he remembered going home with you in a 'bus and seeing on the window of the 'bus a text that promised everlasting life on certain conditions. He said the remembrance of that text tired him still. He said he had had too much of himself, he had known himself too well, and when death came, he wanted it to be an honest little death with no frills, and after that an everlasting sleep with no dreams. I am putting it all in the wrong order. I shall make you despise me. You talk so well yourself."

Jay was remembering the "Coos" they used to have in the big armchair in the nursery. When they found that they suddenly loved each other unbearably, they had a Coo, they tied themselves up in a little tangle together, and sang Coo in soft voices. And then they felt relieved. Jay remembered the last Coo. It happened when Kew's voice was breaking ten years ago, and he found that he could no longer coo except in a funny falsetto. So, rather than become farcical, the Coos ceased.

"I don't know quite why Kew wanted me to tell you all this," said Mr.

Morgan, "except that he said you knew so much about him that you might as well get as near as possible to knowing everything. He never thought he would be killed, in fact I gave him a lot of messages of my own to give to my mother in case I went. But at the last, when he knew he was dying, he was desperately anxious you should know that he did not die a 'Stranger's death,' as he said. He thought any hint of drama about his death would spoil your friendship. He said you knew more than most people about friends, and he thought that in this way you could find for him a certain 'secret immortality' which would make the soil of France comfier for him to sleep in. And then he said, 'If I'm too poetic--like a swan--don't report me too accurately.' He seemed to go to sleep for some time after that, and every now and then he laughed very faintly in his sleep. I had to leave him for a bit, and when I came back he was still asleep. The only thing he said after that was: 'This is awfully exciting.' He said that about ten minutes before he died. I hope I'm not making it too painful for you, dear little Jay.'"

"No," said Jay. Quite irrelevantly, she had found her Secret Friend. She found a little dark wood, burnt and broken by fire, in a grey light, and there was a wet ditch that skirted the edge of it. She saw the hopeless and regretful sky, there was neither night nor morning in it, there was neither sun nor moon. These things she noticed, but more than all she saw her Secret Friend, lying crouched upon his side close to the ditch, with his arms about his face. She saw the slow leaves fall upon him from the ruined trees, she saw the damp air settle in beads upon his clothes. His feet were in the undergrowth, and above them the dripping net of the spider was flung. She had never seen her Friend quite still before. All her life her Secret Friend and her Secret Sea had kept her soul awake with movement. But her Friend was dead, and there was no more sea. The very fine rain blew across her Secret World, and blotted it out. The very distant sound of guns--which was not so much a sound as an indescribable vacuum of sound--shattered the walls of her bubble enchantment.

"Oh, darling Jay," said Mr. William Morgan, "I wish I could help you. I can't go away and leave you like this. I wish I could help you."

She found she had her forehead on the table, and her hands were knotted in her lap. And where once the Gate to the House had been, there was only London now. No more would the drum of the sea beat in her heart, there was nothing left but the throbbing of distant trams.

"So it's all lies ..." she said quietly. "There really is a thing called death after all. People die...."

"Jay, darling, don't," sobbed Mr. Morgan. "For G.o.d's sake marry me, and I'll comfort you. I won't die--I swear I won't. And after all, it's Spring. There's no real death in the Spring. Kew can't have died."

"Oh, what's the use of these eternal seasons?" said Jay. "There is a thing called death. And death has no romance and no reason. The rats died, and Kew died, and the secret world died, and there is nothing left...."

It was young David, lord of sheep and cattle, Pursued his Fate, the April fields among, Singing a song of solitary battle, A loud mad song, for he was very young.

Vivid the air--and something more than vivid,-- Tall clouds were in the sky--and something more,-- The light horizon of the spring was livid With a steel smile that showed the teeth of War.

It was young David mocked the Philistine.

It was young David laughed beside the river.

There came his mother--his and yours and mine-- With five smooth stones, and dropped them in his quiver.

You never saw so green-and-gold a fairy.

You never saw such very April eyes.

She sang him sorrow's song to make him wary, She gave him five smooth stones to make him wise.

The first stone is love, and that shall fail you.

The second stone is hate, and that shall fail you.

The third stone is knowledge, and that shall fail you.

The fourth stone is prayer, and that shall fail you.

The fifth stone shall not fail you.

For what is love, O lovers of my tribe?

And what is love, O women of my day?

Love is a farthing piece, a b.l.o.o.d.y bribe Pressed in the palm of G.o.d, and thrown away.

And what is hate, O fierce and unforgiving?

And what shall hate achieve, when all is said?

A silly joke, that cannot reach the living, A spitting in the faces of the dead.

And what is knowledge, O young men who tasted The reddest fruit on that forbidden tree?

Knowledge is but a painful effort wasted, A bitter drowning in a bitter sea.

And what is prayer, O waiters for the answer?

And what is prayer, O seekers of the cause?

Prayer is the weary soul of Herod's dancer, Dancing before blind kings without applause.

The fifth stone is a magic stone, my David, Made up of fear and failure, lies and loss.

Its heart is lead, and on its face is graved A crooked cross, my son, a crooked cross.

It has no dignity to lend it value; No purity--alas--it bears a stain.

You shall not give it grat.i.tude, nor shall you Recall it all your days except with pain.

Oh, bless your blindness, glory in your groping!

Mock at your betters with an upward chin!

And, when the moment has gone by for hoping, Sling your fifth stone, O son of mine, and win.

Grief do I give you--grief and dreadful laughter.

Sackcloth for banner, ashes in your wine.

Go forth, go forth, nor ask me what comes after.

The fifth stone shall not fail you, son of mine.

GO FORTH, GO FORTH, AND SLAY THE PHILISTINE!

There were a few very warm days and nights in the west last spring. It was at the time of the full moon.

There were so few clouds in the sky that when the sun went down it found no canvas on which to paint its picture. So it went down unpictured into a bank of grey heat that hid the horizon of the sea, and no one thought it worth watching except a man coming alone along the cliff from the northeast. The moon came up and filled the quarry with ghosts, and with confused and blinded memories. The sea advanced in armies of great smooth waves, but under the moon the wind went down, and the waves went down, and there was less and less sound in the air.

One man watched the dwindling waves troop into the cove near the quarry.

There was only one pair of eyes in the whole world that tried that night to trace in the air the shape of a drowned house. There was only one shadow by the quarry for the moon to cast upon the thyme. There was no voice but the voice of the sea. No pa.s.sing but the peaceful pa.s.sing of the lambs disturbed the thistles and the foxgloves.

The sea rose like a wall across the night, a wall that shut half of life away. The sky fell like a curtain on the land, but there was no piece to be played, so the curtain was never raised.