The Well of Loneliness (42 page)

Stephen as she drove through that devastated country would find herself thinking of Martin Hallam—Martin who had touched the old thorns on the hills with such respectful and pitiful fingers: ‘Have you ever thought about the enormous courage of trees? I have and it seems to me amazing. The Lord dumps them down and they’ve just got to stick it, no matter what happens—that must need some courage.’ Martin had believed in a heaven for trees, a forest heaven for all the faithful; and looking at those pitiful, leafy corpses, Stephen would want to believe in that heaven. Until lately she had not thought of Martin for years, he belonged to a past that was better forgotten, but now she would sometimes wonder about him. Perhaps he was dead, smitten down where she stood, for many had perished where they stood, like the orchards. It was strange to think that he might have been here in France, have been fighting and have died quite near her. But perhaps he had not been killed after all—she had never told Mary about Martin Hallam.

All roads of thought seemed to lead back to Mary; and these days, in addition to fears for her safety, came a growing distress at what she must see—far more terrible sights than the patient wounded. For everywhere now lay the wreckage of war, sea-wrack spewed up by a poisonous ocean—putrefying, festering in the sun; breeding curruption to man’s seed of folly. Twice lately, while they had been driving together, they had come upon sights that Stephen would have spared her. There had been that shattered German gun-carriage with its stiff, dead horses and its three dead gunners—horrible death, the men’s faces had been black like the faces of negroes, black and swollen from gas, or was it from putrefaction? There had been the deserted and wounded charger with its fore-leg hanging as though by a rag. Near by had been lying a dead young Uhlan, and Stephen had shot the beast with his revolver, but Mary had suddenly started sobbing: Oh, God! Oh, God! It was dumb—it couldn’t speak. It’s so awful somehow to see a thing suffer when it can’t ask you why!’ She had sobbed a long time, and Stephen had not known how to console her.

And now the Unit was creeping forward in the wake of the steadily advancing Allies. Billets would be changed as the base moved on slowly from devastated village to village. There seldom seemed to be a house left with a roof, or with anything much beyond its four walls, and quite often they must lie staring up at the stars, which would stare back again, aloof and untroubled. At about this time they grew very short of water, for most of the wells were said to have been poisoned; and this shortage of water was a very real torment, since it strictly curtailed the luxury of washing. Then what must Bless do but get herself hit while locating the position of a Poste de Secours which had most inconsiderately vanished. Like the Allied ambulance driver she was shot at, but in her case she happened to stop a bullet—it was only a flesh wound high up in the arm, yet enough to render her useless for a moment. She had had to be sent back to hospital, so once again the Unit was shorthanded.

It turned hot, and in place of the dampness and the cold, came days and nights that seemed almost breathless; days when the wounded must lie out in the sun, tormented by flies as they waited their turn to be lifted into the ambulances. And as though misfortunes attracted each other, as though indeed they were hunting in couples, Stephen’s face was struck by a splinter of shell, and her right cheek cut open rather badly. It was neatly stitched up by the little French doctor at the Poste de Secours, and when he had finished with his needle and dressings, he bowed very gravely: ‘Mademoiselle will carry an honourable scar as a mark of her courage,’ and he bowed yet again, so that in the end Stephen must also bow gravely. Fortunately, however, she could still do her job, which was all to the good for the shorthanded Unit.

5

On an autumn afternoon of blue sky and sunshine, Stephen had the Croix de Guerre pinned on her breast by a white-haired and white-moustached general. First came the motherly Mrs. Claude Breakspeare, whose tunic looked much too tight for her bosom, then Stephen and one or two other members of that valiant and untiring Unit. The general kissed each one in turn on both cheeks, while overhead hovered a fleet of Aces; troops presented arms, veteran troops tried in battle, and having the set look of war in their eyes—for the French have a very nice taste in such matters. And presently Stephen’s bronze Croix de Guerre would carry three miniature stars on its ribbon and, each star would stand for a mention in despatches.

That evening she and Mary walked over the fields to a little town not very far from their billets. They paused for a moment to watch the sunset, and Mary stroked the new Croix de Guerre; then she looked straight up into Stephen’s eyes, her mouth shook, and Stephen saw that she was crying. After this they must walk hand in hand for a while. Why not? There was no one just then to see them.

Mary said: ‘All my life I’ve been waiting for something.’

‘What was it, my dear?’ Stephen asked her gently.

And Mary answered: ‘I’ve been waiting for you, and it’s seemed such a dreadful long time, Stephen.’

The barely healed wound across Stephen’s cheek flushed darlky, for what could she find to answer?

‘For me?’ she stammered.

Mary nodded gravely: ‘Yes, for you. I’ve always been waiting for you; and after the war you’ll send me away.’ Then she suddenly caught hold of Stephen’s sleeve: ‘Let me come with you—don’t send me away, I want to be near you…I can’t explain…but I only want to be near you, Stephen. Stephen—say you won’t send me away…

Stephen’s hand closed over the Croix de Guerre, but the metal of valour felt cold to her fingers; dead and cold it felt at that moment, as the courage that had set it upon her breast. She stared straight ahead of her into the sunset, trembling because of what she would answer.

Then she said very slowly: ‘After the war—no, I won’t send you away from me, Mary.’

The most stupendous and heartbreaking folly of our times drew towards its abrupt conclusion. By November the Unit was stationed at St. Quentin in a little hotel, which although very humble, seemed like paradise after the dug-outs.

A morning came when a handful of the members were together in the coffee-room, huddled round a fire that was principally composed of damp brushwood. At one moment the guns could be heard distinctly, the next, something almost unnatural had happened—there was silence, as though death had turned on himself, smiting his own power of destruction. No one spoke, they just sat and stared at each other with faces entirely devoid of emotion; their faces looked blank, like so many masks from which had been sponged every trace of expression—and they waited—listening to that silence.

The door opened and in walked an untidy Poilu; his manner was casual, his voice apathetic: ‘Eh bien, mesdames, c’est l’Armistice.’ But his shining brown eyes were not at all apathetic. ‘Oui, c’est l’Armistice,’ he repeated coolly; then he shrugged, as a man might do who would say: ‘What is all this to me?’ After which he grinned broadly in spite of himself, he was still very young, and turning on his heel he departed.

Stephen said: So it’s over,’ and she looked at Mary, who had jumped up, and was looking in her turn at Stephen.

Mary said: This means…’ but she stopped abruptly.

Bless said: ‘Got a match, anyone? Oh, thanks!’ And she groped for her white-metal cigarette case.

Howard said: ‘Well, the first thing I’m going to do is to get my hair properly shampooed in Paris.’

Thurloe laughed shrilly, then she started to whistle, kicking the recalcitrant fire as she did so.

But funny, old, monosyllabic Blakeney with her curly white hair cropped as close as an Uhlan’s—Blakeney who had long ago done with emotions—quite suddenly laid her arms on the table and her head on her arms, and she wept, and she wept.

2

Stephen stayed with the Unit right up to the eve of its departure for Germany, then she left it, taking Mary Llewellyn with her. Their work was over; remained only the honour of joining the army’s triumphal progress, but Mary Llewellyn was completely worn out, and Stephen had no thought except for Mary.

They said farewell to Mrs. Claude Breakspeare, to Howard and Blakeney and the rest of their comrades. And Stephen knew, as indeed did they also, that a mighty event had slipped into the past, had gone from them into the realms of history—something terrible yet splendid, a oneness with life in its titanic struggle against death. Not a woman of them all but felt vaguely regretful in spite of the infinite blessing of peace, for none could know what the future might hold of trivial days filled with trivial actions. Great wars will be followed by great discontents—the pruning knife has been laid to the tree, and the urge to grow throbs through its mutilated branches.

3

The house in the Rue Jacob was en fete in honour of Stephen’s arrival. Pierre had rigged up an imposing flagstaff’, from which waved a brand new tricolour commandeered by Pauline from the neighbouring baker; flowers had been placed in the study vases, while Adčle had contrived to produce the word ‘welcome’ in immortelles, as the piece de resistance, and had hung it above the doorway.

Stephen shook hands with them all in turn, and she introduced Mary, who also shook hands. Then Adčle must start to gabble about Jean, who was quite safe although not a captain; and Pauline must interrupt her to tell of the neighbouring baker who had lost his four sons, and of one of her brothers who had lost his right leg—her face very dour and her voice very cheerful, as was always the way when she told of misfortunes. And presently she must also deplore the long straight scar upon Stephen’s cheek: ‘Oh, la pauvre! Pour une dame c’est un vrai désastre!’ But Pierre must point to the green and red ribbon in Stephen’s lapel: ‘C’est la Croix de Guerre!’ so that in the end they all gathered round to admire that half-inch of honour and glory.

Oh, yes, this home-coming was as friendly and happy as goodwill and warm Breton hearts could make it. Yet Stephen was oppressed by a sense of restraint when she took Mary up to the charming bedroom overlooking the garden, and she spoke abruptly.

‘This will be your room.’

‘It’s beautiful, Stephen.’

After that they were silent, perhaps because there was so much that might not be spoken between them:

The dinner was served by a beaming Pierre, an excellent dinner, more than worthy of Pauline; but neither of them managed to eat very much—they were far too acutely conscious of each other. When the meal was over they went into the study where, in spite of the abnormal shortage of fuel, Adčle had managed to build a huge fire which blazed recklessly half up the chimney. The room smelt slightly of hothouse flowers, of leather, of old wood and vanished years, and after a while of cigarette smoke.

Then Stephen forced herself to speak lightly: ‘Come and sit over here by the fire,’ she said, smiling.

So Mary obeyed, sitting down beside her, and she laid a hand upon Stephen’s knee; but Stephen appeared not to notice that hand, for she just let it lie there and went on talking.

‘I’ve been thinking, Mary, hatching all sorts of schemes. I’d like to get you right away for a bit, the weather seems pretty awful in Paris. Puddle once told me about Teneriffe, she went there ages ago with a pupil. She stayed at a place called Orotava; it’s lovely, I believe—do you think you’d enjoy it? I might manage to hear of a villa with a garden, and then you could just slack about in the sunshine.’

Mary said, very conscious of the unnoticed hand: ‘Do you really want to go away, Stephen? Wouldn’t it interfere with your writing?’ Her voice, Stephen thought, sounded strained and unhappy.

Of course I want to go,’ Stephen reassured her, ‘I’ll work all the better for a holiday. Anyhow, I must see you looking more fit,’ and she suddenly laid her hand over Mary’s.

The strange sympathy which sometimes exists between two human bodies, so that a touch will stir many secret and perilous emotions, closed down on them both at that moment of contact, and they sat unnaturally still by the fire, feeling that in their stillness lay safety. But presently Stephen went on talking, and now she talked of purely practical matters. Mary must go for a fortnight to her cousins, she had better go almost at once, and remain there while Stephen herself went to Morton. Eventually they would meet in London and from there motor straight away to Southampton, for Stephen would have taken their passages, and if possible found a furnished villa, before she went down to Morton. She talked on and on, and as she did so her fingers tightened and relaxed abruptly on the hand that she had continued to hold, so that Mary imprisoned those nervous fingers in her own, and Stephen made no resistance.

Then Mary, like many another before her, grew as happy as she had been downhearted; for the merest trifles are often enough to change the trend of mercurial emotions such as beset the heart in its youth; and she looked at Stephen with gratitude in her eyes, and with something far more fundamental of which she herself was unconscious. And now she began to talk in her turn. She could type fairly well, was a very good speller; she would type Stephen’s books, take care of her papers, answer her letters, look after the house, even beard the lugubrious Pauline in her kitchen. Next autumn she would write to Holland for bulbs—they must have lots of bulbs in their city garden, and in summer they ought to manage some roses—Paris was less cruel to flowers than London. Oh, and might she have pigeons with wide, white tails? They would go so well with the old marble fountain.

Stephen listened, nodding from time to time. Yes, of course she could have her white fantail pigeons, and her bulbs and her roses, could have anything she pleased, if only she would get quite well and be happy.

At this Mary laughed: ‘Oh, Stephen, my dear—don’t you know that I’m really terribly happy?’

Pierre came in with the evening letters; there was one from Anna and another from Puddle. There was also a lengthy epistle from Brockett who was praying, it seemed, for demobilization. Once released, he must go for a few weeks to England, but after that he was coming to Paris.