“There’s one thing we do know—that people are remembered as they were last seen—and twenty years is a long time.”
She turned to me with brightly shining eyes.
“How sad that is, and how true.”
“And from your point of view—how fortunate.”
“Oh no, no—I wish she were still as he remembers her. I wish there WERE such a miracle. If all of us could go back twenty years—how different the world would be! I want him to be happy, I always have. . . . Now will you have your drink?”
“If you will too.”
She went over to the table and mixed them; I could see she was glad of something to do. Stooping over the glasses she continued: “I suppose he told you a great deal more than you’ve told me?”
“Only details.”
“Ah, but the details—those are what I want to hear. Did he remember things very clearly?”
“Yes.”
“Places and people?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me some of them.”
I hesitated, again catching the note of hysteria in her voice; she added: “It doesn’t hurt me—as much as you think. Tell me some of them. . . . You say he met her first at Melbury?”
“Yes—on that first Armistice Day.”
“And they were married in London?”
“Yes.”
“Where did he propose to her? Did he tell you that?”
“A village in the country somewhere—I think it was called Beachings Over.”
“Beachings Over . . . an odd name.”
“England is full of them.”
“I know—like Nether Wallop and Shallow Bowells. . . .” She turned round with my drink. “And war coming to them all again. Do you think there’s still a chance of avoiding it?”
“There’s always a chance of postponing it.”
“No—we’ve had enough of that.”
“I think so too.”
“But we’re not ready yet, are we?”
“We’re terribly unready. We missed our ways years ago and found a wide, comfortable road, fine for sleep-walkers, but it had the major drawback of wandering just anywhere, at random.”
“Charles always thought that, but as a rich man it wasn’t easy for him to say so. Being rich tied his hands and stopped his mouth and took up his time—so that the wasted years wasted him too. . . .”
“I think he’s begun to realize that.”
“Yes, he’s sure of something at last. . . . Another drink?”
“No, thanks.”
A long pause. “There’s nothing we can do about it now, is there?”
“Are you talking about—er—the country—or—er—“
“Both, in a way.”
“I think one can make up for lost time, but one can’t salvage it.
That’s why HIS quest is so hopeless.”
Her voice softened. “So you think that’s where he’s gone—to look for her?”
“It’s possible. . . . But to look for her as she WAS, and that’s impossible.”
The hysteria touched her voice again. “Tell me another detail—no
matter how small or trivial—please tell me—“
“I think you’re needlessly upsetting yourself.”
“No, it isn’t upsetting—it’s—it’s almost helping me in a way—
tell me something—“
“I’d rather not, and besides, it’s hard to think—“
“Oh, but you said he talked all night and you’ve only talked for an hour so far. There must be hundreds of things—names of places or incidents that happened here or there—or how she looked. . . .”
“Well . . . let me see . . .”
“How DID she look? Did he remember her well?”
“He seemed to, though he never described her exactly—but he did say—I believe he said when they first met she was wearing a little fur hat like a fez. . . . Or no, I may have mixed things up—that was Kitty when she stepped out of the train at Interlaken.”
“Interlaken?”
“They had a holiday there—he and Kitty.”
“I know. And SHE was wearing a little fur hat like a fez? Or the other one? Or both, maybe—but wouldn’t that be rather improbable?”
“Yes, of course. I’m sorry—it was like me to choose a detail I’d get confused over.”
She put her hand in mine. “It doesn’t matter. You’ve been very kind. I wish I’d known you better—and earlier. Thank you again.”
“You understand that I’m anxious to help BOTH of you?”
“Yes, I understand. But I don’t know how you can.”
“Anyhow, there’s a sort of chilly comfort in thinking how unimportant all one’s personal affairs are these days.”
She got up and began walking to the door. “Yes, but when that sort of comfort has chilled one quite thoroughly, the warmth comes—the feeling that nothing matters EXCEPT personal feelings . . . the what-if-the-world-should-end-tonight mood.”
We shook hands at the doorway, and there she added, smiling:
“Perhaps our world IS ending tonight. . . .”
* * * * *
I stayed in the drawing-room a little while after she had gone; then I thought it would be only civil to find Woburn. He was in the library, listening to the radio. “Still nothing definite. You know, if there’s a war, I want to get in the Air Force.” We had another drink and talked for about an hour before going upstairs.
I had asked Sheldon to call me at seven; he did so, bringing in a cup of tea. “I thought you’d wish to know the news—it just came over the wireless.” Then he told me.
I got up hurriedly. It was a perfect late-summer morning, cool and fresh, with a haze of mist over the hills. Woburn had brought a small radio into the breakfast room; we hardly exchanged a greeting, but sat in front of the instrument, listening as the first reports came through. Presently Mrs. Rainier entered, stood in the doorway to hear a few sentences, then joined us with the same kind of whispered perfunctory good-morning. The bulletin ended with a promise of more news soon, then merged into music.
That was how we had breakfast on that first morning of the second war—to the beat of a dance band and with the sunlight streaming through the windows of Stourton.
After breakfast we heard the news repeated, and found the strain almost intolerable. We strayed about the gardens, the three of us, then came back to the radio again; this time there were a few extra items, reports of half the world’s grim awakening.
The newspapers came, but they were already old—printed hours before.
I telephoned the City office, and had to wait twenty minutes before the line was clear.
Then Woburn, after wandering restlessly in and out of rooms, said he would take a long walk. I think he would have liked either Mrs. Rainier or myself or both of us to suggest accompanying him, but we stayed each other with a glance. “He’s a nice boy,” she said, when he had gone.
“Yes, very.”
“Does Charles like him?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“I always hoped he would. I feel we’ve almost adopted him, in one sense.”
“I sometimes think he feels that too.”
“I’d like him to feel that . . . I once had a child, a boy, but he died. . . .”
“I never knew that.”
“Charles would have made a good father, don’t you think?”
“Yes . . . he must have been terribly disappointed.”
“What will Woburn do now?”
“He said he’d join the Air Force.”
She moved restlessly to the radio, where the music had suddenly stopped. Another news item: the Germans had crossed the Polish frontiers at many places; the war machine was already clanking into gear.
“I can’t stand this—I half wish now we’d gone with him for the walk. Don’t leave me alone here—you don’t have to return to the City, do you?”
“No, not yet, anyhow. I just rang up the office. They haven’t had any news or message.”
“Oh . . . let’s go somewhere then. I’ll drive you. There’s nothing else to do—we’ll go mad if we sit over the radio all day.”
We took her car, which was an open sports Bentley, and set out. The Stourton parkland had never looked more wonderful; it was as if it had the mood to spread its beauty as a last temptation to remain at peace, or, failing that, as a last spendthrift offering to a thankless world. We passed quickly, then threaded the winding gravel roads over the estate to an exit I had not known of before— it opened on to the road to Faringdon. Through the still misty morning we raced westward and northward; but at Lechlade the sun was bright and the clock showed ten minutes past ten. A few miles beyond Burford the country rolled into uplands, and presently we left the main road altogether, slowing for tree-hidden corners and streams that crossed the lanes in wide sandy shallows, till at last in the distance we saw a rim of green against the blue.
“Perhaps it will be a simpler England after the war,” was one of the things she said.
“You’re already thinking of AFTER the war?”
“Of course. The NEXT Armistice Day, whenever it comes.”
“It’ll be a different England, that’s very certain. Not so rich, and not so snobbish—but maybe we can do without some of the riches and all the snobbery.”
She nodded: “Maybe we can do without Stourton—and Bentleys.”
“And two-for-one bonus issues.”
“And guinea biographies like the one somebody once wrote about Charles’s father.”
“And parties for His Excellency to meet the winners of the Ladies’ Doubles.”
She laughed. “And champagne when you’ve already had enough champagne.”
“How CAN we be so absurd—on a day like this?”
“Maybe it isn’t so absurd.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“Oh, just somewhere in England, as the war bulletins may say one of these days.”
We drove on, mile after mile, till at a turn of the road the hills ahead of us sharpened into a ridge and at the same turn also there was a signpost which made me cry out, with a sudden catch of breath: “Did you see THAT?”
“I know. I wanted to come here.”
“But—you shouldn’t—it’s only torturing yourself—“
“No, no. I promise I won’t be upset—see, I’m quite calm.”
“But all this probing of the past—“
“That’s where the future will take us, maybe—back to the past. A simpler England. Old England.”
And then we came upon the gray cottages fronting the stream, the square-towered church, the ledge in the stream where the water sparkled. We parked our car by the church and walked along the street. A postman late on his morning rounds stared with friendly curiosity at us and the car, then said “Good morning.” A fluff of wind blew tall hollyhocks towards us. Somebody was clipping a hedge; an old dog loitered into a fresh patch of shade. Little things—but I shall remember them long after much else has been forgotten.
There seemed no special significance anywhere, no sign that a war had begun.
But as we neared the post-office I caught sight of something that to me was most significant of all—a small brown two-seater car. I walked over to it; a man saw me examining the licence. “If you’re looking for the tall gentleman,” he came over to say, “I think he took a walk up the hill.”
I turned to Mrs. Rainier. “CHARLES?” was all she whispered.
“Might be. It meets the Club porter’s description and it was hired from a London firm.”
We turned off the main road by a path crossing an open field towards the hill; as we were climbing the chime of three quarters came up to us, blown faint by the breeze. The slope was too steep for much talk, but when we came within a few yards of the ridge she halted to gain breath, gazing down over the village.
“Looks as if it has never changed.”
“I don’t suppose it has, much, in a thousand years.”
“That makes twenty seem only yesterday.”
“If we meet him, what are you going to say?”
“I don’t know. I can’t know—before I see him.”
“He’ll wonder why on earth we’ve come HERE, of all places.”
“Then we’ll ask him why on earth HE’S here. Perhaps we’ll both have to pretend we came to look at the five counties.”
She resumed the climb, and in another moment we could see that the summit dipped again to a further summit, perhaps higher, and that in the hollow between lay a little pond. There was a man lying beside it with arms outstretched, as if he had flung himself there after the climb. He did not move as we approached, but presently we saw smoke curling from a cigarette between his fingers.
“He’s not asleep,” I said. “He’s just resting.”
I saw her eyes and the way her lips trembled; something suddenly occurred to me. “By the way, how did you know there were FIVE counties?”
But she didn’t answer; already she was rushing down the slope. He saw her in time to rise to his feet; she stopped then, several yards away, and for a few seconds both were staring at each other, hard and still and silent. Then he whispered something I couldn’t hear; but I knew in a flash that the gap was closed, that the random years were at an end, that the past and the future would join. She knew this too, for she ran into his arms calling out:
“Oh, Smithy—Smithy—it may not be too late!”