The Last September Part 14

They had come to the end of the huts-at the foot of a steep slope a wall, the top heavily wired. Under the wall a sentry inhumanly paced like a pendulum. The country bore in its strong menace. Gerald looked out at it, face blinking in and out of the dark faintly red with the pulse of his cigarette. She nursed her bare elbows, unconsciously s.h.i.+vering. He seemed at once close and remote, known and unpersonal; she understood why, up to now, she had searched for him vainly in what he said. He had nothing to do with expression. She put out a hand to where he was, shadowy and palpable. He threw his cigarette away, turned-and said nothing. The sentry pa.s.sed.

They went back the way they had come, between the huts.

"Gerald, I wasn't angry... ."

"No, you were wonderful all the time."

"Don't you understand-Gerald?"

"Understand? ... Lois!"

While they kissed, she heard, in the silence of their footsteps, someone moving about in a hut up the lines. The sound was a long way off, at the other side of a stillness.

"Your arms are so cold."

"I've been so lonely."

"They're so cold." He kissed them, inside the elbows. Later: "I like the back of your head," she said with exploring finger-tips.

"I never thought you looked at me."

"Gerald, I've been so ... vacant."

"I never thought you wanted me."

"I-" she began. The soft sound of her dress in the wind became, by some connection of mood, painfully inexplicable to her-the pain was its own, from not being understood. "Gerald, your b.u.t.tons hurt rather."

"My darling-" he let her go, but still, above consciousness, held one of her hands solemnly. He said: "Shall you really be able to marry me?"

"I don't know till you've asked me."

"Don't laugh-" he cried.

"Can't you hear I'm not laughing?"

"Lois-" Something more was coming; she waited, hearing him draw a breath. "Let's go back and dance," he said religiously-"shall we?"

The hut was compact with movement: she stood in alarm, as before a revolving door in destructive motion. Now it was gone, she remembered sharply the smell of earth ... David Armstrong leaned from his partner wildly and struck Gerald over the head with a red balloon.

Mrs. Rolfe had had an idea that the dance might well finish up with a cotillion. She was vague about cotillions, but towards this end she had distributed balloons, whistles that ran out long tongues when you blew them and streamers from striped cardboard batons with which dancers might hit one another over the head. Mrs. Vermont thought these things went better with fancy dress, but Denise said a rag was a rag at any time. The girls ducked and shrieked and waved their streamers over their partners' shoulders. Denise, radiant in black with a trail of nasturtiums, was waltzing-affair of prolonged "hesitations"-with Betty's husband. She bit off a streamer, spat out a mouthful of paper and said, with a s.h.i.+ver of happiness-"Isn't it marvellous, Timmy? I can hardly believe I'm awake!"

"Ra-ther!" replied Captain Vermont, with blurred enthusiasm. He was being buffeted by Mr. Simc.o.x and somebody's sister.

"Betty's been just too marvellous," went on Denise.- "Oh, Timmy, do have a shot at Reggie Daventry-there, with the girl in scarlet. He looks just too refined!"

But Timmy failed to find Daventry. "Betty's tons the prettiest here," cried Denise, ecstatic.

"Oh, come!" expostulated Captain Vermont, squeezing her waist. It gave him a warm, tender feeling to think how fond she and Betty were of each other.

"Tell me," said Denise, as nearly as possible snuggling, "are we terribly reckless? Would this annoy the Irish?"

"They won't know."

"They have heaps of spies."

"I say, Sssh, Denise, there are heaps of them here tonight."

"Spies?"

"Irish-the Raltes and Co."

"They're different."

"Still, they've got feelings."

Denise sighed. "I could go on like this for ever." But Captain Vermont rather thought he would like a drink. A balloon exploded. "Glory!" cried Mrs. Fogarty. So they burst four more to keep her amused.

"Is this like a bombardment?" asked Moira Ralte.

"No," said Mr. Simc.o.x.

If they were not careful, they would knock over the gramophone. Mr. Daventry thought it was time they did. It was time something happened. He danced the D.I.'s niece down the pa.s.sage and kissed her with her head pressed back in the coats. She struggled, futile and slippery as a weasel. As he kissed again her face went stiff and she shut her eyes. When these opened, they were as shrewd as ever: still he did not know what she thought. The drums in his temples were now so insistent, he could not forget them even while he was dancing. She had dabbed herself over with White Rose. Her frizzy hair tickled his mouth as he bent close to her.

"Do you get kissed a lot?"

"Englishmen never could keep their mouths to themselves."

"You won't know yourself when we're gone."

"You should get back home while you can, the lot of you."

"What would become of Uncle?"

"Did you like your whisky?" She put a hand up rudely to s.h.i.+eld herself from his breath. This reminded Daventry, who let go of the common little h.e.l.l-cat abruptly and walked away to the kitchenette, where he heard a siphon. Lois stood in the door, waiting while David got her some soda-water. But wouldn't she try a little something? Just a little something to dance on-no? Daventry, standing back and tilting his drink about in his gla.s.s, stared at her feet with owlish ferocity.

"Sorry about your silver shoes, Miss Farquar."

"There are some beautiful walks round here," said David.

"Miss Farquar should float, not walk: she looks like a water-lily," said Daventry, looking over her green frock with his discomforting eyes. "Come on and dance," said David, taking her empty gla.s.s. Lois began to say she was keeping the next for Gerald. But: "Miss Farquar and I are hungry, we are going to find a sandwich," said Daventry.

In the box of a dining-room plates of dishevelled sandwiches sat in unmasked electric light. There was no one there. Mr. Daventry, looking hard at her, put the palm of his hand to his left temple with a curious, listening air, as though to see if a watch had stopped.

"Chicken and ham," he said, "tongue and turkey, they're all cat, they say." ("What shall I say?" thought Lois.) He looked at a chair with contempt, then sat down on it. "I don't think I've met you before," he continued.

"Perhaps you didn't notice."

"Dear me," said Mr. Daventry, looking into a sandwich. "No, I don't think it could have been that."

"Then it can't be explained," said Lois, and (she felt) glittered excitedly. He suggested the army of Wellington: buckskins. Looking up thoughtfully, he directed upon the wall just over her head his strained dark look that was almost a squint. "You live round here?"

"More or less-" She was startled to meet the dark look on a level. Hers was, he said, a remarkably beautiful country.

"I am afraid you-"

He affably shrugged. Did that matter? He stared at her arms, at the inside of her elbows, with such intensity that she felt Gerald's kisses were printed there. Was this a bounder?-She knew she had no criterion.

"Have a nice walk?" he inquired.

"Did you?" she countered.

"I expect so," said Mr. Daventry, after consideration. "As a matter of fact, I am not quite at my best." They looked hard at each other. "Nothing," he said, "appeals to me." She moved her arms nervously on the silk of her dress. For she saw there was not a man here, hardly even a person.

"How do you mean 'more or less'?" he said suddenly.

"Well, I don't live anywhere, really."

"I do: I live near Birmingham." He put the half-eaten sandwich down with distaste on the edge of the cloth and pulled up a plate to cover it. She felt she was quite finished with. Suppose, she thought, they were all like this! Should she go? She made a movement, he did not see; she was disappointed. He put the hand to his temple, again listening.

"Tired?"

"Oh no," he said, with irony.

"I'm going back now."

"Such a pity. Anyone so charming ..."

"Well, I'm bored," she said.

"It's a pity you don't know about my head, it's a most curious head, it would interest you ... How shall I keep you? Look here, seriously, about Lesworth-"

"Oh!" she said, suddenly cold inside.

"About our young friend-" He pulled up his chair close; she had a feeling like gates shutting. "Tell me this-"

But the roar of merriment, solid and swerving steadily as a waterfall past the door, splintered off in a crash. Silence came, with a hard impact. "Thank G.o.d, they've upset the gramophone!" Daventry smacked his knee, remotely, as though rehearsing the gesture. His look decomposed in laughter. "Done in," he said, drawing life from the thought. Simultaneously, a universal shriek went up: it was smashed, finished. "Really," she thought, "you laugh like Satan!"

"Well, well," said Daventry, tilting his drink about, "it's been a pleasant evening." Here they all came-a stampede in the pa.s.sage- She was glad of them, for under the storm of his mirth that swept their island, disarranging the interlude, she had sat cold and desolate. A gramophone pa.s.sing, a gramophone less in the world; it was not funny. But between bursts of laughter she had felt him look at her lips, at her arms, at her dress like a ghost, with nostalgic and cold curiosity. About their young friend?-she wasn't to know.

Mrs. Vermont seemed broken also, she leaned on the adjutant. "Stay her with sandwiches," called out somebody, "comfort her with-with-more sandwiches!" Moira mopped her eyes with a trail of her dress, but n.o.body noticed. They jostled about the table. Plates rang, shunted in all directions. "Sitting in here!" cried Gerald, exalted. "Splendid!" Somebody waved a mouth organ; could one dance to that? More and more squeezed in at the door: the room would burst. The cracks of the walls that had been straight a minute ago like bars now seemed to bulge out visibly: light glared down on the resolution of backs and pink, reaching arms. "Our young friend, our young friend, our young friend," thought Lois, and watched Gerald. Though she watched wherever he went, she could not see him. There was nothing, in fact, to which to attach her look except his smoothness and roundness of head, which seemed for the first time remarkable. She looked for his mouth-which had kissed her-but found it no different from mouths of other young men, who had also been strolling and pausing between the huts in the dark. The page of the evening was asterisked over with fervent imaginary kisses. And one single kiss in the wind, in the dark, was no longer particularised: she could not remember herself, or remember him.

As he came up, she looked quickly away. She looked at an empty plate down on the floor, at a thin disk of cuc.u.mber flaccid against its rim. "What have I done?" she thought; she looked at the plate with dread. And: "Oh, sandwich?" said Gerald, turning to bring up some more. Or perhaps it will be natural tomorrow? Nothing could keep her from having to eat a sandwich. "Darling ..." he whispered, brus.h.i.+ng against her shoulder.

"Tired?" asked Mr. Simc.o.x, seeing her face. "Oh no," she said, with Mr. Daventry's best irony.

CHAPTER THREE.

MR. and Mrs. Montmorency were sitting on the steps as Lois drove up the avenue. Francie waved, Hugo looked warily round the Spectator. "Well ... ?" cried Francie, as Lois came into earshot. Above, twenty dark windows stared over the fields aloofly out of the pale grey face of the house. The trees had rims of light round them; everything seemed a long way away. With a sigh, Hugo put down the Spectator and came to lift Lois's suitcase out of the trap.

"Well ... ?"

"Oh, marvellous. But what do you think: we broke the gramophone."

"Oh, the poor gramophone!"

"It was the Gunners' gramophone- Where are the others?"

"We have no idea."

The Montmorencys now felt certain it must be a tiring day: even Lois looked pale. They had been having an intimate conversation about the future: both with a sense of courage as from sweeping aside some decency. Why not, Hugo had said, build a bungalow somewhere? "With no stairs?" Francie kindled at the idea, slipping a hand under Hugo's. And live there always? Certainly-why not?-they would unstore the furniture. And at the thought of their tables and sofas coming again out of limbo, Hugo's face was illuminated by a look of defiance.

"But where would we build?" said Francie, wrinkled up with delightful anxiety. Hugo said they would motor round for a bit and no doubt some idea would suggest itself. "We could choose the view," said Francie. But at this point, for some reason, he had taken up the Spectator.

The man came round for the pony; Lois sat down on the steps and began to chatter. It was surprising, really, how much had occurred. And fancy, the Colonel had been furious ... Even Hugo listened with some attention. "Dear me," he said when they heard about Mr. Daventry. Francie expected it must be a great relief for a man in that state of mind to meet a girl to whom he could really talk: "But he didn't talk; he really was most extraordinary. Of course, he was once a major." Francie wished she had seen her go off in that green frock-all, how should she say, like a poppy, only a different colour. Would Lois put it on for them all tonight?

"It's not really a frock one sits in," said Lois dis-couragingly. Francie said it was almost a pity in some ways that Laurence was so intellectual. "I know, we'll make Hugo waltz with you, he waltzes beautifully." But the thought of Hugo waltzing-as Hugo suspected -made Lois melancholy.

Laurence, disturbed by her voice, shut an upstairs window. His industry nowadays was remarkable. He dragged at his hair and stared at the trees through a flawed pane, across which Laura Naylor had scratched her name with a diamond. At his elbows books were in toppling stacks, movement produced an avalanche. A wasp hung round him, tentative, scrawling Z's on the air. "Go away," he muttered, "you are superfluous." Finally, he was obliged to open the door and shoo the wasp out of it; it undulated across the landing and in at the half-open door of Marda's room, as though it had an appointment. Though he did not care for the wasp, Laurence went in after it, to see if she had not left South Wind behind. She had indeed-which was like her. The wasp dithered above the looking-gla.s.s in triumph; he took aim with the book and almost hit it. An eight-day clock still ticked; it was five to four, it would soon be tea-time.

As he came out, Lois appeared at the top of the stairs, carrying a suitcase.

"Hullo, what have you brought that up for?"

"Oh yes," she said, putting it down in surprise. "I meant to have left it half way."

"Well-?"

"Really," she cried, unreasonably, "this house is nothing but Montmorencys; they are an absolute state of mind ... I only wanted to see if you were here,"

"Well, I'm not, practically: I'm working."

"Oh-why do you work in the spare-room?"

"I was dealing with a wasp."

"Laurence, I had a marvellous dance."

"Splendid!" He turned to his door, but she, in tremendous need of his unsympathy, brought out, imploringly: "They were all there, everyone. And my dear, the wind; I thought the hut would be blown away. And we broke the gramophone. There was a most sinister man called Daventry, with sh.e.l.l-shock... ."

"Good," said Laurence, "and you look sleepy!"

Lois, lamblike under the force of suggestion, leaned back against the banisters, yawning. "Livvy kicked all night, she will be a horrible wife ... Laurence, I wish you would tell me something to read."