The Last September

He said: "What"s the matter? Bothered?"

"Thinking-about you, in a kind of way."

"Good."

"I was describing you. How would you describe me?"

He was surprised, he needed time to think of this; he did not know. "I must just go in," she said "-do you mind?-and write a letter. It"s so important. Will you post it for me at Clonmore?"

But meanwhile they had been irritating Lady Naylor, who seeing Lois stand so vaguely down by the privet hedge, disclaiming implicitly the party given for her amus.e.m.e.nt, was goaded to the point of an interruption. Now she called: "Lois-Lois!"

Lois sighed and went to her.

"I want you to take the Trents and Maguires and Boatleys round the garden," she said as her niece approached. "I shall be coming later-" She murmured: "When some more of the people have gone... . Mrs. Trent wants a cutting of the allspice and would like to see if there"s anything else she would like. Tell Donovan." She murmured again: "And don"t let Mrs. Boatley get with Mrs. Maguire, she is a Christian Scientist and will talk of it, and you know the Maguires" little nephew died of that. And if the Boatleys like the peaches give them some, let Donovan pack them." She added in a still lower tone, of reproach: "Because I don"t believe there were raspberries for them at tea."

CHAPTER SEVEN.

FRANCIE was finding Laurence not so difficult after all, if one just ran on quite naturally. They sat at the top of the steps together, after everybody had gone. The fields looked wider, the sky more gracious and distant seen through the clearing smoke of social activity. The Trents left last but one, the Hartigans and their aunt Mrs. Foxe-O"Connor had just gone jogging away up the avenue knee to knee in their little trap. The gravel at the foot of the steps was all scored up and flung into spirals by the turning of wheels. Early tomorrow, there would be a busy sound of gardeners raking it smooth again. At present, there was the busy sound of rooks: it heightened Mrs. Montmorency"s and Laurence"s peaceful la.s.situde to reflect that rooks still had to talk, to flock and mix in intricate sociability. Men and women had, since seven o"clock, been released from this obligation.

There was nothing to say, they did not have to say anything: they exclaimed their thoughts casually, not answering one another"s, on the retreat towards silence. All the afternoon they had been asking questions and ignoring the answers as far as possible. Laurence knew he could not be asked by his aunt to bring the chairs in or see whether Lois had locked the garden while he sat here, so apparently entertaining Mrs. Montmorency.

Francie had not wanted to know how anyone was; health played too large a part in her life already. She had not wanted to know if they thought the garden was lovely-the supremacy of Danielstown garden made opinion irrelevant-whether they preferred winter to summer because of the hunting, or summer to winter because of the tennis. Neither had it seemed to Laurence important whether anyone wanted more tea or had had really enough, whether they feared to be driven into the ditch by Black and Tans on the way home, or whether they knew Oxford. They both felt themselves coming to life again slowly, now that the party was over, and putting off a sort of antagonism. At an upstairs window they could hear Lady Naylor and Lois discussing the guests and agreeing that it had been a successful day.

Francie said: "I do wonder now whether this weather will last." This gold weather had all the delight of a new perception, it made Danielstown real as a memory.

"I suppose they don"t really feel like that inside," said Laurence.

"I wonder at them bringing a child like Hercules. I found him walking about the house when I went up for my air cushion. The poor little fellow ... I let him blow up my air cushion and then I took him and showed him photographs of the Carnival that I brought back from Nice. We talked quite a time; he tells me he is afraid of bats. I wonder now why they called him Hercules."

"Wouldn"t it be terrible to be in the Army? . ."

"Isn"t that young Mr. Lesworth devoted to Lois? I wonder does she feel it at all?"

"I always wonder what one does in the Army when one"s not doing something particular very particularly."

"I wonder if they would marry."

"Marry?" said Laurence, surprised into attention. "I don"t see why. Though I don"t see why not. As Lois never does anything or seems to want to, I suppose she must be hoping to marry someone. And Lesworth is pleasant, I think, and rather pretty. He is like a photograph of a man in an advertis.e.m.e.nt putting on the right kind of collar. Doesn"t advertising develop-I sometimes wonder if one might not think of taking it up."

"But doesn"t she draw very nicely?"

"Well, she could draw people in the Army doing things, like Lady Butler."

"She is so sweet, I think; I love to watch her."

"Her consumption of tennis is something enormous. There"s tennis tomorrow at Castle Trent and I"ve got to drive her over. I often wonder whether she really would get a.s.saulted by Black and Tans if she went alone, or by sinister patriots, or whether she might not be old enough now to look after herself."

"I"m afraid at her age-" said Francie, blushing, "her age isn"t any protection.

"I cannot imagine wanting to a.s.sault anybody. But then I never can conceive of anybody else"s mentality-or isn"t that mentality? Why is it so much worse for a young girl to miss tennis than for a young man to miss Spain? I suppose it is something to do with the life force and that one must not trace the connection."

"I wonder why she"s so fond of that Livvy Thompson-she seems to me managing."

"She"s not fond-it"s contiguity. Why should they chop up the rather beautiful name of Olivia into something that sounds like cat"s meat?"

This Francie well understood, she did not care to be called Frances, it sounded formal. She sighed and gathered the folds of her grey-and-blue "mottledy" foulard. She had been wondering-watching Hugo so happy with Mrs. Trent, and now the speculation recurred to her-whether the woman Hugo had really needed would not have worn coats and skirts, snapped her fingers at dogs and recrossed her legs with decision. Mrs. Trent was an amusing "good sort"; she so radiated the quality that Francie, after a minute or two"s conversation, had felt quite a "good sort" also. Was she, though, perfectly understanding? But then did not Hugo perhaps feel a little smothered in one"s own understanding, a little reduced by it? For instance: Francie thought, honestly, Hugo had played magnificently this afternoon; several people had said to her: "It"s a delight to see your husband play on these courts again-" They would not have said that, surely, if he had not been playing magnificently? But even so armed, she would not be able to combat Hugo"s conviction that his tennis was going off because it was something he never mentioned and he would be furious at hearing it put into words. So still she would have to feel his pride suffer-as though he were growing old, when there wasn"t a shadow of age on him. She remembered how he had shown up today, playing, sitting or walking, among the young men. She liked the young men but they seemed all limbs and faces, not yet related. She wondered what Hugo had thought of the young men.

She thought of their room upstairs with the grey light on the ceiling; of the ghostly roses that still showed faintly when one drew the curtains over the daylight. She supposed she ought to be lying down; she got up, murmuring something, and went indoors. Laurence stood up, vacillating. He wondered if they would meet him and make him do things if he were to venture up for his book.

Francie, crossing the anteroom, was waylaid by Lady Naylor coming out of Lois"s room. "Ah, there you are, Francie, good! Now I"m longing to know what you thought of them all. To tell you the truth, I am thankful it"s safely over. I hope they enjoyed themselves really: they looked all right."

"Indeed they must have! It was a great success." They sat down on two of the crimson chairs, stepping-stones over a lake of floor, to discuss the party.

Francie declared how pleasant she had found Mrs. Archie Trent, and how nice it had been to see Mrs. Carey again, and how handsome Nona was growing up. And what a pity it was, she said, about the Hartigans; they had been grown-up girls when she had seen them last and it did seem hard! "And oh," she cried, in a glow of pleasure and sympathy, "isn"t that young Mr. Lesworth very devoted?"

"Yes, he has charming manners; he comes over here a good deal. He"s so helpful with chairs and rugs; I do wish he were Laurence!"

"But so devoted to Lois-and really one can"t be surprised. The way he follows her round with his eyes -and his feet too-"

"Sssh!" exclaimed Lady Naylor. "She"s in her room! I wouldn"t like her to pick up ideas like Livvy"s. Are you sure, by the way, you"re not thinking of Mr. Armstrong? There"s a very great case of devotion there. He follows Lois and Livvy follows him. I expect in the general confusion, with so many people, you mixed up the young men. They are all alike-it"s a pity, I always think. It"s a pity, too, about Lois and Livvy; it isn"t a friendship I like. But poor Livvy"s motherless and she"s always riding over to meals, and of course Lois needs girls of her own age. She made very nice friends at her school in England, but it"s so unlucky, they"re never allowed to come over. Something said in the English press has given rise to an idea that this country"s unsafe. It"s lucky for Lois...I should never go by the papers about England...No, Francie, if you didn"t mix up the young men, I really don"t know what you mean."

"Oh, it"s been very stupid of me," cried Francie, flushing with agitation. "Of course I should never have said if I hadn"t thought-if I hadn"t been led to think ... No, I see now that I oughtn"t to have. But I thought from what everyone said..."

"But I am still quite in the dark, dear," said Lady Naylor, flushed also and smiling with irritation. "I suppose, however, you must have gathered that as I don"t understand what you do mean, what you mean cannot really be so."

"Oh, of course," agreed Francie, ruffling the silk on her lap with light, feathery touches. "All the same, I do think you ought to know, Myra, that everyone said ..."

"One cannot help what people say, though it is always annoying. Not that I ever do know what they say. I make a point of not knowing. You know how I"vd always turned my face against gossip, especially these days: it"s annoying to find it everywhere, even at one"s own parties. It"s a very great danger, I think, to the life of this country."

"Well, but really, you couldn"t say this was political. It seems to me natural that people should take an interest-they"re all so fond of her. If young Mr. Lesworth and Lois are really-"

Lady Naylor was forced into open country. "Oh, is that it?" she cried in enlightenment. "But really, my dear Francie, what a fuss about nothing! No, not you, dear; I never meant you made the fuss, but really with all these hints: "People are saying," you might have meant almost anything. One"s friends do excel themselves, really! Just because they"ve played tennis together and danced once or twice! Really, you would think they wanted one to divide one"s tennis parties up like a Quaker meeting, and turn ball-rooms into that horrible kind of country dancing they have in England-Anna Partridge"s people do it-women hopping one way, waving things, and men all hopping the other way, stamping. "Really," as I said to Anna Partridge, "if this is what you call getting in touch with the people give me what you call feudalism!" "

"Yes. But really, Myra, is it so very improbable? They"re both so young, and so-"

"Why, yes, of course; exactly!" Lady Naylor sat up in her chair with a heightening of colour, an incisive gesture; her eyes threatened a falcon-swoop on her friend"s rash flank. "Ex-actlyI Which is one of the many things that do make it so impossible."

"I said, "Improbable!" " Francie spoke with a funny zest. She hated arguments as she hated rain; once caught in the rain she could hear it crashing on her umbrella, feel it chill on her shoulders, with exhilaration. She knew so little excitement. She now felt, for the first time, Myra"s equal in vigour and personality; she felt this opposition to Myra must at last increase their confidence in each other.

"In the first place," said Lady Naylor, "he"s a subaltern. Subalterns can"t marry-not of course that they"re like priests, but they might just as well be until they are captains and thirty. Colonel Boatley feels very strongly ... Of course, he"s a thoroughly nice boy, so much liked in the regiment. But then, what are the Rutlands nowadays? Of course they did magnificently in the War. But now they seem to be full of people like that extraordinary little Mrs. Vermont, who turned up perfectly pleased with herself this afternoon in spite of Lois having quite forgotten that she"d asked her. No, he of course is charming, but he seems to have no relations. One cannot trace him. His mother, he says, lives in Surrey, and of course you do know, don"t you, what Surrey is. It says nothing, absolutely; part of it is opposite the Thames Embankment. Practically n.o.body who lives in Surrey ever seems to have been heard of, and if one does hear of them they have never heard of anybody else who lives in Surrey. Really altogether, I think all English people very difficult to trace. They are so pleasant and civil, but I do often wonder if they are not a little shallow: for no reason at all they will pack up everything and move across six counties ... Of course, I don"t say Gerald Lesworth"s people are in trade- I should never say a thing like that without foundation. Besides if they were in trade there would be money, money in English people shows so much and he quite evidently hasn"t any. No, I should say they were just villa-ry."

"But there are so many villas in England," said Francie, "that some of the people who live in them are bound to be nice. I often think so, looking out of the train."

"Very nice in their way, I am sure-but that"s not the immediate point, dear. There is no question at all-you understand?-of anything between Mr. Lesworth and Lois. And of course naturally they haven"t thought of it-if they had, don"t you see, they"d be much more careful to make it appear they hadn"t. Of course I agree that Lois ought to be more careful. I was careful at her age; I was careful by instinct, which is a thing that girls nowadays seem to lack. There seems nothing to do between putting ideas in a girl"s head and letting her behave like an absolute donkey. It is all very difficult, really. If she were my own niece I should speak to her-I should certainly speak to Laurence if he were going on like that-but as she"s Richard"s niece I don"t very well see that I can. There"s so little to go on. And I really cannot have Richard bothered, it makes him so difficult. When he feels he ought to do something and isn"t quite sure what, there"s no saying at all what he may do. One does dislike awkwardness. And it doesn"t seem kind to ask the young man his intentions when if he should have any they would have to be quashed immediately ... No, one must leave it at this. I rely on you, Francie, to contradict any more of this gossip that comes your way, and you might ask Hugo to also- if he has heard any- Perhaps on the whole better not put the idea into his head; he might forget and discuss it with Richard ... Meanwhile, I shall talk to Lois seriously about her future. She draws very nicely; I often think that she might take that up. I must tell her to show you and Hugo some of her drawings."

"But I don"t know anything about drawing."

"Oh, all she needs is a little encouragement."

"Just one thing, Myra-I think you"re so wise, you"re so perfectly right, as you know. I do always in general believe in letting things like this take their course. But ... as this thing can"t have a course, really mustn"t: is it quite fair to the young man? Because Lois is so very-"

Here she broke off, scared by a terrible clatter in Lois"s room. A pail had been kicked and some furniture violently shifted.

"Oh, Francie!" exclaimed Lady Naylor reproachfully. "You ought to remember she"s there! One can"t be too careful! In fact, if you don"t mind, I expect we had better not talk any more. You must go and lie down-you"re looking as fresh as a rose but I know how Hugo insists upon it."

They rose, she took Francie"s arm and led her as far as her door. Francie felt like something being put back in its box. Lady Naylor went down, calling, to look for Laurence and ask him to bring the chairs in and lock up the garden.

For Lois, this had all been exceedingly difficult. There she was, caught in her bedroom, she had not the face to come out. The door went paper-thin as they raised their voices. At first it had seemed all right: Aunt Myra knew she was in here, having just left her. But soon their tones changed, a keen hunting note came into them: they were on a topic. Carried away, Aunt Myra had forgotten. She heard "Lois ... Lois ... Lois ..." She hummed and sang: they were too intent To one"s sense of honour, such things were agonising. She leaned right out of a window into the cooling air, into the hush of limes on the avenue; she watched Uncle Richard and Mr. Montmorency walk to the white gate. Their heads nodded down from their shoulders like old men"s happily; they spoke of Archie and Mrs. Archie and poor John. But from the room behind the other voices, flooding in through the door, came after her. She flung herself on her bed with a cry from the springs, pressing her ears shut till the lobes and her finger-tips ached: also she pulled the pillows over her head. It was hot thus, and still the voices penetrated. They came on steadily, like the Hound of Heaven. It was hard, really, the way they both kept at it.

The voices spoke of love: they were full of protest. Love, she had learnt to a.s.sume, was the mainspring of woman"s grievances. Illnesses all arose from it, the having of children, the illnesses children had; servants also, since the regular practice of love involved a home; by money it was confined, propped and moulded. Lois flung off the pillows and walked round the room quickly. She was angry; she strained to hear now, she quite frankly listened. But when Mrs. Montmorency came to: "Lois is very-" she was afraid suddenly. She had a panic. She didn"t want to know what she was, she couldn"t bear it: knowledge of this would stop, seal, finish one. Was she now to be clapped down under an adjective, to crawl round life-long inside some quality like a fly in a tumbler? Mrs. Montmorency should not!

She lifted her water jug and banged it down in the basin: she kicked the slop-pail and pushed the washstand about ... It was victory. Later on, she noticed a crack in the basin, running between a sheaf and a cornucopia: a harvest richness to which she each day bent down her face. Every time, before the water clouded, she was to see the crack: every time she would wonder-what Lois was. She would never know.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

SIR RICHARD, to whom the idea about Lois and Gerald percolated in time through the family conversation, declared the idea was preposterous. What chiefly worried him was, might she not have mentioned to Gerald those guns in the lower plantations? He had charged her not to, but she was just like Laura, poor Laura"s own child in fact; she would talk and talk and you never knew where you had her. He announced, he had been thinking for some time subalterns should be fewer and more infrequent. He was delighted when he heard from the postman, and was able to pa.s.s on, how three young women in the Clonmore direction had had their hair cut off by masked men for walking out with the soldiers. And indeed they had got no sympathy from the priest either, the postman said, for the priest knew that English soldiers were most immoral.

"And how would you like," Sir Richard said to his niece indignantly, "if a thing like that were to happen to you?"

"I should be bobbed," said Lois. "I should take it as a sign. But I have never walked an inch with anyone, not what you would call out, Uncle Richard."

"But masked men," said Lady Naylor, "would be a very nasty experience for a girl of your age." Lois said she would prefer the men to be masked; she would be less embarra.s.sed in the event of meeting them afterwards.

"I wonder what they do with the hair?" she added. She thought inwardly: "If they"re going to take this att.i.tude, I could not be blamed for falling in love with a married man." She searched her heart anxiously. She wrote to Viola that she feared she might be falling in love with a married man. But when she looked at Mr. Montmorency next morning at breakfast, and still more when she had to drive him back from Mount Isabel, the idea seemed shocking. She regretted having sent her letter to post in such a hurry.

Scandalised by the memory, she drove home briskly. On the bright sky opposite, Mr. Montmorency"s pale face hung like an apparition"s. She took the curves of Mount Isabel drive with a rattle: the trap rocked on its axle, the traces creaked. Beyond the gates light lay flat and yellow along the hedges where brambles showered, hard red blackberries knocked on the spokes and swung back, shining. She took the short way, over a shoulder of mountain; the light pink road crushed under the wheels like sugar. Coming up out from the lanes, they bathed an hour or so in the glare of s.p.a.ce. Height had the quality of depth: as they mounted they seemed to be striking deeper into the large mild crystal of an inverted sea. Out of the distance everywhere, pointless and unrelated, s.p.a.ce came like water between them, slipping and widening. They receded from one another into the vacancy. On the yellow furze-dust light was hard and physical; over the parching heather shadow faded and folded tone on tone, and was drawn to the sky on delicate brittle peaks.

The road bent over a ridge, the trap ran down on the pony"s rump, he and she shifted back up their seats. They stared with unfocused intensity over each other"s shoulders. Gorse they said was never out of bloom, he commented. Nor kissing they said, she supplied out of season-yet she supposed this untrue, she supposed that they both sometimes must be. "And so much bitterness," he exclaimed, "over this empty country!"

"What is it exactly," she asked, "that they mean by freedom? What does it affect? What is it besides an excuse for war?"

"I suppose," he said in his faint voice, as at the pit of a yawn, "some kind of a final peace-stability."

"Then to fight"s absurd; the more one keeps on, the further from it one is. It"s a hopeless kind of beginning." She looked at him earnestly, lucidly, like a puppy.

"You are very reasonable ... Do you read the papers?"

"Well ... I do hate things that have just happened."

"-I don"t follow."

"They"re so raw."

The road was steep and the pony determined to trot; it stumbled, she pulled it up sharply. She was inclined to forget she was driving at all. He started and put out a hand to steady himself along the back of the seat. He hated things to be done badly; he was old-maidish. They were silent in a mutual criticism. As they came down, and the mountains drawing behind were once more scenic; as hedges ran up at the sides of the road, the illusion of distance between them faded, they obtruded upon each other; a time when they could have talked was gone. They might have said, she felt now, anything; but what had remained unsaid, never conceived in thought, would exercise now a stronger compulsion upon their att.i.tude. She was to believe they had approached each other in the unintimacy of their silence. Shy with retrospective emotion she fidgeted in the trap, irked by his look, his manner, all his presence physically. Whenever she stretched a foot it touched his, always she seemed to be retreating, apologising, having to shift her position. When she sat well forward to give her attention to driving, their knees touched.

"This trap"s too small," she said finally. Mr. Montmorency-face dull on the bright sky-replied: "Oh, I don"t know-it depends on how one arranges oneself." If he only would not smile-but he smiled constrainedly. Next to Laura, she was the most fidgety person from whom he had suffered. But Laura"s un-repose had been irradiation, a quiver of personality. She was indefinite definitely, like a tree shining, shaking away outlines; a bay, a poplar in wind and sunshine. Her impulses-those incalculable springings-out of mind through the body-had had, like movements of branches, a wild kind of certainty. He had been half aware of some kind of design in her being, of which she was unaware wholly.

Whereas, here still was Lois (now Laura"s tree had fallen) twisted away from him on the opposite seat of the trap, outraging tone in her pink jersey-a shade or two nearer than Laura, perhaps, to the accuracy pa.s.sing for beauty. She looked genee, dispirited-some failure, no doubt, in his company: he must be an old man to her. She glanced back once or twice at the mountains, from which a light peaty breath still came after them down the descending road.

She laughed suddenly, parted the reins, and jerking a rein in each hand, with wide elbows, chirruped and clucked to the pony. "This," she said, "is how my governess used to drive. She used to say it came natural because all her people were horsy. She said her father had been a colonel and she used to plait hats out of crinkle paper and wear them. She loved my mother embarra.s.singly, and she was always embroidering things. My mother hated it-do you remember?"

"I don"t remember your governess. Hated what?"

"Being loved like that, and given embroidery. Miss Part used to laugh and say, "I"m afraid I"m terribly whimsical, Mrs. Farquar," and Mother used to say, "Oh no, I don"t expect you are really"-was it unkind?"

"Well, it sounds unkind."

"I wonder if she would have liked being loved at my age-do you remember?"

"I don"t suppose she had made up her mind."

Lois turned and looked at him so intently that he was uneasy suddenly: the bottom dropped out of the past, spilling all its security. He would never know how much Laura had said to her daughter those last ten years-years locked away from him: Lois had got the key. He said with acidity: "If she and I had married-"

"Oh, yes... ."

"My dear child, you wouldn"t be here."

"Oh, but half of me would be. And I daresay," she said charmingly, "the other half of me would have been much nicer." The turning-away of her look was more confidential than any directness.

"Thank you-don"t run over the little pigs!"

Michael Connor"s farm first announced itself by some pink little silky pigs running along the roadside. A sow got up, like a very maternal battleship. Connor children looked, shrieked, fell from a gate and fled to the farmhouse, skirting a pool of liquid manure in the front yard. It was a nice farm, Lois pointed out, it had the door and window frames painted blue, the colour of all the cart-wheels. The Connors were darling people; she drove past slowly, leaning over the side of the trap to see if the family were about. The house was one storey high, with a slate roof. Mr. Montmorency sat frowning; he could not remember if this was a man-Michael Connor-he ought to remember.

Michael Connor came out from a furze-thatched shed at the side. He took off his hat and shook hands with them both. His hand was bony, nervous and dry as earth. "It"s a grand evening," said he with a melancholy smile.

"It is indeed. And how," she asked, apprehensive, "is Mrs. Connor?"

"Ah, the poor woman ... the poor woman!" Michael looked away from them, n.o.body spoke. Lois at last said: "Give her my love."

"I will," said Michael, "and proud she will be. And yourself s looking lovely, Miss Lois; a fine strong lady, glory be to G.o.d."

"You remember Mr. Montmorency?"

"Sure indeed I do!" exclaimed Michael, and shook hands with Mr. Montmorency again with greater particularity. "And very well I remember his poor father. You are looking grand, sir, fine and stout; I known you all these years and I declare I never seen you looking stouter. And welcome back to Danielstown, Mr. Montmorency, welcome back, sir!"

"Are your grandchildren well?"