§ 21
monday broke clear and fine, with a september freshness in the sunshine. breakfast was an awkward meal; peter was constrained, oswald was worried by a sense of advice and counsels not given; joan felt the situation slipping from her helpless grasp. it was with a sense of relief that at last she put on her khaki overcoat to drive peter to the station. “this is the end,” sang in joan’s mind. “this is the end.” she glanced at the mirror in the hall and saw that the fur collar was not unfriendly to her white neck and throat. she was in despair, but she did not mean to let it become an unbecoming despair—at least until peter had departed. the end was still incomplete. she had something stern and unpleasant to say to peter before they parted, but she did not mean to look stern or unpleasant while she said it. peter, she noted with a gleam of satisfaction, was in low spirits. he was sorry to go. he was ashamed of himself, but also he was sorry. that was something, at any rate, to have achieved. but he was going—nevertheless.
she brought round the little singer to the door. she started the engine with a competent swing and got in. the maids came with peter’s portmanteau and belongings. “this is the end,” said joan to herself, touching her accelerator and with her hand ready to release the brake. “all aboard?” said joan aloud.
peter shook hands with oswald over the side of the car, and glanced from him to the house and back at him. “i wish i could stay longer, sir,” said peter.
“there’s many days to come yet,” said oswald. for we never mention death before death in war time; we never let ourselves think of it before it comes or after it has come.
“so long, nobby!”
“good luck, peter!”
joan put the car into gear, and steered out into the road.
“the water-splash is lower than ever i’ve seen it,” said peter.
they ran down the road to the station almost in silence. “these poplars have got a touch of autumn in them already,” said peter.
531“it’s an early year,” said joan.
“the end, the end!” sang the song in joan’s brain. “but i’ll tell him all the same.”...
but she did not tell him until they could hear the sound of the approaching train that was to cut the thread of everything for joan. they walked together up the little platform to the end.
“i’m sorry you’re going,” said joan.
“i’m infernally sorry. if i’d known you’d get this week——”
“would that have altered it?” she said sharply.
“no. i suppose it wouldn’t,” he fenced, just in time to save himself.
the rattle of the approaching train grew suddenly loud. it was round the bend.
joan spoke in a perfectly even voice. “i know you have been lying, peter. i have known it all this week-end. i know your leave lasts until the twenty-first.”
he stared at her in astonishment.
“there was a time.... it’s to think of all this dirt upon you that hurts most. the lies, the dodges, the shuffling meanness of it. from you.... whom i love.”
a gap of silence came. to the old porter twelve yards off they seemed entirely well-behaved and well-disciplined young people, saying nothing in particular. the train came in with a sort of wink under the bridge, and the engine and foremost carriages ran past them up the platform.
“i wish i could explain. i didn’t know—— the fact is i got entangled in a sort of promise....”
“hetty!” joan jerked out, and “there’s an empty first for you.”
the train stopped.
peter put his hand on the handle of the carriage door.
“you go to london—like a puppy that rolls in dirt. you go to beastliness and vulgarity.... you’d better get in, peter.”
“but look here, joan!”
“get in!” she scolded to his hesitation, and stamped her foot.
532he got in mechanically, and she closed the door on him and turned the handle and stood holding it.
then still speaking evenly and quietly, she said: “you’re a blind fool, peter. what sort of love can that—that—that miscellany give you, that i couldn’t give? have i no life? have i no beauty? are you afraid of me? don’t you see—don’t you see? you go off to that! you trail yourself in the dirt and you trail my love in the dirt. before a female hack!...
“look at me!” she cried, holding her hands apart. “think of me tonight.... yours! yours for the taking!”
the train was moving.
she walked along the platform to keep pace with him, and her eyes held his. “peter,” she said; and then with amazing quiet intensity: “you damned fool!”
she hesitated on the verge of saying something more. she came towards the carriage. it wasn’t anything pleasant that she had in mind, to judge by her expression.
“stand away please, miss!” said the old porter, hurrying up to intervene. she abandoned that last remark with an impatient gesture.
peter sat still. the end of the station ran by like a scene in a panorama. her medusa face had slid away to the edge of the picture that the window framed, and vanished.
for some seconds he was too amazed to move.
then he got up heavily and stuck his head out of the window to stare at joan.
joan was standing quite still with her hands in the side pockets of her khaki overcoat; she was standing straight as a rod, with her heels together, looking at the receding train. she never moved....
neither of these two young people made a sign to each other, which was the first odd thing the old porter noted about them. they just stared. by all the rules they should have waved handkerchiefs. the next odd thing was that joan stared at the bend for half a minute perhaps after the train had altogether gone, and then tried to walk out to her car by the little white gate at the end of the platform which had been disused and nailed up for three years....
533
