Saint's Progress. Galsworthy John
and yet came pouring on. And still she waited motionless, with an awful fear. How could he ever find her, or she him? Then she saw that others of those waiting had found their men. And the longing to rush up and down the platform almost overcame her; but still she waited. And suddenly she saw him with two other officer boys, close to the carriages, coming slowly down towards her. She stood with her eyes fixed on his face; they passed, and she nearly cried out. Then he turned, broke away from the other two, and came straight to her. He had seen her before she had seen him. He was very flushed, had a little fixed frown between his blue eyes and a set jaw. They stood looking at each other, their hands hard gripped; all the emotion of last night welling up within them, so that to speak would have been to break down. The milk-cans formed a kind of shelter, and they stood so close together that none could see their faces. Noel was the first to master her power of speech; her words came out, dainty as ever, through trembling lips:
“Write to me as much as ever you can, Cyril. I’m going to be a nurse at once. And the first leave you get, I shall come to you – don’t forget.”
“Forget! Move a little back, darling; they can’t see us here. Kiss me!” She moved back, thrust her face forward so that he need not stoop, and put her lips up to his. Then, feeling that she might swoon and fall over among the cans, she withdrew her mouth, leaving her forehead against his lips. He murmured:
“Was it all right when you got in last night?”
“Yes; I said good-bye for you.”
“Oh! Noel – I’ve been afraid – I oughtn’t – I oughtn’t – ”
“Yes, yes; nothing can take you from me now.”
“You have got pluck. More than!”
Along whistle sounded. Morland grasped her hands convulsively:
“Good-bye, my little wife! Don’t fret. Goodbye! I must go. God bless you, Noel!”
“I love you.”
They looked at each other, just another moment, then she took her hands from his and stood back in the shadow of the milk-cans, rigid, following him with her eyes till he was lost in the train.
Every carriage window was full of those brown figures and red-brown faces, hands were waving vaguely, voices calling vaguely, here and there one cheered; someone leaning far out started to sing: “If auld acquaintance – ” But Noel stood quite still in the shadow of the milk-cans, her lips drawn in, her hands hard clenched in front of her; and young Morland at his window gazed back at her.
2
How she came to be sitting in Trafalgar Square she did not know. Tears had formed a mist between her and all that seething, summer-evening crowd. Her eyes mechanically followed the wandering search-lights, those new milky ways, quartering the heavens and leading nowhere. All was wonderfully beautiful, the sky a deep dark blue, the moonlight whitening the spire of St. Martin’s, and everywhere endowing the great blacked-out buildings with dream-life. Even the lions had come to life, and stared out over this moonlit desert of little human figures too small to be worth the stretching out of a paw. She sat there, aching dreadfully, as if the longing of every bereaved heart in all the town had settled in her. She felt it tonight a thousand times worse; for last night she had been drugged on the new sensation of love triumphantly fulfilled. Now she felt as if life had placed her in the corner of a huge silent room, blown out the flame of joy, and locked the door. A little dry sob came from her. The hay-fields and Cyril, with shirt unbuttoned at the neck, pitching hay and gazing at her while she dabbled her fork in the thin leavings. The bright river, and their boat grounded on the shallows, and the swallows flitting over them. And that long dance, with the feel of his hand between her shoulder-blades! Memories so sweet and sharp that she almost cried out. She saw again their dark grassy courtyard in the Abbey, and the white owl flying over them. The white owl! Flying there again to-night, with no lovers on the grass below! She could only picture Cyril now as a brown atom in that swirling brown flood of men, flowing to a huge brown sea. Those cruel minutes on the platform, when she had searched and searched the walking wood for her, one tree, seemed to have burned themselves into her eyes. Cyril was lost, she could not single him out, all blurred among those thousand other shapes. And suddenly she thought: ‘And I – I’m lost to him; he’s never seen me at home, never seen me in London; he won’t be able to imagine me. It’s all in the past, only the past – for both of us. Is there anybody so unhappy?’ And the town’s voices-wheels, and passing feet, whistles, talk, laughter – seemed to answer callously: ‘Not one.’ She looked at her wrist-watch; like his, it had luminous hands: ‘Half-past ten’ was greenishly imprinted there. She got up in dismay. They would think she was lost, or run over, or something silly! She could not find an empty taxi, and began to walk, uncertain of her way at night. At last she stopped a policeman, and said:
“Which is the way towards Bloomsbury, please? I can’t find a taxi.” The man looked at her, and took time to think it over; then he said:
“They’re linin’ up for the theatres,” and looked at her again. Something seemed to move in his mechanism:
“I’m goin’ that way, miss. If you like, you can step along with me.” Noel stepped along.
“The streets aren’t what they ought to be,” the policeman said. “What with the darkness, and the war turning the girls heads – you’d be surprised the number of them that comes out. It’s the soldiers, of course.”
Noel felt her cheeks burning.
“I daresay you wouldn’t have noticed it,” the policeman went on: “but this war’s a funny thing. The streets are gayer and more crowded at night than I’ve ever seen them; it’s a fair picnic all the time. What we’re goin’ to settle down to when peace comes, I don’t know. I suppose you find it quiet enough up your way, miss?”
“Yes,” said Noel; “quite quiet.”
“No soldiers up in Bloomsbury. You got anyone in the Army, miss?”
Noel nodded.
“Ah! It’s anxious times for ladies. What with the Zeps, and their brothers and all in France, it’s ‘arassin’. I’ve lost a brother meself, and I’ve got a boy out there in the Garden of Eden; his mother carries on dreadful about him. What we shall think of it when it’s all over, I can’t tell. These Huns are a wicked tough lot!”
Noel looked at him; a tall man, regular and orderly, with one of those perfectly decent faces so often seen in the London police.
“I’m sorry you’ve lost someone,” she said. “I haven’t lost anyone very near, yet.”
“Well, let’s ‘ope you won’t, miss. These times make you feel for others, an’ that’s something. I’ve noticed a great change in folks you’d never think would feel for anyone. And yet I’ve seen some wicked things too; we do, in the police. Some of these English wives of aliens, and ‘armless little German bakers, an’ Austrians, and what-not: they get a crool time. It’s their misfortune, not their fault, that’s what I think; and the way they get served – well, it makes you ashamed o’ bein’ English sometimes – it does straight: And the women are the worst. I said to my wife only last night, I said: ‘They call themselves Christians,’ I said, ‘but for all the charity that’s in ‘em they might as well be Huns.’ She couldn’t see it-not she!’ Well, why do they drop bombs?’ she says. ‘What!’ I said, ‘those English wives and bakers drop bombs? Don’t be silly,’ I said. ‘They’re as innocent as we.’ It’s the innocent that gets punished for the guilty. ‘But they’re all spies,’ she says. ‘Oh!’ I said, ‘old lady! Now really! At your time of life!’ But there it is; you can’t get a woman to see reason. It’s readin’ the papers. I often think they must be written by women – beggin’ your pardon, miss – but reely, the ‘ysterics and the ‘atred – they’re a fair knockout. D’you find much hatred in your household, miss?”
Noel shook her head. “No; my father’s a clergyman, you see.”
“Ah!” said the policeman. And in the glance he bestowed on her could be seen an added respect.
“Of