Authors: Winifred Holtby
'I believe so, though — er - as a member of the Society of
Friends I have not a very clear idea of the Anglican distinc
tions.'
'
Are you a Quaker? How thrilling. We have some neigh
bours who are Quakers and awfully nice really. The girls
are quite sporting, and one of them plays tennis for our
club's first six.'
'I am glad that the Society of Friends meets with your
approval,' Mr. Guerdon observed dryly.
* * * *
A shower fell as the three vehicles wound their way among
the traffic into Richmond Road and through the gates of
the cemetery, but suddenly the sky brightened as at the foot pace they crawled down the long drive between the graves.
The slanting sun lit the daffodils like golden flames in the
green grass, and sparkled on the wet grass bubbles covering
white china doves and posies.
A shaft of light came through the window, illuminating
Eleanor's face, as she sat, stiff and silent beside the sullen
bulk of the Reverend Ernest Smith.
Both she and the clergyman were staring out of different
windows into the cemetery. Roger Mortimer, who faced
them from the smaller seat, could look as long as he liked at her face, learning by heart the clear delicate line of her chin,
her level brows, and the severe curve of her young mouth.
He had need to look long and steadfastly at her, for perhaps
after to-day their ways might never meet again. She was
right, of course. He could not ask her to share, or even to
understand his self-imposed obligations. She could go her
own way, and he prayed that she would win success. For if
she desired wealth and power, her ambition was not ignoble.
She believed that society needed rich and powerful women, who had worked their way from obscurity to eminence, and
she believed quite impersonally and firmly in her own
ability to accomplish such a destiny. At least she had the
courage to attempt it. No obstacle of personal or domestic complication must hinder her advancement. Her socialism
would temper her ambition and her sense of responsibility would balance her egotism. He could regard her now with
impartial detachment, he could see that there was a generosity and nobility about her which experience would develop. It had been fine of her to throw away her chance of
going to America in order to look after poor Miss Denton-
Smyth and to disentangle the finances of the Christian
Cinema Company. It had been fine, though foolish, to
throw away her security with such apparent indifference,
especially when she had so keen a sense of financial values.
She believed in holding tightly on to power and money.
She believed in the necessity for taking risks.
There was none like her, none. He could thank his God
always on every remembrance of her. His work would be
more tolerable because of his knowledge that humanity
could achieve such grave and honest generosity. He would dislike futility and confusion less because at least he had
known one woman whose mind was cool and clear.
He could thank Caroline too. Had she not brought them
together? She always said that she wanted to enrich him.
She had enriched him. She had given him something that
he valued more than any other earthly experience.
These last few days had been very sweet to him. Ever since Eleanor rang him up to tell him of Caroline's death,
he had seen her continually. She had let him help her with
the arrangements for the funeral. She had let him go with
her when she identified the body and gave evidence at the
inquest. They had lunched together after the inquest in a
little restaurant in Church Street.
This funeral service was the ceremony of his farewell, not
only to Caroline, but to Eleanor. He believed that she too had been glad to know him better. She was not wholly in
different to him, but he could be glad now that she had not
loved him. There must be no pain for her in this farewell.
Afterwards he knew that he would have bad times, want
ing her. He knew that he might grow jealous of her work and her preoccupations, and complain against the fate that
severed them. But now he felt only
pride and thankfulness
for love.
'But oh, my dear, my dear, my dear,' his heart cried, as
the car at last drew up beside the raw gaping cavern of an
open grave, 'how shall I live without you?'
He climbed out of the car, and held the door open for
her. As she sprang down, a blackbird in the wet thorn bush
beside her broke into jubilant song.
* * * *
Eleanor stood beside the grave staring down at the dark hole in the earth. So this was the end of Caroline. This, she
believed, was the complete and final end of one small indi
vidual adventure. Caroline was dead, and all her dreams
died with her. The school which she had tried to found had
failed. Her poems and
Path of Valour
lay unread and un-
remembered. The Christian Cinema Company had appar
ently existed in order to provide Mr. Johnson with a means
of escaping his debts. Her many other plans had progressed
no further than their conception in her fertile brain. This
vivid unreliable April sunlight was the final comment upon
her precarious and perishing activity.
On the tarpaulin covering the cast-up loam from the
grave, lay wreaths and crosses, the conventional white
wreath from the Marshington Smiths, and Mr. Guerdon's chaplet, a handsome cross bore a card 'From the Christian
Cinema Company with gratitude and remembrance.'
There lay Roger's scarlet carnations with an inscription in Greek. She must tease him about that. It was so typical of
him to spend his money on red carnations, and then to
decorate them with an inscription that nobody could read.
Or did he think that Caroline's immortal mind, inhabiting
her celestial body, was enfranchised into the vast liberties of
classical learning? Did he picture her ghost peering down through her lorgnettes and taking pleasure in this tribute to
her culture? Eleanor's own daffodils looked naive and coun
trified beside his rich, defiant garland. But then Roger
loved hot-house flowers, and heavy draperies, and purple, and incense and processions. He was not, like Eleanor, a stranger to this English spring, enraptured by its chill, dewy
freshness and the surprising candour and bravery of its
flowers. In this, as in so many other things, he seemed to
provide the complement to her tastes and nature. Oh, they were made for one another. What folly, what folly to let a
catchword part them. It was not a question of a future company director and Socialist member of parliament marrying
a curate. It was a question of Eleanor marrying Roger
Mortimer, the one person whom, since her father died, she
could ever love.
After all, if one intended to conduct social experiments,
was it not safer to share them with the most honourable
and unselfish person whom one knew? Roger had that
queer indefinable quality of goodness. She trusted him.
Why, after all, should she remain celibate just because she
intended to have a public career? She would not become
an unpaid curate-housekeeper in Bermondsey. She would marry him and go off, just as she had intended, to Perrin's works in Manchester. She would go to America as soon as
she persuaded Brooks to take her. Roger would understand. He was the one person in the world who ever would under
stand, the one man she had ever met who wanted his mar
riage to be an adventure not a refuge. Why should she be
so squeamish about his future when she knew perfectly well
his odd ambition to remain a poor and overworked parish
priest? Why should she be so timid about her own capacity?
Surely strength to shoulder burdens developed with their
weight?
'The present generation of feminists must marry,' thought Eleanor, listening to Roger's voice reading the funeral service. 'And if we fail, we can always separate. There's noth
ing final in this world but death. And after death . . .'
She looked down into the black cavern of the grave. Sup
posing it were Roger who lay there in the bright coffin?
And supposing, from cowardice, she had kept away from him?
After all, marriage was not the only cause of failure. She
thought of Caroline, and of her great desires. She thought
of the tragic comedy of her will, remembering her wish to
become a general benefactor.
And yet, was not Caroline's wish fulfilled? She had
wanted to leave legacies to her relatives at Marshington,
and here were Betty and Dorothy, very pleased with themselves, enjoying a shopping and theatre holiday in London.
She had wanted the Christian Cinema Company to benefit
mankind, and had it not done so? Mr. St. Denis had had
his diversion from it, Hugh his advertisement, Johnson his romance, Guerdon the gratification of his conscience, and
Isenbaum - well, Isenbaum was rather a mystery, but Mr.
St. Denis had once said something about getting his son to Eton. It seemed probable, considering everything else, that
he had done so. Caroline had wanted to leave a legacy to
Mrs. Hales, and though she had quarrelled later with the
landlady, Eleanor was sure that her sense of Christian for
giveness would have been gratified by the thought that the arrears of her rent had been paid at last, and that Mrs. Hales was browsing happily among the brilliant fragments of her wardrobe. She had wished for Roger his heart's desire. She
had wanted so eagerly to enrich him, to make him happy.
Why not? Why not?
Eleanor knew then that she could not let him go off alone
to Bermondsey without knowing that she loved him. Life
was so short, and justice so uncertain. Must one not take risks, living under the shadow of annihilation?
She looked up at Roger as though she had never really
seen him before, and knew what she would do.
The ceremony was over. She followed Betty and Dorothy
past the grave, throwing into it a bunch of primroses. As
though she heard it now, she remembered Caroline's quick
excited voice from the infirmary bed, crying, 'When you
come to think of it, Eleanor, I've had a very remarkable
life.' That was it. That was the way to live, acknowledging
no limitations, afraid of nothing.
She returned to the car with the two girls and Mr. Guer
don. She remembered that Roger had to go straight from
the cemetery back to St. Augustine's for a wedding. At the
car-step, she asked Mr. Guerdon,
'Have you a pencil on
you?'
He had. He produced one awkwardly. She found in her
bag her little diary and tore a leaf from the end of it and
wrote, supporting it on her knee, her foot on the step of the
car.
'Please wait just a minute,' she said, and ran back to the
undertaker's young man who still stood by the grave.
'I want you to give this to Father Mortimer
without fail,'
she said, folding her note very small and neatly.