George’s heart was already warm to the prospect, but his head cautioned
him against that same over-optimism while optimism gave him answer that the
boy himself would check that. He’s got a better mind than I have, George
reflected humbly; HE’LL be good for ME, too; he’ll not stand any of my
nonsense… And then optimism soared ridiculously as George day-dreamed them
both as co- workers for Browdley—Mayor and Member—what a team!
His eyes filled as he thought of it… highly unlikely, of course, but not
quite impossible… and what more need a dream be?
Before taking the train he had mentioned to Julie his plan to have Charles
at Browdley. He had had only a few moments with the girl because she was
going on night duty; they had met by appointment in the market square where
she had to change buses. She had told him then, since her arriving bus
brought up the subject, that she lived in a suburb of the town and that her
father was a schoolmaster there. George rode with her on another bus to the
big hospital not far from the railway station, and perhaps because they found
a seat on the top deck he was reminded of other bus rides, so many of them,
years before, with Livia. And the reminder, of course, emphasized the
difference of everything else, for no one in the world, he was sure, could be
less like Livia than Julie was…
She was delighted with his idea. “Oh, I’m so glad, Mr. Boswell. It’ll be a
real holiday for him.”
“Not much of a holiday resort, Browdley, but I’ll do my best to give him a
good time.”
“He’ll be with you, that’s the main thing, because I’ve noticed how good
for him you are.”
“You’ll be better, though, one of these days.”
“I hope so.” And then she added: “By the way, I know who you are now. He
told me.”
“He did. That’s fine. Now we none of us have any secrets from one
another.”
And suddenly again the same impulse he had had with Charles made him add:
“Why don’t you marry him soon?”
She seemed startled by a word rather than by the question. “Soon?… You
mean—before he—before he gets better?”
“Aye, why not? Don’t you want to?”
“I’d love to, but… in a way it would be taking an advantage. So many men
in hospitals fall in love with their nurses—THINK they’ve fallen in
love, anyhow. It often makes part of the cure, so the nurses don’t mind. But
a sensible nurse doesn’t take it too seriously, even if she falls in love
herself. That’s why I don’t consider our engagement as binding—not on
Charles, anyway. When he gets better he may prefer someone else.”
“And if he prefers someone else he may not get better. If I were you I’d
take THAT seriously.”
“You mean…”
“Aye, but think it over first. You’re pretty right and reasonable about
most things, I’d say.”
That was all they had time for, but he was left with a comfortable
reassurance that to be right and reasonable was not always to be prim and
cold; and this, for him personally, was like a pat on the back from the
Almighty.
So he enjoyed his thoughts during the journey back to Browdley.
A couple of weeks later, as he left a Council meeting, the Town Hall
porter handed him a wire that read: “Have just taken your advice. Honeymoon
at Scarborough. Then may we both accept your invitation to the Mayor’s Nest?
Julie and Charles.”
George stood for a few seconds in the Town Hall lobby, holding the wire
under the dim lamp; then his face broke suddenly into a wide slow smile that
made Tom Roberts grin back with cheerful impudence. “Backed a winner, Mr.
Mayor?” he quipped—the joke of that being the Mayor’s well-known
antipathy to betting of all kinds.
“Nay, Tom… TWO winners!” George answered, surprisingly, as he strode
down the Town Hall steps into Shawgate.
On his way to Browdley station to meet them, he could not
help reflecting
what an extraordinary thing it really was that he should be welcoming Livia’s
son to his home.
He had spent the evening with Wendover, being far too excited to settle to
any solitary work; and towards midnight, for a change and because of the
bright moon, he chose the slightly longer route through the waste land on the
fringe of the town, where factories met fields and—less
metaphorically—lovers met each other. And he thought of that evening,
so many years before, yet so well remembered, when he had passed that way in
the other direction, having taken old Lord Winslow to his train after the
unforgettable interview. And now it was that man’s grandson and a young wife
whom he was meeting—as happily as if he himself were young again and
happy about most things.
In fact he was momentarily so excited that when the train drew in and they
had all exchanged the first greetings, he was glad that a heavy suitcase
provided something immediate and practical to attend to—there being
neither cabs nor luggage delivery till next morning. Meanwhile Charles was
smiling and assuring George that he didn’t in the least object to a walk on
such a night, if it wasn’t too far. “Not far at all,” George answered,
chiefly for something to say to the stationmaster as they passed the exit.
“Except when I’m hurrying for the nine-five to Mulcaster—eh, Ted?”
They crossed the cobbled station yard and turned into the huddle of
streets. A few other walkers passed or overtook them, even so late— men
on their way to night-working factories, policemen, air wardens. George
pointed out the stationer’s shop in Shawgate that had formerly been his Uncle
Joe’s, and which still, after two changes of ownership, displayed the same
mixture of leather-bound ledgers, morocco editions of the standard poets,
Bibles, cookery books, and the works of Miss Florence Barclay. But as a
concession to the day and age, and with that ironic innocence of which the
English are so capable because they are unaware of it, a single modern
edition occupied pride of place in the very centre of the window—Mein
Kampf in an unexpurgated translation. George did not point this out, because
he saw in it nothing remarkable; but he did draw attention to the Mayor’s
office in the Town Hall with its rather florid stained-glass windows that an
earlier generation had considered stylish. He kept up a running gossip, also,
about Browdley people whom Charles and Julie would probably meet in due
course. “The Vicar—he’ll amuse you. He’s writing a book about Roman
numerals—has a theory about them—been busy on it for years
—he’s eighty-eight, I think… There’s a younger chap of seventy-odd
—Catholic priest—Wendover, by name—my best friend
—you’ll like HIM… That’s the new municipal swimming-bath— just
finished before the war began. Like a fool I said I’d make the first dive
when it was opened—used to be quite a swimmer when I was a lad
—but I hadn’t done any for years and I made a belly- flop that splashed
all the other councillors and their wives… it was the laugh of the place
the day after… Here’s the real business centre—the banks,
Woolworth’s, Lipton’s. And down that street is where I managed to enter the
world—the house isn’t there any more, and that’s another thing I
managed.”
Julie said: “You’d make a good guide, Mr. Boswell. Too bad there aren’t
any Cook’s tours to places like this.”
“Aye, it IS too bad. Some of the London folks ought to come here once in a
lifetime. They’d learn more than they would on the French Riviera—and
about their own country at that… And don’t you go on calling me Mr.
Boswell. Nobody here does.”
Presently Charles remarked: “And you’ve never had a raid?”
“So far, not a solitary bomb. They say you shouldn’t even whisper such a
thing—but I’m not superstitious. All I sometimes wish is that I could
clear everybody out of the town and organize my own raid. There’s still a few
thousand folks living in houses that oughtn’t to exist, and it’ll take me ten
years to finish ‘em off—the houses, I mean—even when peace
comes.”
George was silent again, and for a rather odd reason: at the very
utterance of the phrase ‘when peace comes’ he had been swept by a sudden
illusion that peace HAD come, and that Browdley under the moonlit sky was the
most peaceful spot, just then, on earth.
“Now you’ll have to let ME make YOU some coffee,” he said, as they turned
the corner from Shawgate into Market Street. “Because here we are— this
is the old Guardian office—my printing works—this is where I
live. You’ve seen most of the sights already—it’s only a small
town.”
“And an honest one too,” Charles commented, as George opened the front
door by merely turning the handle. “You live alone?”
“There’s Annie comes in every day to clean up a bit. She’s an old woman
now, but she’ll be glad to see you because—” He was on the point of
saying “because she knows who you are”, but he changed it at the last moment
to “because she’s got three nephews in the R.A.F.” Which was true.
While George was ushering them inside, somebody passed along the pavement
and called out the usual welcome. “‘Ow do, George. Back again?”
“How do, John. Aye, I’m back.”
It was the fourth or fifth exchange of similar greetings on their way from
the station. Charles laughed and commented that George certainly seemed to be
well known. George laughed also and said Aye, he wasn’t exactly a stranger in
those parts. The triteness of the remarks masked the tension they both felt
as they entered the little house. George led the way along the hall and into
his study, where he switched on a light after verifying that the curtains
were drawn. Usually, on bringing anyone there for the first time, he watched
for some sign of amazement at the shelves of books, but now he actually
forgot to do so and was recalled from far different thoughts when Charles
exclaimed: “Quite a library.”
George then made his familiar boast that it was the best private
collection in Browdley. But he added: “Not that I’d say the competition’s
been very keen.” And then he heard himself launching into what now seemed
just a ruefully amusing anecdote. “You know what your mother did once while I
was away? Took off a lot of the paper covers and burned ‘em… Thought she
was making the place tidy for me… My, I lost my temper—and that’s a
thing I don’t often do… Well, how about some coffee? Come in the kitchen
—it’s easier…”
They sat with the bare scrubbed table between them and had
tea, after all,
not coffee, because at the last moment George had felt shy of his
coffee-making prowess compared with Charles’s, and asked if tea wouldn’t do
as well. Charles and Julie said it would, so George made his own favourite
brew, which he could not imagine anyone disliking, though for the connoisseur
it would have been nauseatingly strong. He then put plenty of milk and sugar
into his own large cup, stirred it round, and was reminded of innumerable
times when, as a boy, he had carried a can of the same mixture to his father
at Channing’s Mill on cold winter mornings and had sneaked a sip or two on
the way.
George talked about the war and the post-war world; the news in the papers
was very encouraging, and he found it hard as ever not to be optimistic,
though after a lifetime of experience he could keep his optimism under wry
control. He still had ambitions, dreams, plans, and hopes; and if a small
portion of them ever came to anything, well, that was as much as a reasonable
man could expect, but it was also as little as a patient man would accept.
“It’s no good your people asking for the moon,” a testy political opponent
had said at the last Council meeting; to which he had replied: “Nay, Tom
—it’s the SUN they’re asking for—the MOON’S what I’ve promised
‘em when the war’s over. And if you fellers have any sense ye’ll settle for
that as a fair compromise.”
So now, by an easy transition, his talk with Charles led back to Browdley
again—its industries, homes, people, and future. “You’ll know what I
mean tomorrow when you look over the place. The war seems to have solved our
chief local problems—bad trade and unemployment—though it’s only
a fake solution, we’ll have our troubles again later. But for the time being
we’re better off, in some ways, than we used to be—everybody’s got
money, the Council has a budget surplus, and as for jobs—why, we’re
even short of men to fill ‘em.”
“I suppose there’s a good deal of female employment then?”
George began to laugh. “You mean, DO THE WOMEN WORK? Of course they do…
And I’m laughing same as when I read in some of those shiny-paper fashion
magazines what a marvellous thing’s happening in England because of the war
—the women are actually not idling any more! But the women of Browdley
never HAVE idled. They’ve worked in their homes and in factories and in both
together ever since the town began. Even when the men had nothing to do, the
women had plenty. So don’t you go praising ‘em in your speeches for the
novelty of getting their hands soiled!”
“You’re still dreaming, George. I shan’t make any speeches.”
“Aye, I forgot… I was just the same when I was your age—I could
talk, but I couldn’t make a speech. And even when I could I hated it at
first… But you’re not such a fool as to do anything you hate.”
“Who’s speaking now, George—the lion, the dog, or the dove?”
The remark put them in a mood in which Julie told them to go back to the
study and talk while she washed up in the kitchen; she insisted on this with
such emphasis that George wondered if she were deliberately contriving a
chance for him to talk to Charles alone. He was not sorry to have that
chance, anyway. The boy entered the study first and was drawing the curtains
aside before George could press the switch. The sudden flood of moonlight
criss- crossed the rows of books; it lay on his desk, on the litter of papers
and Council reports; full of gleams and shadows, it caught the glass in front
of photographs on the mantelpiece.
“Just wondered what sort of view you had, George.”
“Not much, I’m afraid. That’s the wall of the bus garage.”