Strange Yesterday (27 page)

If only he could find the key! Perhaps it would link to what was happening now those strange memories of another life, of other lives, of all that was before the fire and flames. Perhaps it would tell him who was John Preswick, and what was the spell that hung over the garden.

But, again, perhaps it would not.

Of this and of many other things, he thought as he lay there, feeling the flowers in his nostrils and the cool wind across his cheek. Of this and of many other things—

The day passed. Away from the window, like a thistledown of fire, the sun drifted, to sink where the river twisted its gleaming way. Then there was twilight, and then there was darkness. But it was a lovely twilight, a calm darkness. It seemed almost incredible that this should be that same land of France that he had come to before, that the sodden trenches had been like those flat-lands, that a sun could lower over that place of horror and death and noise. Now, though, all of it was finished; never again would he be able even to hold a gun. And he thought to himself how much better it would have been had he died there, upon the battlefield, had the pieces of shrapnel burst his head instead of tearing open his arm. So much he had heard of men who would live at any cost! He thought of that, and he came to the conclusion that the cost was too much. It would have been far, far better had he died.

He was tired, and, as the night came down, he lay back and slept. In the morning all was different. He ate most of the food they brought him, tried to smile more, and talked to some of the other men in the room. The nurse put another pillow beneath his back, and though there was some pain in the new position, he endured it for the bit of freedom it gave him. There were all the papers from America, and even a few books. And quite frequently, the orderly would come in and read a dispatch concerning the latest forward progress of the Allies—always forward, it seemed. John Preswick attempted a joke with the man beside him, a fellow whose face was half shot away. But the joke fell miserably short, and for several hours after that he was silent, looking out of the window.

He was extremely fortunate in having a bed upon the window, for it speedily became his chief and only diversion. For hours he would lie there, staring down the slope, watching the soldiers, who sometimes came close, who sometimes came up to the windows with cigarettes. They were Americans, and until they went up to the front, it was good to speak with them. And after they were gone, after an interval, more came.

Always they were coming and going, quartering themselves in the square of the little town. And sometimes, more often of late, but still rarely and only when a strong wind was blowing, a faint, scarcely perceptible muttering would be heard from the east. The muttering would send cold shivers chasing up and down his spine and leave him with beads of sweat upon his brow.

It was not many days after that he asked the nurse for a mirror. When she gave it to him, he stared into it and studied himself. He was woefully thin. He had been a boy; now he was a man, and aging. At the very edge of his temple, he could trace a few gray hairs. The cheeks were sunken, his lips narrower and longer. No longer did they appear ready to break into a smile at the least suggestion. It was curiously bizarre.

Upon the same day, he asked the nurse whether she would write a letter for him. With a pad in her decidedly competent hands, she sat beside him, while he closed his eyes and began to speak.

“Inez,” he said. “—I mean I am writing to her. You can start it by—”

But how could he start it—?

“Dear Inez—” He paused, and then: “God only knows what you have thought in this time. Perhaps that I am dead. I would have written, Inez, but I could not. You see—”

He asked of the nurse: “Would you tell her?” And when she nodded:

“Inez, I was wounded, but now I am gaining back my health. I will not be able to go again to the trenches, so they tell me that when I am well enough, they will send me back to America. And that should be in less than two months, Inez, so you see that it has all been for the best—” His voice trailed away; opening his eyes, he stared out of the window.

“Yes?” the nurse inquired impatiently.

“—It has all been for the best. You must not worry, Inez, for I am not badly hurt. In fact, I shall be quite as sound as new. It will be good to come back again—to see the Steer's Head, to sit in the garden, to plant—”

But how could he, now that his arm was gone? How could he be anything but a useless hulk—?

“—It is very beautiful where I am, Inez, far back from the front in a château that must have belonged to some very wealthy person. I am near a window, and I can look out of it and down a broad, grassy slope, not so different from the one at home. Always there are soldiers passing, and yesterday a bird like an English sparrow hopped over my bed.”

The nurse was looking her impatience with frosty questioning.

“It is best, is it not, Inez? You must not be afraid because I am not writing this. I am not quite well enough for that yet. I should like to say more, but I cannot now. I love you, though, Inez.… I always shall.”

“And that is all?” the nurse asked him.

“Yes, that is all.”

She left him, and he was alone, staring out of the high window, something welling up in his throat. After all, he had not told her—but he could not. It was too bitter, too ghastly, too much of a farce. And would it not be more so when he returned? It came to him that in every way it would be better if he did not return. Why should he? At the very most, he was but a stranger. Before he had been able to work—now that was denied to him.

But why all this thought, when he knew with terrible certainty of conviction that he must return?

There was the garden, and there was the Steer's Head, and all of it was calling—calling with a sly mocking inflection. There was Inez.

10

F
REQUENTLY
he thought of Inez as he healed. Her letters he read through and through again, until they fell into pieces. She sent him cakes and dainties, and photographs she took about the house, and once she sent him a dozen tea roses, dry, but with their perfume lingering. From her letters he imagined that she suspected, but he could not be sure.

He learnt that he had internal injuries, and that he had been badly cut about the right breast. Slowly he mended; it was almost a month before he could leave his bed. Then they allowed him to walk put upon the lawn, but slowly and carefully, for he was still weak. For the first time he saw what manner of place he was in. It was a rather handsome stucco house, towered at each end, and adjoining what seemed to be a large gray chapel, also transformed into a hospital. The road was on the opposite side of it; ambulances came and went; also upon the other side were two lines of frame shelters.

For two more weeks he was there; then he was discharged, hardly yet well. But there were so many others—so very many. By stages he went to the coast, where he finally took ship for America. He had written before his going, and he knew that when his ship docked in New York, they would be there waiting. How certain he was of that! They would be there—Inez and the little old woman.

The way was slow. In his overseas uniform, his sleeve pinned up to his shoulder, he would walk the deck, steps hesitating and calculated, feeling vaguely uncomfortable at the pitying, sympathetic expressions upon the faces of the passengers. There were other disabled men returning with him, and, as well as he might, he sought only their companionship.

The going reminded him of the coming: the same fear of submarines, the same destroyers buzzing about, the same, endless, unchanging expanse of water.

And at last he came to New York, and they felt their way up through the Narrows, halted at the Island, and finally nosed into the dock with a swarm of puffing tugs at their heels. He stood upon a part of the deck where he could look down on the pier, but in the welter of upturned faces he could separate no one from another. All of it was noise and confusion. He allowed himself to move with the press to the gangplank, and then down to the pier.

They made a passage, and they gave way before him, as, still slowly, he moved along. So many people! As though it were all a dream, he went forward, step upon step, the crowd closing after him, swallowing up those others who came.

After all, Inez had not come.

Then she found him. She darted out, caught his hand, looked at him. She cried: “Johnny, Johnny—Johnny!”

And he was holding her to him, unmindful of the pain from his wounds, unmindful of the surging mob. Her face turned up, he kissed her. He saw that she was crying.

“Johnny,” she whispered, “look at me.”

“You see,” he said to her, “I couldn't tell you before. But now you see. Inez—don't do that.”

“I am not crying, Johnny. I don't care. So long as I have you again. I love you. Look at me.”

Into her deep-colored eyes he gazed, and then he caught hold of her and moved along. “Come, let's get out of this. Your grandmother is here? Then come.”

He felt her arm about his waist, felt the manner of her clinging to him, felt the pain of her against his still-tender wounds.

But it was such pain as he gloried in, such pain as to mingle itself with her who was pressing against him. Actually, she was leading him, guiding him through the press. She was small, though, smaller than he would have thought, smaller than he remembered her as being. Her mass of dark hair was tucked beneath her turban, but every so often she would glance up at him, smile into his eyes. Thinner, too—and there was something about her face—

Then they were out of it, and before the car. Drawing him in, she pressed him to a seat. The door closed, and they slid away. He saw that he was between Mrs. Vetcheri and Inez. Inez was talking, quickly and happily, but much too obviously so. The sleeve was towards her, and he did not think that Mrs. Vetch en had noticed it.

“I lost my arm,” he said bluntly. “My right one.”

Sudden silence from Inez; then Mrs. Vetchen looked at him, smiling slightly through her glasses. “You are not afraid, are you?” she asked him.

But Inez laughed, pressing close to him, lifting her eyes to his face, raising her hand to touch his cheek. “How thin you are. We shall have to fix that. Tell me, Johnny, did you get all my letters? And the cake? You were able to eat cake, weren't you, Johnny?”

“Yes, I was able to eat cake.”

“We're going all the way by auto,” she said hastily. “You won't mind that, will you, Johnny? It is better than a stuffy train, at any rate.”

He said: “I can't go back with you—now.”

“But why?”

Mrs. Vetchen was looking at him from behind her spectacles, her eyes wide with a peculiar gleam. In the diffused light she seemed almost lovely and not so old. Even smaller than Inez, she was, with a mouse-like pertness to her face. Very softly she said to him: “John Preswick, what are you saying? I am an old woman, so I do not see these things in the same light. And I am no longer a romanticist. You have never disobeyed me, John Preswick. If I were to tell you to return—order you to, what would you say?”

Thinking that they were making it more difficult than it needed to be, he shrugged his shoulders. “I cannot work now. I cannot come back as a beggar. After all, I am a stranger.”

“But are you a stranger, John Preswick? And if you do not come back, what will you do?”

“I'll have a pension. And then—I suppose I'll find ways—” There was California, but he could not put that to his lips.

“I say you must come back,” the old woman said, a trace of the old sharpness returning to her voice.

And as he turned to Inez then, he saw that she was smiling, and that in her smile there was a knowingness larger than herself. She drew forward, half off her seat, faced him, and put both hands upon his shoulders, just at his neck. “Johnny—” she whispered to him, leaning so close that her face almost touched his—“Johnny, there is so much that you do not know, that you never can. But, Johnny, I don't care. You see, it doesn't matter. Go ahead, kiss me, Johnny.”

11

T
HERE
was a strangeness to the last stretch of road, a wonderful familiarity too. He did not see the Steer's Head, for the car was a closed one, but he saw the hedge as they passed it: tall, broad, green, calm with the dignity of many, many years. They drew up before the gate to the garden, Inez going out first, he following her, and then old Mrs. Vetchen. He opened the gate, holding it for Inez and her grandmother, and after that followed them in, closing the gate behind them. With his back to it he stood, staring at the garden, staring at the two, who had gone forward until they noticed he was not with them.

“Johnny,” Inez called softly; but she saw his eyes, and she was silent as she walked towards him. “Go in, Granny,” she whispered.

“You missed it, didn't you?” she smiled, placing herself at his side, working her arm into his. “But it has not changed, Johnny. I knew you would like that. You were always speaking of the garden, always writing of it. You did love it, didn't you, Johnny? The pinks are out, and the tulips. If you go near enough, the peppermint smells like a huge dish of taffy.”

“No, it has not changed,” he agreed.

“And Frank was asking about you, Johnny. I think it was the third or the fourth time in my whole life I heard him speak. But, Johnny, can you look at this and not feel glad? There are so many things to do. You can still plant. You can still—love me.”

So tiny was she, staring up at him with her anxious, narrow face. Walking over to one of the concrete benches, he sat down. She dropped beside him and laid a hand on his knee. But she did not speak, sensing, perhaps, what was in his mind; for his head was tilted, and he was staring over the hedge at the Steer's Head. Large, and round, and bluff, it was, jutting up, but tired, more like an old cow than a steer. He could see the tree upon the top; he could see the side of bare rock.