Authors: Rebecca West
Those were the two things that used to come into her mind to vex her, to soothe her, to leave her in such a state of suspense that she felt faint, as she sat with the two men. They always had to wait a little because poor overworked Etta was late, and the conversation would run dry. She would stir and look down at the floor, feeling that Francis Pitt was in the same state that she was, that he would like to shy and bolt like a frightened horse; and presently he would invent some curiosity that could only be satisfied by leaving the room, he would want to know whether it was going to rain and would go out to look at the barometer in the hall, he would become doubtful whether the butler understood about the port he wanted opened and would stray off in search of him. And Essington would say, ‘The poor little man looks bad tonight. He takes this Hurrell business too seriously.’ Yes, that was what was the matter with Francis Pitt. His best friend was dying, of course he was upset. Things were better when they went into dinner. The tired men began to eat and drink and say more individual things and enjoy them. But there was a little time before the women would be quite sure that what they could say would be well received, so she and Etta would sit silent while the man-talk went on over their heads, hard, metallically glittering, fire-spun, incomprehensible, like the sort of things, the tangle of wire and girders one sees, if one lifts one’s eyes as one passes a great office building when it is being put up. Essington moved among the affairs of the world in his characteristic way, like an artist moving among the easels of his pupils at an art school, rubbing out faulty strokes in their drawings and sketching in the perfect line with a fretful gesture that would be intolerable if it were not that he really was a great artist, that the drawings really were botched, that better than anybody he knew how to correct them; and Francis Pitt trotted after him, using his little paw-fists without fretfulness but with mischief to smear any drawing that was being too beautiful, too highfalutin’, that was not subjecting itself to the censorship of commonsense. Always, every evening, however much below their own form they might be, she recognised in them the quality that great actors have. Only sometimes it occurred to her queer that the end to which they were bending their greatness was the rebuilding of the Liberal Party. Thinking of the running backward and forward of weak people that had been the political spectacle just before the war, as she remembered very vividly because she was just starting with Essington then and was trying hard to understand what he was doing in case he got tired of her because she was stupid, she saw no hope that if they did get the thing going again it would give them any opportunity to be nearly as wonderful as they could be. Instead they ought to … They ought to what? There was nothing else for them to do. It was worthwhile following an art or a science, but one could only do that if one was definitely the sort of person that gets ordered about, a subordinate, a private soldier, and these two were officers. They could not be led by something vague outside themselves, as artists and scientists have to be, they had to lead; and as nobody knew where humanity ought to be helped there was bound to be a lot of futility about the business of leading them. Human beings were like the lovely old wineglasses on the table, that were of crystal, that had the form and substance of falling water held for ever to its momentary beauty within them, that were painted with gold patterns as beautiful as the markings of flower petals, that would not change with time, but that would hold nothing but wine, which is not so nice after all. Babies are born, they grow up into these wonderful things with these bodies that may be ugly but affect one as if they were beautiful and these great brains, and they can cancel out death by giving one children so that the race goes on; but, gorgeous and deathless as they are, life fills them up with an activity that is not good enough, with politics, with wars that end in neither victory nor defeat, with things that, say what you like, don’t really please anybody. What men make is not so good as the making of men. Having a baby and bringing it up has more of the quality that belongs to a good gesture, to the fine performance of a part, than all this niggling. She felt a flush of pride because she was doing what Essington always said all women in general and she in particular never did: thinking about principles; and then with dismay she realised, as she nearly always had to do when she felt proud for that reason, that it wasn’t any use her having done what Essington wanted her to do, since it had led her to conclusions that he would not approve.
From thoughts such as these she was always called by her need, which was as insistent as a drugtaker’s desire for his dose, to look at Francis Pitt; and every time she looked at him his eyes had just slid away from her face. Surely he was always thinking of her just as she was always thinking of him. Every now and then he would say something that showed he had been furtively watching her all that evening and all the other evenings. ‘Miss Fassendyll doesn’t like endive salad. Take it away. Remember she likes lettuce.’ Sometimes it made her quite sure that he loved her. Sometimes she thought she was under the spell or a delusion, for it seemed to her that Essington also was furtively watching her; and even Etta too. But that was understandable, for when Etta looked at her she also looked sorry for her. Sunflower knew that she was thinking of how dreadfully Essington had behaved at that first dinner, and she was probably imagining that he was like that all the time whereas he had been so much, much better lately. She used to smile at Etta reassuringly. But fortunately at that stage in the dinner there would come suddenly a burst of that good fellowship which was drawing them together night after night to the exclusion of all other friends. As if a whip had been cracked as a signal the two men became extravagantly genial, they brought the women into the conversation, they teased them, they made a fuss of them. Francis Pitt told stories that illustrated Etta’s Marthadom, Essington demonstrated, but was nice about Sunflower’s stupidity. ‘It isn’t that the dear creature’s stupid, she’s guileless. She can’t believe that anybody can say anything that they don’t mean. It’s astonishing how that incapacity eats through modern life …’
But it had all been different, it had not been so breathless, so torturing, since the night which was the last they had spent together. After dinner Etta had gone to telephone the nurse’s ten o’clock report to the doctor, and the rest of them had gone up as they always did to try to help Hurrell through the period before midnight, which was the worst time in the twenty-four hours for him, because he woke from the doze of exhaustion which followed the effort of eating his supper and lay tossing and sweating in a state that was as different as sleep from ordinary wakefulness, that was as if bright lights had been turned on inside his brain. Essington was sitting by his bed, twirling his moustache in his fussy way, and purring scandalous insinuations against all the more respectable members of the Liberal Party when the smile died on Hurrell’s face, which was now so terribly thin that it was just a cage for his spirit, and there was a queer rattling noise as if his spirit had run in terror to the bars of its cage and was shaking them. Francis Pitt, who had been sitting hunched on the other side of the bed, sprang up with an air of coming into his own, saying, ‘Go out, go out.’ Sunflower ran out on to the landing and called over the banisters, ‘Nurse! Nurse!’ and Essington came and stood beside her, breathing quickly. The nurse ran upstairs with a flouncing of starched petticoats and asked an unnecessary question without waiting for an answer. Essington muttered squeamishly, ‘The human machine, the human machine,’ and covered his mouth with his hand. She murmured, ‘Go downstairs and get some brandy for yourself, dear,’ keeping her eyes on the door. Presently it opened and Francis Pitt came out. He remembered to shut it very gently, and then leaned heavily against the latch. She went to him and put out her arms for him to take, and said, ‘Come away with me.’ Without speaking he lifted his head so that she could see what had happened. His shirt-front was soaked with the sick man’s blood. His great mouth was working with disgust, but his loyalty to his friend was making him choke back all sound. She felt angry with Hurrell. She said, ‘Which is your bedroom?’ She hated not knowing. He wagged his head towards one of the mahogany doors, and she led him to it. There was blood on his hands too, so she had to open the door. It was a very ugly room with nothing personal about it; poor dear, he had not been able to furnish even his own room. Without turning on the light in case he wanted to cry she took him to the bed and said, ‘Lie down, lie down.’ Afterwards she was quite sure she had not called him dear. He obeyed and lay down across the bed. He was so little that he did not reach all the way across it. She went to the dressing-table and found a pair of scissors, calling comforting things to him softly over her shoulder. He whimpered just so that she could hear it, as if to ask her to go on, as if to tell her there was need of it. Then she went back and cut the starched front of his shirt away from the soft linen body. All the while he was shuddering with disgust and making these little whimpering sounds. It struck her as queer that he should love his friend and yet get into such a state over contact with his blood, particularly as it wasn’t really very bad, for the blood had not soaked through the starched shirt-front, it had not stained his vest, much less touched his skin. It did seem odd that unless men were trained to it as doctors, they cannot do what almost any woman can, and perform a kind of alchemy in their minds which takes the horror away from any substance provided that it belongs to somebody one is looking after, so that when one is minding a baby or a sick person one never thinks of that sort of thing. He loved Hurrell, but he simply could not do that for him. As her hands worked over him, slipping down between his flesh and his collar so that she could pull out the stud and free the shirt-front, she realised that there were many things which, like this, he simply could not do. Even should it happen that he loved her, if they went on a journey together and met with hardship he would not be able to go on being sweet to her; if she made herself ridiculous in front of other people he would not be able to be loyal; if he had to choose between hurting her or himself he would not be able to choose to hurt himself. But all that was not really of the slightest importance. She had strength enough for both of them. Seeing that he was straining to lift his head and brace himself, she murmured, ‘Don’t try, faint if you want to, it won’t do you any harm, it’s trying not to that makes you feel so bad, just shut your eyes and let go. Pretend you’re asleep …’ His body loosened, he lay quite still. She had to slip her hand under his neck to take out his back collar-stud, and his big head wobbled. It was funny having him this way. It was like undressing a drowsy baby; one felt that the next thing to be done was to pick him up and carry him with his little tummy against one’s shoulder and his big mouth uttering woeful sleepy cries into a steaming bathroom full of warm fleecy towels. She had cut away all the bloodstained linen by now, but she continued to stand and look down on him, for she knew she would never have him this way again. It was safe for her to do that, since his eyes were shut. She bent quite low over him, trying to note all the dear oddness of his appearance through the darkness that the wedge of light from the open door just raised to twilight. Then she saw that his eyes were not shut. He was lying there looking up at her. For a long time they stayed so. Then Essington’s voice spoke meekly from the door. ‘Can’t I do anything?’ She turned and saw him standing on the threshold, the light striking on his bowed head, and his long, fine, wrinkled hand, which he was resting on the door-post, very high, above his head, as if that helped him to pull up his bowed shoulders. She answered, ‘I know, I know, I shall be out in a minute.’ Francis Pitt rolled over on his side and lay with his cheek on his folded hands. Now his eyes were shut. She lifted his dressing-gown from the chair where it had been left ready for the night and laid it over him, whispering, ‘We’ll go. You needn’t come downstairs again. I hope everything’ll be all right.’ He did not seem to hear. A long deep breath shook him. She took the bloodstained linen in her hand, in case the sight of it should upset him when he rose and turned on the light, and went out on to the landing to Essington. He was leaning on the banisters. Looking down into the hall, he said, ‘Stay with him if there’s anything you can do.’ She answered, ‘No, I want to go home.’ He turned and ran very quickly down the stairs, saying, ‘I hope Harrowby is ready, I hope the car is there …’
She did not know what had happened then; only that something had happened. When one is falling from a great height one knows nothing except that one is falling. But after that she had never worried so much about how things were between them. Why should he have lain like that, little and not moving, unless he felt happy at being looked after by her? And what could one want more than that? Anyway it was lovely to remember, particularly that little time when he had just lain still and looked up at her, and perhaps it was as well that she had never been back to the house by night, because now she never thought of it with darkness among its heavy hangings and in its raw-toned rooms without feeling again that atmosphere which had throbbed with grief, and tenderness, and gratitude. But of course when her play had first started she had not felt that way, she had missed going up to dine with him quite dreadfully. That first night she had sat in her dressing-gown in front of her mirror, pinning her orchid to her shoulder-strap, because that was the sort of thing nobody could do for you, not properly, and thinking, ‘If I did not have to act, I would be driving up to his house now, the car would be going through that funny garden, I should be going to see him in a few minutes, if I did not have to act.’ And as she stared into the glass she suddenly perceived that there was looking back at her a face haggard with hunger. Two great lines were stamped upright between her eyebrows, her lips were thin and drawn backwards. In fear she exclaimed to herself, ‘What, do I care as much as all that?’ It could not be wise to care as much as all that. There stirred in her mind a recollection of how one day when she was so small that she still played on the floor a woman carrying in her arms a new loaf which smelt nice had come and stood for ever so long with Mother at the front door, while they talked in low voices of someone who was in a bad way, a very bad way, because a soldier had left her. She trembled with fear, she opened her powder box and shut it again, and pulled the lid off a jar of cold cream without looking what she was doing, as if her flesh, more foolish than her eyes, hoped there was something really useful kept in these little china things, something magic that one could eat and be happy. She was even glad when the call-boy came and she had to go on the stage and play that silly part.