The Aerodrome: A Love Story (18 page)

the spirit of adventure, inquiry, the sweet and terrifying sympathy of love that can acknowledge mystery, danger, and dependence. So I thought as I gazed over the valley while waiting for the Doctor, yet perhaps not so distinctly as I have set it down here, for at the back of my mind was continually the thought of Bess and my anxiety for her. I did not at this time inquire into the reasons for my anxiety or the sources of my deep and still undefined feeling; but I reproached myself with my own conduct to her when I reflected that it was my pride rather than my lack of feeling that had led me to abandon her so entirely and had thrown me into a profession in which it had become almost impossible for me to think of her at all. I was recalled from my thoughts by hearing the Doctor's steps on the stairs. I turned round to meet him and was dismayed to notice the gravity of his face. Hesitating to question him lest there should be no comfort in his reply, I was surprised when he looked at me wearily and said: "She'll be all right. It will take weeks, perhaps months, before she's perfectly well. But she'll be all right. No question of it." The pleasure which my face must have expressed awoke no response in his. He looked hard at me and said: "I only hope I've done right. Remember that I'm depending on you." I followed him round the corner of the house and into the road, mystified by what he had said, and as we walked I noticed the anxious and worried expression of his face. Presently he smiled somewhat grimly and turned to me. "Often one wonders," he said, "whether it may not be best to leave ill alone, but I know that my own small accomplishments consist in restoring health, and I know that I must attempt to do so, however inconvenient the results of my efforts may be. Now listen carefully." We had come to a gate in one of the fields below the aerodrome, and here we stopped, leaning against the gate, while the Doctor continued. "It is necessary, of course," he said, "to convince this girl that her relationship with you was a perfectly innocent one. What will cure her is for her to be able to recognize that she is still in love with you, as indeed she is, but she is prevented from recognizing this by the deep feeling of the criminality of what you have done together. I have already succeeded partially in convincing her that you are not her brother. I happen to know that you are not, and this may be a fact that will surprise you. There is no need for me to go into any explanation of this. You have chosen your career and you know the views of the Air Vice-Marshal on this subject. You will simply have to take my word for the fact that I knew your father. He was a remarkably distinguished man, but died young. He had nothing whatever to do with Bess's mother. Let us leave it at that." Here he looked at me sharply as though to make sure that I would obey his instructions and not question him further. My face, no doubt, was calm enough, since I was waiting for what he had next to say. He can have had no idea of the mental agitation into which his speech had thrown me. "Now," he went on, "the important thing to decide is how to act when she has recovered her health. We have to consider two people, her and yourself. The burden of acting correctly will fall naturally on you. I can see that you have no wish to injure her any further. Let me remind you of how you can avoid doing so. First of all she will be, in all probability, much more inclined to fall in love with you than she ever was before. She will be aware that, however childish your affection for her may have been, it was at least more genuine than anything she has ever known, and she is now in a position to value it. That is somewhat unfortunate, for you have succeeded admirably in your career and are no longer in a position to give to her what you once gave. She has already had enough of our Air Force convention of making love and you might well do her some lasting damage if you were to give her a fresh experience of it. Any kindness you can show her at this stage will be of great value; but you must not go further than this." He paused again, and turned his sharp eyes upon me. I could not help smiling at his flushed face and at his serious air, for it was evident that he completely misunderstood my feelings. He appeared somewhat embarrassed by my smile, and continued speaking with greater vehemence. "There is, of course," he said, "one other alternative. It may be that the strong associations of the past together with the girl's exceptional good looks may turn your head. That would be a tragedy for all concerned. It might even lead to the end of your career. I should find it very difficult to forgive myself if I found that I had contributed to such a result. As you know, I am bound to the Air Vice-Marshal not only by duty but by affection. You have been singularly fortunate in attracting his notice and even his regard. Neither you nor I must leave him in the lurch." He was looking sternly at me as though waiting for a reply, and I found it difficult to meet his eyes, for I knew his devotion to the Air Vice-Marshal and indeed I still partly shared it in spite of my recent reflections. I knew that the Air Vice-Marshal had reposed such trust in me that I was perhaps after himself the person with the fullest knowledge of our calculations and of our aims. He would regard my dereliction of duty and my present way of thought not only as weak and unworthy, but actually as traitorous. It would appear to him that I was prepared to sacrifice his esteem and the certainty of power for something as insubstantial as a dream or shadow which I had not defined clearly even to myself. For a moment or two I was in two minds whether or not to tell the Doctor that in any case my expulsion from the Air Force was certain; but I saw that if I did so and told him of the reasons for this certainty, he would, in the first place, assure me that I should find it easy to persuade Eustasia to get rid of her child, and if I declared my unwillingness to do this he would assume that it was Eustasia who, in his phrase, had turned my head. But the situation was too complicated to be analysed by such directness of thought. So far as love went, the love that is a concentration of all the feelings on a single person, I knew that for all my life I should never love anyone but Bess; nor at this time did I anticipate much happiness from my connection with her, since her own state was so far removed from happiness. But there was other love, too, a myriad shapes of it, shapes that blended into each other, were interlocked or were irreconcilable, a bewildering and rich confusion where it was easy for one's way to be lost. Yet it was one thing to lose one's way, another to proclaim, as the Air Vice-Marshal had done, that no way was to be found. And unless I was prepared, as he was, to reject and despise the whole world of time and movement, colour and alteration, I had no right and could have no desire to attempt to exercise any control over Eustasia in a matter which concerned her so nearly. She, it seemed to me, had accomplished something wonderful in breaking the bondage of sterility which had been imposed on her and on the wives of all our officials, though she had made a mistake in taking me seriously, and I a much greater mistake in shrinking from the infinite implications of all love. The mistakes had been made, and I could see no means of redressing them. But least worthy of all means was what would be recommended to me by the Air Vice-Marshal and perhaps the Doctor, to deny wholly the relevance of the world of time and feeling where such mistakes were only too easy to make, and to erect in contrast with it our own barren edifice of perfection, our efficient and mystical mastery over time. I had hesitated for long in replying to the Doctor, and he, thinking perhaps that I had been offended by his mere mention of the possibility that I might desert the Air Vice-Marshal, slapped me on the back as though to make amends for any indiscretion that there may have been in his speech. He smiled, and again I observed that he was looking at me curiously, though with a twinkle in his eye, as if I were some patient on whom he was glad to bestow his attention. "Things work out very curiously," he said. "Very curiously indeed." We began to walk on, and I was at a loss at this time to interpret the meaning of his remark.

CHAPTER XVIII

New Friends

THERE WAS NOW so swift a succession of events, and these events were of so surprising a character, that it is almost impossible for me to describe accurately the transformation in my mind and in the minds of others which was, if not exactly caused, certainly accelerated and concluded by what took place in the week or two that followed my conversation with the Doctor. First, perhaps, I should mention the several interviews which I had with the Rector's wife during this period, not that these interviews were of great importance in themselves, but because they led up to what was for me the most surprising and important event of all. It was on the day after I had first visited Bess with the Doctor that I had occasion to walk down to the club house and, as I left the aerodrome, observed the Rector's wife standing in the road outside the main gates. Something in her manner when she greeted me seemed to show that she had been waiting there expressly to see me and I remember, so changed was I already, that I felt some distress when I reflected that my profession had set such a barrier between me and the lady who had brought me up with much care and kindness and who was, to the best of my knowledge, my mother. Since, however, there was no certainty about my parents, I was not debarred from entering into conversation with her, and I experienced a strange feeling of relief and of elation when she agreed willingly to my proposal that we should walk down to the village together. She admitted that she had come to the aerodrome in the hope of seeing me, and told me that ever since the shooting of her friend she had been anxious for news of the Flight-Lieutenant. As she spoke I watched her from time to time, and admired as I had not done for long the calmness of her speech and gestures, the grace and delicacy of bearing which she still retained in spite of age. Scenes from the past which I had forgotten recurred to my mind, scenes of childhood and boyhood, and the scene in the Rectory after the celebration of my birthday when both she and I had listened to her husband's confession. I began to wish for certainty as to whether she were my mother or not, and was surprised that she herself seemed content to allow me to be in doubt, though I felt no resentment at this, for I fancied that if she were indeed my mother her attitude would have been determined by some weighty consideration or might be a deliberate sacrifice in order to help me in my career. I had nothing with which I could reproach her, but rather, as we went down the hill together, reproached myself for my neglect, which seemed to me equally culpable whether she were my mother or not. I listened eagerly to her questions about the Flight-Lieutenant, and was glad to be able to answer them, for only that morning the Air Vice-Marshal had been discussing his case with me, and I knew that he was to be released that day, reduced to the ranks, and employed as a mechanic in one of the sheds. I had been surprised that he had not been expelled from the service and had indeed suggested this course, believing that this would be what he wished himself, and that in any case he was not likely to be of much use to us. The Air Vice-Marshal had astonished me not by the severity of the punishment which he inflicted (for the Flight-Lieutenant's work would be extremely arduous and his pay greatly reduced), but by the evident consideration which he still showed for the young man. "We will give him one more chance," he had said. "He may have something in him after all." And he had looked at me as though he were the slightest bit ashamed of the leniency which he imagined himself to be showing. For my own part I knew what must be the Flight-Lieutenant's state of mind, since I shared it myself; but I had made no comment, though I felt uneasy at the part which I was still forced to play; for I had decided to wait for some days at least before telling the Air Vice-Marshal of my own state. I did not know what would be the result of my confession, whether I should be discharged outright or perhaps be sent under guard to some other part of the country with restrictions placed on my movements, and I wished for some days at least to mark the progress, which the Doctor had regarded as certain, in Bess's condition. I was able then to tell the Rector's wife everything which she wished to know about the Flight-Lieutenant, and she appeared relieved to hear that he had met with no worse punishment. "I am only sorry," she said, "that he's still attached to the aerodrome", and here she looked at me somewhat apologetically as though certain that her words would displease me. "I know that you are doing very well there, Roy," she said. "I always hoped that you would do well, though now I'm afraid I'm not so certain about it all. You can't think that I should feel very friendly to the aerodrome when I've seen all these changes made, and when I remember Florence." She saw, and I think was glad to see, that her words, so far from offending me, had been welcome. Now she smiled somewhat sadly and said: "I was really as foolish as a young girl might be when I thought that I should like to see you in the Air Force. I thought it was romantic, I suppose, and manly." I was thinking of the scene in the church when the Squire's sister had been shot. "What did she mean," I asked, "when she called him her son?" The Rector's wife looked up at me quickly and began to speak at once. "It was true," she said. "He is her son, though he never knew it till recently. He was educated abroad. It was the one quarrel which Florence ever had with her brother, for he refused to have the child brought up in his house. He had known the father of the child, and he wished, I think, to protect his sister. Perhaps he was quite right. Florence knew his love for her, but she hated being separated from her child. You can imagine how pleased she was to find him again. She did not know him at first and only came to do so after the boy himself had changed and had begun to feel unhappy in his life at the aerodrome. Just a chance remark of his one day told her who he must be. They were very fond of each other." "What about the father?" I asked. She shook her head gravely and said: "He disappeared altogether. Perhaps her brother was quite right." She looked at me almost shamefacedly, although there was a gentle smile on her lips. I fancied that this expression was caused partly by a feeling that she had been indiscreet in revealing the secrets of her dead friend, partly by the pleasure she found in us being able again, after so long, to hold an intimate conversation. For a moment or two I hesitated whether or not to ask her about my own birth, but I saw that if she had a secret she was entitled to keep it; and so I determined to allow her to enlighten me or not, as she chose, unless it should become necessary for me to obtain some certainty on this point. Instead I spoke to her of the aerodrome, and soon found that I was confessing to her my dissatisfaction with it. I accompanied her to her home and before I left had told her about my feelings for Bess and my joy in the fact that there seemed a good prospect for her recovery. I arranged, moreover, to call upon her on the following day and felt, I remember, a keen sense of pleasure in the making of this arrangement. This was the first of several meetings in the course of which I told her of my marriage and its failure, my early ambitions in the Air Force, the position of trust in which I had been placed, and my present conviction that neither those ambitions nor my present way of life was worth the having. I said nothing of Eustasia to her, partly because I did not wish to distress her with thoughts of the danger which I now ran, partly because on this subject my own mind was still undetermined and confused. I met her not only at her own house, but also sometimes at the pub, for she would call there often to leave fruit or flowers for Bess and later on books, magazines, and newspapers. Each day for more than a week the Doctor would visit his patient at least once, and as a rule I would accompany him. He would sit with her for perhaps an hour and would then call me upstairs, and from day to day I wondered and was delighted at the change which his skill and perseverance was bringing about in her. Even now the incidents of that time and the feelings which they evoked in me are so fresh and vivid in my mind that I find it difficult or impossible to write of them. I remember how her memory which had contracted to the period of her childhood gradually lengthened and deepened until it included all the past. I remember how she first recognized her mother, the Rector's wife, and myself, and how, when she did recognize me, there was no trace in her eyes of the uneasiness, the fear, the guilt, or the reluctance which I had known. It was as though we were meeting each other for the first time, and yet together with the shyness and sensitivity that must spring from such a feeling there was a confidence, or the certain beginnings of it, an assurance which seemed to unite us more fully than anything had united us in the past. Neither of us at this time thought coherently of love. She was still too weak for it, and I too conscious of my impending disgrace which might result in imprisonment or in exile to another part of the country with restrictions on my movements. But there was, I think, in this time of her convalescence a tacit understanding between us that if there was anything in the past on either side to be forgiven it was forgiven, if there was anything in the future that could be shared then it would be shared. More and more, though at first with difficulty, she began to direct her mind into the future, and I was sad to think that, however she thought of me, her thoughts would not hit the real truth of the danger in which I stood. The Doctor would sometimes leave us alone together, and sometimes remain with us after his visit had properly concluded, in order, I supposed, that he might see how his patient conducted herself with other people. On one occasion the Rector's wife called when we were all three together and was shown up to the room. I was sitting with Bess at the window, and I remember that in the middle of our conversation I turned my head to look at the others and saw them conversing together earnestly and in whispers in a corner of the room. I could not help remarking the look of dejection and irresolution on the Doctor's broad face, and this look surprised me. The Rector's wife was speaking to him with her usual calmness, but it appeared that there was something urgent in what she was saying. I turned back again to Bess, paying little attention at the time to this scene which yet remained fixed in my memory, for I was too happy just then to think of much more than of her gradual recovery of health and the gradual revelation to me of her confidence and her heart. On our walks to and from the aerodrome the Doctor would say little to me of the case beyong his frequent assurances that her complete recovery was certain, and I was reluctant to question him much, for I feared that he would revert to his prescriptions as to my conduct when once the cure was finished. As it was he, too, seemed anxious to avoid this subject. Once he said: "There is no doubt that you two do each other good", and he shook his head in perplexity as though uncertain whether to condemn or to approve of this fact, then he would often speak to me of my duties at the aerodrome, though somewhat half-heartedly as though he were performing some necessary but not particularly pleasant task. As for myself I was solely grateful to him for his willingness and success in the cure which he had undertaken, and was in no mood to sympathize with him in his perplexities. Indeed, I had enough perplexities of my own. From day to day I put off what I knew that I should have some time to do--inform the Air Vice-Marshal not only that I had disobeyed his express instructions but, what was perhaps even harder to say, that I had no longer any interest in his ambitions or desire to share in his success. And all this time I would work late into the night with him, preparing and co-ordinating plans for the stroke which I believed could not be much longer delayed. At this critical stage of our venture, the Air Vice-Marshal was as calm and precise as ever, but beneath the surface there was a suppressed excitement and in his eyes an elation that seemed to me to show that important events were impending. This elation in which he lived must have concealed from him what otherwise he would have noticed as my comparative lack of enthusiasm, and his conferences with officers from other aerodromes and with chiefs of departments were so numerous in these days that except during the evening and night I had plenty of time to myself. I was able to visit Eustasia frequently, and though there was no longer between us any of the careless happiness that there used to be, though we never again made love, I know that in my heart I loved her more during these days than I had ever done before. Previously we had taken each other as we found each other, irresponsibly and gladly, as was the way at the aerodrome. Now we found, though in different ways, that our natures had driven us into responsibilities outside the complete circle which the Air Vice-Marshal had traced for his subordinates. Eustasia believed that she had injured me by jeopardizing my career; I knew that I had injured her by following in her case, though not in another, the advice which we had been given as recruits. Nothing in the past could be changed or could be retracted. Neither of us, we thought then, had much that was certain to which we might look forward in the future. We had the will to help each other beyond the circle of irresponsible enjoyment, and we recognized that with all the will in the world neither of us could give to the other just that one thing needed to be helpful. She was demanding from me now what she had perhaps never thought of before, a kind of love that was wholly different from what was encouraged in the Air Force, the love which I felt for Bess, the love which the Flight-Lieutenant felt for Eustasia and which at the time she had rejected. In this kind of love pleasure is shared with an added intensity, but is an epiphenomenon and still not the essence. Pain may disrupt the surface and even colour the depths, but can never alter the material. Had we in the past even acknowledged the existence of this thing we should either never have loved at all, or loved differently; and our mutual knowledge of this fact, though we rarely spoke of it, made our conversations at this time, sad as they were, more affectionate and sympathetic than they had ever been. It was in Eustasia's room that I saw the Flight-Lieutenant for the first time after his release from imprisonment. He was now wearing the
uniform of a mechanic and his face, curiously enough, seemed to have regained some of the gaiety which it had lost during his tenure of the position of Rector. I found him in conversation with Eustasia when I arrived, and from the first moment of our meeting it became apparent, rather to the surprise of each of us, I think, that we had rediscovered the friendship which used to exist between us. We talked eagerly and without reservations. Though we said on this occasion nothing of the aerodrome or of the death of the Flight-Lieutenant's mother, it was plain to us that we were on the same side, and in later conversations he hinted to me of his plans for escaping altogether from the Air Force, and of going into hiding in some place where he could not be tracked down as a deserter. Knowing the efficiency of our police organization I discouraged these plans, though, while I feared for his safety, I admired once more the recklessness and the gaiety with which he made them. Eustasia, too, seemed much more glad of his company now than she ever had been in the past and after this first meeting we met frequently in her rooms. He would also accompany me sometimes on my visits to the Rector's wife, and in returning from one of these visits I told him of Eustasia's condition and of my intention to seek an interview with the Air Vice-Marshal on the following day. The conversation had started, I remember, by his warning me of the danger which I ran in being seen so often in his company and in making calls at the houses of those who were known to be opposed to the Air Force. To set his mind at rest I had told him that a little more or less danger could not under my present circumstances make much difference to me, and had then given him the whole story. He looked very grave while he listened, and when I had finished, he asked: "But why tell the old man about it now? Why not wait a few weeks?" It was a question which I had often asked myself and found difficult to answer. Partly it was because I disliked playing any longer the part which I was forced to play; for though I had convinced myself that the life and the ambitions of the Air Vice-Marshal were not my life and my ambitions, I had too much respect and even affection for the man to enjoy giving day by day the impression of loyalty which I no longer felt. But also I was disturbed by the change which was taking place both in Bess and in myself. Her recovery was now so far advanced that the Doctor had pronounced it permanent, and had hinted to me that the need for my collaboration in the cure had now ended. I did not care what his thoughts or his doubts of me might be, but I saw that it could not be long now before the love which both Bess and I knew was shared between us would be expressed openly, and before this happened I wished, for her sake as for mine, to find out exactly how I should be punished or menaced by the authorities. It might be that I should be prevented from seeing her again. It might be, as I hoped, that I should merely be discharged from the service. It was the uncertainty of the thing that made it impossible for me to look straight in her eyes or to join as I wished to do in her tentative inquiries of the future. The Flight-Lieutenant nodded his head from time to time as I explained to him the reasons for my decision. We had reached the gates of the aerodrome by the time that I had finished and he made no comment on what I had said. I remember that before saying good-bye we, for some reason, shook hands, and I remember the affection I felt for him as I looked into his face and saw it to be more certain than it had been, graver than when I knew him first, but again with the gleam of recklessness and daring in the eyes. There were many things that I wished to say to him, and I looked forward to future times when we could talk of his mother, of his feelings for Eustasia, of the address which he had so unfortunately delivered in the church. He, too, I think, was looking forward to our next meeting. I remember that we seemed to hesitate as though reluctant to leave each other before we went in different directions, he to the barracks for the mechanics, I to my room in the Air Vice-Marshal's house. Yet we could neither of us have known that we should not speak to each other again. On the following day I asked for a private interview with the Air Vice-Marshal somewhat before the hour at which I would normally report to him for duty. When I entered his room he looked at me gravely and in such a way that I was half inclined to suspect that he knew already what I was about to tell him. This impression was strengthened by the manner in which he heard me. He was leaning back in his chair with his hands relaxed on the desk in front of him. His lips were pressed tightly together and his eyes watched me closely. The expression of his face showed no surprise as I was speaking. It showed nothing indeed but a concentrated attention to my words and to my face; and this attitude of his embarrassed me much more than would any display of anger or of consternation. I had prepared something of a speech, but was unable to deliver it with any conviction. As it was I told him only the facts of my relationship with Eustasia, of its result, and of how things stood at present. Ending my account somewhat lamely I waited for his reply. For some time he said nothing, but remained in exactly the same position as he had held while I had been speaking, with his eyes still fixed closely on my face. If I had expected him to show either anger or disappointment, I had been wrong. There was no animosity and nothing of reproach in his look. I began to think almost that he had not understood my words, and in my embarrassment to feel the need to speak again, though I had nothing material to add to what I had said already. At last he began to speak, and there was, I thought, a lack of energy and a weariness in his voice. "I know the lady in question very well," he said. "Some years ago I was intimate with her myself." He stopped speaking, and looked at me sharply. I realized that had my feelings for Eustasia been other than they were, had they been, for instance, like those of the Flight-Lieutenant for her, this revelation (for she had told me nothing of any previous connection with the Air Vice-Marshal) would, however unreasonably, have distressed me. As it was, I felt nothing at all but some slight surprise. This, I think, the Air Vice-Marshal must have noticed, for he smiled quickly as though I had said or done something to please him. His face then took on an expression of severity and he spoke with a greater energy than hitherto. "It is impossible for you to escape some responsibility for this," he said, "although I don't propose to suggest that you are by any means entirely to blame. There is only one thing for you to do, and that is to ensure that this child is not born." He waited for my reply, looking at me steadfastly from beneath his brows. I felt that he was making to me what appeared to him as a remarkable concession, and I felt the full inhumanity of the organization which he had constructed with such an expense of will and which seemed to me now, not only in this instance, to be designed to stifle life which, however misused, was richer in everything but determination than our order. "How can I do that?" I said. He appeared surprised by my reply. "Do you mean," he asked, "that she will be unwilling? That is ridiculous. She has her duty just as you have, and you must both do it. Surely you have sufficient address to be able to persuade a woman, who in any case is infatuated with you, to do the obvious thing?" "I've no right to do so," I said. "I've given her enough pain already", and, seeing that the Air Vice-Marshal was smiling, I added: "Besides, I don't want to." He lifted one hand from the table and brought it down quickly again. His words were harsh and rapid. "Are you mad?" he said. "Pain, whether yours or hers, is neither here nor there. What on earth are you thinking of? Do you want to have a child?" His present agitation surprised me as much as had his calmness at the beginning of the interview. What surprised me, too, was that there was in his voice a note not only of anger, but almost of supplication. He was prepared not so much to punish me for my neglect of duty as to implore me to repent of what I had done. It seemed that his very consideration for me, and the affection and respect which I still felt for him, made it the more impossible for me to resign myself to his will. I was about to speak again, but he rose to his feet, interrupting me. "Listen, my boy," he said. "I have no more time to waste on this idiocy. You may have three days in which to think things over and in these days you will be released from your duties. At the end of that time please bring me a satisfactory account of what you have done. In your case, with your responsibilities and your prospects, any neglect of your plain duty and your honour would be intolerable to me. Say no more now. You'll only make a fool of yourself. Let me tell you this. If I had a son I would rather see him dead at my feet than persisting in the kind of folly in which you have landed yourself." He paused and looked at me more calmly. "I still have confidence in you," he said, "and to show you that I have I will tell you that the time for which we have been all waiting is now very close." As he looked at me his eyes flashed and for a moment infected me again, almost against my will, with his own enthusiasm. I wished to speak, but he would not allow me to do so. "Three days!" he cried, and I left the room in dejection, knowing that, days or years, time would not alter my mind.