The Aerodrome: A Love Story (5 page)

a few steps towards me and touched with her fingers the cuff of my jacket. "No, no," she said, "it's me that's early." Her face seemed to me as soft as petals, with the widely set and somewhat narrow eyes liquid and swimming and drowning me. I held her wrist gently and bent forward to kiss her, but she turned her head aside, looking suddenly like a small child, and said: "Oh no, really. Look at all the people." Then we both smiled. I was feeling slightly sick, and we began to walk together among the tents and booths. I felt that, as we walked, people turned their heads to look at us, although in point of fact this was not the case; my feeling of sickness passed and I was suffused with a sense of pride, but not of confidence. By a coconut-shy Bess clapped her hands and jumped, tugging at my elbow. "Oh let's have a throw!" she cried, and I paid sixpence for her and then watched her as with a kind of gracious clumsiness she attempted to aim at the coconuts. Even had she hit one, there was so little force behind her arm that she would not, I think, have dislodged it from its pedestal; but she threw so inaccurately that the wooden balls either hit the ground a few feet in front of her or else sailed far above the row of coconuts into the hands of a boy who was waiting at the back of the tent to collect them. "Oh I did so want one," she said, looking at me with an expression in which there was some real as well as some assumed dejection. "It's easy," I said, knowing that I was good at this kind of activity. I paid my money and had soon dislodged four coconuts, being so absorbed in this pursuit that I hardly noticed Bess's screams of delight as the brown hairy things toppled over or spun sideways across the tent. "Would you like any more?" I said, when I had exhausted my ammunition and the stall-keeper had piled up the four prizes in front of me, congratulating me at the same time upon my marksmanship. "Oh no, that's plenty," Bess said. "Besides we can't carry any more." And they were, indeed, I found, somewhat difficult to carry. We began to walk farther through the crowds. "I think you're wonderful," Bess said, and squeezed my arm. I, too, began to think that I had accomplished something remarkable, but as I looked down at her shoulder and her arm beside me I again began to feel sick and my knees trembled. I pressed the coconuts hard against my side, extending my fingers so as to cover as much as possible of their surfaces. A voice on our left hailed me and, turning my head, I saw the Flight-Lieutenant bending over a machine-gun in a small tent from which the Aerodrome colours were flying. He was informing a considerable crowd of bystanders of the mechanism and working of the gun, but had broken off his lecture, and shouted to me: "Be good, Roy! The bull's O. K." Bess smiled at him, and I nodded my head. Then we went out through the turnstile at the bottom of the field and, passing through the car park, entered another field in the corner of which were the remains of a haystack and, close to this, an old roofless mill with the river running smoothly past its grey stones. We sat down in the loose hay and looked towards the river and the meadows on the other side. Far away on the sunny grass I saw a hare sitting up on his hind legs. From some trees behind us came the continual calling of rooks. The show, the tents, and the crowd seemed to have been removed from us much farther than we had come and, as I looked at Bess, we seemed like castaways, not knowing what to expect. Her eyes held that soft, serious, remote, and unnatural look which I had come to know, and, as I stared into her eyes, the river, the meadow, the hare, and the rooks seemed to recede from us as the whole Agricultural Show had already receded. There was nothing now but the small space between us, and as I leaned towards her, stumbling over some foolish words, she also leaned to me, saying: "I love you, I love you," and as we pressed against each other in each other's arms I was stiff and blinded for some moments by my desire. Soon that wave of feeling receded and we lay more quietly, but soon it returned again, and we began fumbling with our clothes, reaching in an inexpert way for the satisfaction with which neither of us was perfectly acquainted. There were difficulties and dangers of which we had heard, expostulations and timidity. And there was something loose and scrambling in our love-making, nor was anything conspicuously beautiful or satisfactory achieved. Yet something had been done and, as I looked at Bess's flushed face, a new feeling of trust and of gratitude swelled up in my heart. "I shall always love you," I said, and was surprised to see her face not changed, but much more ordinary than it had been before. She rose to her feet, shaking the hay out of her hair. "We must go back," she said, and I saw that she was thinking already of the coconut shies, the roundabouts, the riding, and the jumping. I tried to find words to express my sense of the reality of what had happened and of my love, but I saw that, as I was speaking, Bess was giving me only half of her attention, and I began to feel that, in spite of what I was impelled to say, nothing very remarkable had taken place. This feeling increased both my tenderness and my desire. Bess was setting her clothes to rights, but I clutched her to me and pressed my mouth into her mouth, holding her tightly and cruelly, since she was wriggling in my arms. I saw her eyes, filled with fear, look into my eyes, and I felt, together with a wave of tenderness, a sharp pang of exasperation and almost of contempt for her. My grip on her relaxed and I stood dejected, with tears, I remember, beginning to brim over my eyelids. Just at this moment I heard someone call my name. We stepped apart from each other and saw the Flight-Lieutenant running towards us across the field. I seemed to detect what surprised me, a certain embarrassment in his manner, and he had ceased to run before he reached us. He spoke hesitatingly and said: "I say, Roy, something rather rotten has happened. I'm afraid I've potted your old man." I knew immediately from these words, inadequate as they were, that the Rector had been either killed or seriously wounded in some accident for which the Flight-Lieutenant had been responsible. I listened as he continued: "Of course, it was quite unintentional, but I can't help feeling a bit cut up about it." Bess was trembling as she stared from one to the other of us. She began to brush the hay off her dress and, as we walked away, the Flight-Lieutenant told us that he had accidentally used live instead of blank ammunition in the machine-gun whose performance he had been demonstrating. "The old boy took it right in the face," he said, "and went over like a ninepin." He smiled as he recalled the scene to his memory, then added, in a more serious voice: "It was a really bad show." I could think of nothing but of the appearance of my guardian's face that morning at breakfast. Still the story that I had heard seemed unreal to me, but as we went through the turnstile I could see a large crowd around the tent where the machine-gun demonstration had been given. People made way for us as we approached and, without noticing whether the others were following, I went through the crowd to a space in the centre, where I saw the Rector's wife, the Squire's sister, and an officer from the Aerodrome standing above a body prostrate on the ground. A national flag had been thrown over the face and the upper part of the body, but I could easily recognize the watchchain, the trousers, and the boots of my guardian. I fell down on my knees, with the idea of removing the cloth from his face, but a Pilot Officer held me by the shoulders and pulled me to my feet. "Steady, steady, old man," he said. The Rector's wife put her arms round me, and I held her tight, fancying that it was Bess whom I was holding. I kissed her on the ear and then looked up and round at the circle of silent respectful faces that surrounded us. The Pilot Officer began talking to me. He gave further details of the accident and made suggestions as to the transport of the body.

CHAPTER V

The Squire

IN OUR HOUSE, as I should say in many others, death had not been in the past a frequent topic of conversation; but now, with a dead body in an upper room lying beneath a sheet, both the presence and the certainty of death were never, during the days that preceded the funeral, far from our minds. It was not only when at meals our eyes strayed to the Rector's chair and the polished surface of the table where in the past knives, spoons, and forks had been set; or when, passing through the hall, one observed walking-sticks with the handles worn smooth by the grip of a hand whose muscles had stiffened for the last time; indeed these accidental and sudden reminders were hardly necessary. Everywhere in the house, it seemed to me, could be felt the influence and the presence of the one cold upstairs room in which the Rector's remains lay extended on a bed. Nor did it seem to anyone that there was anything either noble or sanctified about that presence and that influence. It would have been better, perhaps, if the Rector's features had been left intact. Some effect of dignity or of the statuesque might then have been achieved. As it was it was only the pulp of a man that lay under the white sheet, unrecognizable except to those who possessed special knowledge. And the presence in the house of this shattered body produced in us, I think, feelings rather of horror than of affection. We knew, of course, that any corpse, however dignified, would not remain for long a lovely sight; and yet we would have wished to be able to look once more and for a short time at features that would have seemed familiar to us, however unfamiliar, in real fact, their lifelessness would have been. But what we had was nothing beautiful; more a trophy of an abstract power than a reminder of the living. So, though I now felt as much affection for the dead man as I had ever felt, I avoided the room where he lay. His wife and the Squire's sister would sometimes sing hymns there, but neither the Squire nor I joined them in these activities. The Squire, indeed, had never been inside the room at all. He had stood in the doorway, but when invited to enter had tapped with his stick upon the floor and, with a severe expression on his face, had appeared not to hear the invitation. He, I think, whether because of his intimacy with the dead man or because of his advancing years, had been more than any of us affected by the Rector's death. Now he would often begin, in a respectful voice, to tell stories of the Rector's schooldays; but frequently he broke off these stories in the middle or allowed them to ramble to an inconclusive end, pretending a lapse of memory, although it was clear that his mind moved far more easily among the events of his boyhood than in the present, and we all knew that it was strong emotion rather than forgetfulness that caused him on these occasions to stumble over his words. I saw much of him in the days before the funeral, and I usually saw him alone, for his sister was, from early in the morning until late at night, in the company of the Rector's wife; the intimacy between the two ladies was so great that I could not but feel myself something of an intruder in their company. Moreover, at this time the Rector's wife, though her manner was as affectionate as ever, seemed sometimes, I thought, anxious to avoid me. She was, I fancied, embarrassed by the fact that I shared with her the knowledge of her own infidelity and of the Rector's crime; and she may have feared, too, that I would seize the first opportunity to try to extract from her further information, if she possessed it, about my own birth. This, indeed, I was determined some time to do; but I had decided to wait until after the funeral, although I had hoped, perhaps, that she might herself voluntarily have chosen to enlighten me. Her reluctance to speak on any subject even remotely connected with the confession which we had both heard in the study was, I thought, the result of what was evidently a sincere affection for the dead man. And, as for the story of my own birth, it was very likely that she knew nothing about it. It would have seemed indecent, when I remembered the body on the bed upstairs and its pervasive influence, to have pressed her at this time with questions which she might have no wish to answer. Had the Rector been not only her husband but my father, we might perhaps have more demonstratively shared the grief which we both felt. As it was, her main consolation came from the Squire's sister and I was, not by any means against my will, left very much to my own devices. Between them the two ladies made the necessary arrangements with the undertaker, and left me little or nothing to do, so that I spent much of my time at the Manor. I was on the point of going there, I remember, on the day before the funeral, and had risen from the breakfast-table and said good-bye to the Rector's wife when the Squire's sister entered the dining-room, carrying with her our letters which she had taken in the road outside from the postman. I noticed that there seemed to be a certain nervousness in her manner as she handed across the table a large envelope marked with the official stamp of the Air Ministry. The Rector's wife held the envelope out in front of her, as though deliberating whether or not she should open it, and looked inquiringly at the Squire's sister before she laid it face downwards on the table and slit the top of it with a paper-knife. The Squire's sister and I watched as though some conjuring trick were being performed. Indeed, it struck me at the time that the interest which we were showing was excessive. The Rector's wife read and, as she read, I thought that her face showed an almost unnatural absence of expression. Then, with a smile, she passed the letter across the table to us and we read it together. It was a notice from the Ministry signed by the Air Vice-Marshal. Regret for the accident which had taken place was expressed in conventional terms. Finally it was suggested that, as a mark of respect for the dead man, the Vice-Marshal should himself attend the funeral. He would welcome, it was added, an opportunity to say a few words at some point during or after the funeral service. Such were the contents of the letter and I, when I had heard them, felt at first nothing but distaste. No consideration had in the past ever, so far as I was aware, been shown by the Air Force either to our village or to ourselves. So what reason was there for gratification in this belated token of respect, these conventional amends for a disaster which had been caused in part by the general irresponsibility of the airmen towards anything which was outside their own organization? So I thought, but it was evident that the two ladies thought differently. The Squire's sister received the news blushingly, as though some particular compliment had been paid to herself, and the Rector's wife, though her face was graver, was still, I could see, remarkably pleased with the letter which she watched meditatively with her eyes as her friend held it in her hand. "We could offer the Air Vice-Marshal a room at the Manor," said the Squire's sister. "That is, if he wants to stay the night." I thought that her face looked unnaturally, even pathetically, thin as she looked inquiringly at the Rector's wife who was now staring at the edge of the table with a slight frown on her face. She raised her eyes to me and smiled. "What do you think, Roy?" she asked. "Would it not be better if he stayed here?" And there was a kind of urgency in her question which surprised me. "I really don't mind at all," I said. "Is it so important anyway? Probably he won't want to stay the night." Both ladies, I thought, seemed disappointed with my reply. There was a short pause, and then the Squire's sister, looking sharply at me, said: "But the point is that we should decide what to do if he does want to stay." I said that it was better for them to decide the point between them, and that I was quite ready to fall in with any arrangement which they might care to make. Then I left the room and began to walk towards the Manor. As I went I thought with bitterness of the many humiliations and inconveniences which we in the village had already had to suffer from this Air Force whose belated expression of regret seemed so to please my two friends. There had been a time, I knew, when the authority of squire and parson in the village had been absolute, and had been wisely and tenderly exercised. That was before now; for now, although legally the position was just as it had always been, the very presence of the aerodrome on the hill, the very sound and sight of the machines crossing and recrossing our valley, seemed somehow to have dissipated the cohesion of our village and to have set up a standing threat to our régime. The threat was even then nearer and more definite than I fancied. This I discovered very soon after I had entered the Manor, and had seen the Squire pacing up and down the hall, his hands clasped behind his back, and a look of intense concentration on his face. In front of him was standing at attention a man dressed in Air Force uniform. He was a small man, with red hair and moustache, and he was smiling as he watched the Squire who continued to turn back and forwards the length of the hearthrug as though he were confined in some invisible cage. Soon he looked towards me, and I offered to leave the room, but he raised his hand, stopping me. "No, stay where you are, Roy," he said. "My business with this gentleman is just over." "I shall call again on you in a couple of days, then?" said the airman. He spoke, I thought, as though he were delivering an ultimatum and was enjoying his task. The Squire looked at him sharply from beneath his thick white eyebrows. "I can settle nothing before then," he said. The airman's eyes were going over the room. He seemed half amused by the wealth of mural decoration, and, without looking at the Squire, he said: "It's a great pity, of course, but there it is." To this the Squire made no reply, but moved slowly in the direction of the door. The airman thrust one hand into a pocket, nodded towards me, and picked up his cap from the Ijall table. "I'll be seeing you, then," he said, and walked past the Squire without shaking hands. The old man just inclined his head and, after he had opened the hall door and closed it behind his visitor, turned back into the room towards me. I had expected to see him smile and rub his hands together, and to hear him say, "Well, now, my boy, what about a walk?" but he said nothing, and seemed to look right through me as though I were a ghost. I turned away from him and, looking through the window, saw the airman walking up the drive with short steps. He was swinging his cap by his side, and was constantly turning his head to look at the lawns, the cedar tree, the flower beds. Halfway up the drive he stopped to say a few words to the gardener who was standing beside a wheelbarrow. I stepped away from the window and saw the Squire standing as he had been standing before. But my movement had caught his attention. He began to smile and took a few steps towards the high-backed chair by the fireplace, where he sat down. "I'm sorry to have disturbed you," I said. "I hope you haven't had any bad news." He looked up at me sharply and said: "Yes, my boy, I've had some very bad news." For some moments we remained silent. He was staring down between his knees at the carpet and I noticed his long eyebrows twitching as he concentrated his gaze. Then he began to speak very quietly, and without raising his head. "The fact is," he said, "that the Government want my land." I spoke sympathetically, for I knew how he loved all the country that I loved. "It's the fields up by the aerodrome, I suppose," I said, and then, seeing that I had guessed wrongly, I added: "Surely they can't want the land by the river." The Squire looked up at me quickly, and I saw his eyes flash. "Lock, stock, and barrel," he said. "They want it all!" I looked round the room, so familiar to me, and through the window at well-known trees. I was frightened by what I had heard and also by the look on the Squire's face. Pride stiffened and regulated his features, but for an instant I had fancied that I was looking at something dead. "How can they do that?" I said. "What possible reason could there be?" He looked at me and, seeing my agitation, seemed about to smile. There was, I knew, an almost childlike modesty and kindness in his face; but now these qualities were frustrated and he spoke harshly and as though defeated. "It seems," he said, "that some lawyer fellows have got some sort of a law passed. They are within their rights, they say; though I must say that it seems to me a queer sort of right if men are to be deprived of their land. It's quite well known that the Government understand nothing of these things. Things for some time have been going from bad to worse. Of course, we must obey the law." I saw that indeed he could do nothing else. There was something pathetic and out of place in the dignity of his remarks. He continued. "It isn't simply a question of my land and my house. The Air Force want to occupy the whole village. The school, I understand, will be done away with and replaced by some sort of training establishment. What will happen to the church I hardly like to think. You know these fellows have hardly any regard for religion." He looked up at me again, and there was more of bewilderment than anything else in his face. I, too, was bewildered and, anxious as I was to express my sympathy in his misfortune, could think of nothing appropriate to say. Finally I said: "I suppose there'll be no more cricket." The Squire nodded his head, and spoke at once. "Not a doubt of it." Then he seemed to sink into himself and remained for perhaps a minute relaxed in his chair, his shoulders hunched and his eyes fixed on the floor between his feet. I stood looking down at him, somewhat perturbed to find that I, in my youth, was stronger and more confident than this good man to whom I had always looked up as to a second father, and who now, in spite of and in a way because of his dignity, was suddenly so abject. I leant forward and touched his sleeve with my hand. "Even if this can't be avoided," I said, "you'll be able to think of all you've done here." He made no sign to show that he had heard me, and I continued in a somewhat awkward attitude, leaning forward and peering into his face. At length he began to speak, though rather to himself than as though he were addressing his words to me. "You think much too kindly of me," he said. "I have begun to see recently how worthless and useless my life has been. I have never made anyone happy." He went on quickly and added: "No, never," as though fearing contradiction; and indeed I was on the point of speaking to remind him of the successful tenants'
parties which he had held, of the gifts of butter and eggs to expectant and nursing mothers, of his constant support to the cricket and football teams, the bellringers, the mummers, the boys' club and indeed to every village activity. All this, maybe, was in his mind, but he was unwilling to hear of it, and I listened respectfully, but ill at ease, as he continued. "Some good," he said, "may have been done by accident; but that is not exactly what I mean. My position has made it possible for a little ordinary human kindness to pass through me as a medium; but as for myself I have been a constant charge upon and nuisance to others. Look at Florence." Here he paused, but I made no move, for it seemed to me almost indecent to remind him of the good feeling and gratitude of which I knew he was the object. He must have been suffering from something much deeper than a mere uncertainty as to how he was regarded by others. Though I was deeply sorry for him, I looked at him rather as at the victim of a disease than as a man whom I could help; for who was I, at my age, to supply wisdom and confidence to men much older and more experienced than myself? "I wish I could help you," I began, but he continued as though he had not heard me speak. "Florence," he said, "has shared her life with me, and I have done nothing to deserve her devotion. She has never been happy, or only once, and for a short time. And at that time I did everything I could to deprive her of her happiness. I regret it now, although then I was convinced that I was acting for the best. Now it seems almost a retribution. Then I thought only of the scandal. Your guardian agreed with me." His words mystified me, but they seemed to hint at some secret which may have been shared between our two families, that is if I might be said to have a family at all. Though I felt sympathy for the old man, it was partly curiosity which prompted me to speak. "I have heard her say so often," I said, "that her life with you has been the happiest one that she could have had." The Squire seemed suddenly to become aware of my presence. He sat up in his chair, almost as though he had awakened from a sleep. He would have wished, I think, to appear energetic, alert, and friendly; but though he looked straight at me his eyes still held that look of baffled bewilderment and of distress which I had observed when he was speaking of the loss of his land. "Thank you for your sympathy, my boy," he said. "You are very good. You are young and must not allow an old man to take up your time." He looked hurriedly round the room, at the pictures and extensive assortment of objects on the wall; and his look seemed to show a suspicion of danger. "Youth!" he said. "It's a great thing." I could see no appropriateness in this remark and for security went back to the beginning of the conversation. "But what exactly is the position?" I asked. "About the Government, I mean." The Squire, too, showed by his manner that he had observed how far we had strayed from the original subject. He now spoke precisely. "They are giving me a week," he said, "in which to make an appeal; but as I have to appeal to the very batch of lawyers who have passed this law, obviously an appeal is not worth making. In short, I have a month before I am to clear out." I reflected that, except for a brief spell abroad, he had lived all his life in this house and among these surroundings. He had learnt as a child how to act when he was a man, and he had acted as he had learnt to do. The rest of the world, even the rest of his own country, was strange ground to him. It was nothing in himself, but something outside which had made him now so defenceless. I could think of no suitable comment to make and inquired merely whether he was being offered reasonable compensation. I knew that nothing could compensate him for what he was about to lose. "Yes," he said. "They are offering me money." I thought suddenly of his sister and of the Rector's wife. I imagined how eagerly they would debate this situation as soon as they were informed of it. They would be genuinely concerned, and the Squire would listen gratefully to their discussions although he would know, as I knew now, that everything which they might say would be beside the point. What might be said was too cruel to say; and so I stood speechless until after a moment or two he rose from his chair and shook my hand. "Forgive me," he said, "for having entertained you so badly. We all have our troubles, and I am to blame for inflicting mine on others." There was such sincerity in his words, he seemed so abject in his courtesy, that I longed for some power of speech or gesture that would enable me to show him affection that was more than pity. But this feeling, however warm, was momentary. I seemed to see in his sunken face and in the lines that constricted his temples something already dead which reminded me of the really dead body of the Rector lying still in the upper room. And against this I reacted with aversion so strong that I felt hypocritical as I pressed his hand and urged him to make use of me in any way that he could do so. I hope that he recognized the love and did not notice the aversion. Both feelings were genuine and both spontaneous. I said good-bye and returned to the Rectory. When I arrived there I found the two ladies together in the hall. They were holding each other's hand and talking in hushed voices. On the stairs I could hear the tramp of feet. The undertaker's men were removing the body in its coffin, since for the night preceding the funeral it was to be placed in the church.