Two Solitudes (51 page)

In every city the same masses swarmed. Could any man write a novel about masses? The young man of 1933, together with all the individual characters Paul had tried to create, grew pallid and unreal in his imagination beside the sense of the swarming masses heard three stories below in the shuffling feet of the crowd. For long minutes he stood at the window. To make a novel out of this? How could he? How could anyone? A novel should concern people, not ideas, and yet people had become trivial.

After a while he left the window and went to the table where he had tried to work. He laid a hand on his papers, then tamped them together and put them into their box. He got undressed, snapped off the light and dropped into bed. Below in the Hodos Stadiou isolated figures still prowled with the furtive urgency of single men alone in a city after dark. In the far distance, somewhere in the streets beyond the Place de la Constitution, the horn of a taxi with a short circuit in its ignition system howled like a wolf in the darkness. Then it ceased as abruptly as it had begun.

 

FORTY-ONE

John Yardley lived in a single room on the top floor of an old house in the south end of Halifax. It had once been a fine residence owned by one of the old importing families, but now it was a lodging house. Its change of status had not altered its appearance in any way. He had to climb three flights of stairs to reach his room and he knew climbing was bad for him, but
he felt that the view from his windows was worth the risk he took to obtain it. He could look directly over the treetops to the harbour, and on foggy nights the harbour bells seemed to be sounding just below him. They reminded him constantly of other days when he had been free to move where he chose about the world.

During the past three weeks Yardley had been feeling very much better. The weather had been fine and clear, unusually good for a Nova Scotian June. Now it was early July and the lime trees were fragrant after sunset. He could almost persuade himself that his convalescence from the winter illness was real and that he was actually going to recover. No matter how tired or weak he felt, he got up every morning at eight and had breakfast at a table in his room, brought to him from downstairs. For his other meals he went to a nearby residential hotel. Most of the day he spent propped in an armchair by the window, but he refused to go to bed for the night until eight-thirty. Then he usually read a book for an hour or so and dropped quietly to sleep.

Of late he had not been lonely, for Janet and Heather had been in Halifax for a month. The only trouble was that Janet tried to rearrange his habits to something she considered more suitable for him. And she sat by his side hour after hour either from a sense of duty or because she could think of nothing else to do in a place where she had no friends.

As usual she was here today. She adjusted the pillow behind his head and for a moment her hand lingered on his. He smiled at her, comfortable in the armchair, but he resisted an impulse to lay his other hand over hers. He knew she would immediately withdraw her hand in fear of seeming sentimental. She withdrew it anyway.

“Life isn't easy for any of us, is it, Father?”

He continued to smile at her as he looked at her over his glasses. He wished that her face were less gaunt. It took a good deal of will power to keep the tears out of his eyes. Since his illness he had often been embarrassed by the way tears welled up in his eyes for no reason at all. Poor Janet! She had been worried about something or other ever since he could remember, and surely some of it was his own fault. If only he had been in command of a good education, or even if he had not appeared such a rough man, his daughter might have respected him enough to listen to his advice. He might have been able to teach her to find a little enjoyment in life. But her mother had made the child ashamed of him, and then her own conscience had made her ashamed of being ashamed, and after that there was no end to the impasse between them.

“What is it now?” he said, his voice full of affection.

She sat down in the only other chair in the room, beside the bookshelves which lined one of the walls. Yardley's armchair was by the window. A bed took up most of the space on the other wall, and beyond was a door leading to the common hall of the house. Except for his years in Saint-Marc, Yardley had never had any possessions except his clothes and his books.

“It's Heather,” Janet said. “Of course, Father–if you're not feeling well this afternoon I don't want to bother you.”

“I guess I can stand anything you've got to say about Heather.”

She took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “Well, when she came back for the general's funeral I thought she was home for good. I simply took it for granted she was through with all that nonsense in New York. If you only knew how I'd been looking forward to having her at home with me where she belongs! After all, she's twenty-eight, and it's time for her to settle down with some nice young man. She's had plenty of
opportunities.” Janet pursed her lips. “If only she wouldn't be so headstrong about everything!”

Yardley's eyes twinkled and he turned to look out the window. In repose his face looked shockingly old; all the colour was drained from it and the skin was like soft old leather. His head was completely bald on top and the fringe of hair over his eyes and around the back of his neck no longer bristled; it was as soft as down. But his ears still stuck out, the twinkle in his eyes had not diminished, and the twang in his voice remained.

“What's she being headstrong about now?” he asked.

“Of course, there may be nothing to it. There may be nothing whatever but my own imagination. But I don't think so.”

“Come on, Janet. Stop sounding like McQueen. I won't hold it against you if you make a mistake.”

She flushed. “I'm not sounding like Huntly at all.” She fixed him with her dark eyes, and he admitted ruefully to himself that she had become almost hawklike. “Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about!”

“I haven't the slightest idea, Janet.”

“Well–since you insist on making me say it–it's that young man. I haven't seen him since he was a child, but I know about him. I've discovered that she's been writing to him for years. Imagine! She admitted it to me today.”

“Do you know who he is?”

“Of course I do.”

“Well, Janet, why shouldn't she write him? She and Paul were children together.”

“So you did know! You knew all the time!”

“Sure I knew,” Yardley said. “He just arrived from Europe a week ago. His ship brought him right in to this port. Nice and convenient for them both, I thought.”

“She insists on having him to dinner with us tonight. Of course, I'm very glad. I'd much, much rather know exactly what he's like than wonder.”

“Well”–Yardley's voice was tired–“what are you worried about?”

“You know perfectly well what I'm worried about.”

He chuckled. “Listen, Janet–if she's got any sense she'll marry him.”

“Oh, no! Father, that's a dreadful thought!” Janet's face showed violent indignation. This had always been her way; to bring into the open something she was worried about and then to show acute distress when what she already knew to be a fact was confirmed by another. The effect of this strained agitation on her father was worse than if she had exploded. Her tension charged the whole room, and he found it unpleasant and exhausting. Anything, these days, rather than tension!

“Try to be serious, Father. You know perfectly well it's unthinkable.”

“I can't say I do.” He looked at her hands. Not one of her mannerisms had changed in the past twenty years. She still clasped her hands so tightly together in her lap that the knuckles showed white. And what seemed to Yardley unfair about all this was that Janet reserved her tension and her scenes for members of her own family. She could be completely charming only to strangers.

“Harvey left the children to me as a trust,” she said. “A sacred trust.”

“Any children are thet, Janet.” Glancing out of the window he added, “You've never paid much attention to what I say about things. What does it matter what I think now?”

“Is that quite fair?”

“We mustn't quarrel, child.”

Her face softened. “Do try to put yourself in my position. We're all alone now. Just Heather and I–and Daphne, of course.” Some private anxiety about Daphne must have crossed her mind, for her face clouded again. “We're still the family. I had no sons, but I can't forget the family.”

“What family?” he said bluntly. “The sisters and cousins and aunts of all the Methuens? Which is more important to you, Janet–Heather's happiness or what the Methuens mumble over their tea-cups?”

“What they say over their tea-cups happens to have a great deal to do with Heather's happiness. You've simply never even begun to understand what a family like that means.”

“All right, Janet. You started it, so now I'm going to tell you something about Paul you don't know. Why, his family was riding horses and living in castles and cutting throats for the king of France when the ancestors of the Methuens had only one pair of pants, digging ditches somewhere in England, running errands for country stores, or driving distillery Clydesdales around the Glasgow docks, or maybe not even doing thet much. Now take the other side–” She tried to interrupt him with an indignant gesture, but he kept right on. “This country's going to be mighty proud of thet boy one of these days. Heather's a lucky girl, and if you ask me, he's lucky himself, and he's had it coming to him. You asked my opinion. There it is.”

Janet looked down at her clasped hands and pursed her lips again. “Really, Father–there's not the slightest necessity for being so violent. You'll only upset yourself.”

He passed his hand over his forehead. He was upset already.

“What you say about the Methuens,” she went on stiffly,
“is of course utterly ridiculous. General Methuen's grandfather was an officer at the seige of Badajos.”

“Maybe thet's where he got his start,” Yardley grunted.

Janet eyed him severely. “Can you permit me to be serious for a moment, Father?”

“I guess I can.”

“Have you forgotten the facts of the situation? This young man may be perfectly all right. I have no doubt he is. But General Methuen always said it was most undesirable for mixed marriages to occur between French and English families. He had some fine French friends, too. Indeed, he was very fond of them. But he used to say that the French themselves objected to mixed marriages even more than he did.”

“Well?” Yardley said.

“That's only one part of it. He's not Heather's kind at all. He's worked in garages and he's been a professional hockey player. Just imagine! Why, he was even an ordinary seaman.”

“So was I, once.”

Janet flushed. “It was entirely different in those days. This young man has never had a proper job in his entire life. He's twenty-nine or thirty or perhaps even more–I don't remember exactly. He's out of work now. I should very much like to hear what Huntly McQueen would have to say about a young man without a decent job at his age!”

Yardley's hands clenched on the arms of his chair. He hated anger in anyone; in himself most of all. It was even dangerous for him to be angry now. With a great effort he kept his voice quiet as he said, “McQueen would have no more right to blame a young man for having no work today than a man thet stole the milk from a kitten would have any right blaming the cat for going hungry.”

“Please, Father–I can't stand it when you talk like Heather's socialist friends.”

“Then keep McQueen out of it. He never helped anyone in his life.”

Janet remained determined. “Have you forgotten one thing that I can't–as Heather's mother–permit myself to forget?”

“What's thet?”

“He's undoubtedly a Roman Catholic.”

“Oh,” Yardley said. “So thet's what's at the bottom of it!”

“It's one of the things that's at the bottom of it, but even you must admit it's decisive.”

“Well, I guess he might have been a Buddhist. Fella I knew out East, a real Methodist he was too, he married a Buddhist girl once, a real beauty, with a figure so nice she made all the English women in Shanghai hate her something terrible. Three years they lived in Shanghai, and he found himself a Methodist chapel, and I guess she went to the temple. Got along fine, till the time came for him to come home. Then he just left her there and I guess he had the marriage annulled, or maybe just forgot all about it, for when I last saw him he was settled in with a hatchet-faced old woman with little red eyes and a nose as mean as a ferret's, and she–”

“Father!” she said.

“All right, Janet.”

“Of course, the whole thing's unthinkable from any point of view. But just suppose the worst did happen? How would Heather like to see her children brought up as Catholics? They insist on that, you know. You haven't a chance with them when it comes to the children.”

Yardley's eyes twinkled for a moment, but he sobered almost at once. “Listen, Janet–one of the unfairest things we
do in this country is to turn these religious denominations into flags. Why, thet boy's had all sorts of religion put onto him. He was a Catholic, and then he was a Protestant, and then he was a Catholic again, and between them they just about made a football out of him. What he is now I don't know because I've never asked him, but I do know he's got a personal religion of his own, and if Heather wants to find out where he goes to church all she's got to do is ask him. It's no more my business, or your business, than how a man makes love to his wife in his own bed after he's married to her.”

Janet winced. “Do you really have to use expressions like that?” Then, quickly, “They all die with candles in their hands. I remember General Methuen saying that ever so often.” She got up. “Father, my daughter simply can't marry a person like that!”