They walked along the Embankment from Westminster Bridge towards the City. A serene sky hung over London, transposed to an astonishing blue by the complementary yellow of the brilliant street lights. A few trains and taxis were still moving on the Embankment, but after the ceaseless roar of day traffic the air seemed almost silent. At times they could hear the lap and gurgle of the swift river water, as the strong flood tide ran inland, bearing a faint flavour of salt. The river was beautifully silver in the soft, steady moonlight which wavered into multitudes of ripples as soon as it touched the broken surface of the Thames. Blocks of moored barges stood black and immovable in the silver flood. The Southern bank was dark, low, and motionless, except for the luminous announcements of the blessings of Lipton’s Tea and the Daily Mail. The Scotchman in coloured moving lights pledged the bonny Highlands in countless sparkling glasses of electric whisky. Hungerford Railway bridge seemed filled with the red eyes of immense dragons, whose vast bulk lay coiled somewhere invisibly on either bank. Occasionally a red eye would wink green, a brightly-lit train would crawl cautiously and heavily over the vibrating bridge. The lighted windows of the Cecil and the Savoy aroused no envy in them. Nor did they pine to inspect the records of a great people lying behind the darkened and silent façade of Somerset House.
Opposite the quiet Temple Garden they paused by the parapet and looked up and down that magnificent sweep of river, with its amazing mixture of dignified beauty and almost incredible sordidness. They stood for some time, talking in quiet tones, comparing the Thames with the Seine, and wondering what dreamlike city would have arisen by those noble curves if London had been inhabited by a race of artists. Elizabeth wanted to set Florence or Oxford on either side of the Thames between Westminster and St. Paul’s. George agreed that that would be lovely, but thought the buildings would be dwarfed by the width of the river, the long bridges, and the length of facade. And they finally agreed that with all its sordidness and hugger-mugger and strange contrast of palaces abutting on slums, the Embankment had a beauty of its own which they would not exchange even for the dream-city of a race of artists.
Midnight boomed with majestic, policeman-like slowness from Big Ben; and as the last deep vibrations faded from the air, the great city seemed to be gliding into sleep and silence. They lingered a little longer, and then turned to go.
Then, for the first time they noticed what they knew would be there but had forgotten in their absorbed delight in the silvery water and moon-washed outlines of the city – that on every bench sat crouched or huddled one or more miserable, ragged human beings. In front of them ran the mystically lovely river; behind them the dark masses of the Temple rose solidly and sternly defensive of Law and Order behind the spear-front of its tall sharp-pointed iron fence. And there they crouched and huddled in rags and hunger and misery, free-born members of the greatest Empire the earth has yet seen, citizens of Her who so proudly claimed to be the wealthiest of cities, the exchange and mart of the whole world.
George gave what change he had in his pockets to a noseless syphilitic hag, and Elizabeth emptied her purse into the hand of a shivering child which had to be awakened to receive the gift, and cowered as if it thought it was going to be struck.
Ignoring the hag’s hoarse “Thank yer kindly, Sir, Gord bless yer, Lidy,” they fled clutching each other’s hands. They did not speak until they said good-night outside Elizabeth’s door.
6
DURING 1913 life ran on very pleasantly and happily for George and Elizabeth. As in the cases of the fortunate nations without a history, there appears to be very little to record about this year. I make no doubt that it was the happiest in George’s life. He was, as they say, “getting on”, and had less need to worry about money. In the spring they went to Dorsetshire and stayed at an inn. Elizabeth did a certain amount of painting, but apart from a few sketches George did not attempt landscape, especially the picturesque landscape – he wanted his painting to be urban, contemporary, and hard. They walked a good deal over Worbarrow Down and the rather desolate heath-land round about. On more than one occasion they traversed the very same piece of land where George was afterwards in camp with me, a coincidence which seemed to make a great impression upon him. Certain aspects of a familiar landscape always call up the same train of thought; and as people are never weary of telling us what particularly strikes them, so George rarely failed to convey this piece of stale news to me as we walked out of camp by what had once been the rough cart-track he and Elizabeth had followed in less desolate days. He seemed to think it remarkable that he should be so miserable in exactly the same place where he had once been so happy. As I pointed out, that showed great ignorance of the ironic temper of the gods, who are very fond of such genial contrasts. They delight to lay a corpse in a marriage bed, and to strike down a great nation in the fullest flush of its pride and power. One might think that happiness was “hubris”, the excess which calls down the vengeance of Fate.
They returned to London for a few weeks, and then went to Paris. Elizabeth adored Paris, and wanted to live there permanently; but George was against it. He had got some bug about the best art being “autochthonous”, and declared that an artist ought to live in his own country. But the real reason was that Parisian life seemed so pleasant and the town so full of artists more gifted and more advanced than himself, that he found it almost impossible to work there. It was easier to feel important in the comparative desert of London. So they returned to London; and in the autumn George had his first “show”, which was not altogether such a failure as he had expected.
When autumn turned to winter, and the yellow leaves of the plane-trees drifted down into heaps in the London squares, lying miserably sodden under the rain, the everlasting London drizzle, Elizabeth got very restless. She wanted to get away, anywhere under blue skies and sun. Her throat and lungs were rather sensitive, and when the weather turned foggy she nearly choked in the heavy, soot-laden, stifling air. They talked about going to Italy or Spain, but George knew only too well that he could not afford it. He might indeed get assurances from various impresarios he frequented that “work could go on as usual”, but he knew only too well that a month’s absence would mean a decline and that after three months he would be practically forgotten and dropped. It’s a dangerous thing to have a national reputation for honesty – people get to trading upon it and seem to think it absolves them from individual obligations. So George, after forming various vague plans for a delightful winter in Sicily or the island of Majorca, had to admit to Elizabeth that he simply dared not go. He begged her to go alone, or to find some friend to go with her. But Elizabeth flatly refused to go without him. So they stayed in London, and worked and coughed together. Perhaps it might have been better to take the risk, for as things turned out George never saw either Spain or Italy, which he had wanted so much to see.
Fanny came to London for a week in November, before going South for the winter; and they saw her nearly every day. Fanny and George were by this time on a footing of pretty friendly familiarity. That is to say, they always kissed each other on meeting and parting – after Fanny had kissed Elizabeth – and held hands in taxis whether Elizabeth was there or not. Elizabeth didn’t object at all. Not only because of her theory of freedom. She was at that time rather deeply involved in some theory of “erogenous zones” in women, and men’s reactions to them. And she had got it firmly into her mind that Fanny was “sexually antipathetic” to George, because he had one day innocently and casually remarked that he thought Fanny rather fiat-chested. Elizabeth leaped on this – it confirmed her theory so nicely. George had known Fanny for over a year and “nothing had happened” between them, and therefore it was plain that Fanny’s “erogenous zones” awoke no response in him.
“Most peculiar,” said Elizabeth, when she discussed the matter with a demure-looking but mighty ironical Fanny. “I should have thought you’d be the very type of woman to attract him. But he only talks about your ‘marvellous eyes,’ and they are
n’t erogenous zones at all. That means he only likes you as a human being…”
So Elizabeth took no notice when Fanny kissed George; or when she said: “George darling, do go and get some cigarettes for me,” and George departed with alacrity; or when George called Fanny “My love” or “Fanny darling.” People throw these endearments about so liberally nowadays, how on earth is one to know? And, in fact, all this went on for a long time and nothing did “happen.” George was quite devoted to Elizabeth, and then they were away when Fanny was in London, and Fanny was away when they were in London. Both George and Fanny begged Elizabeth to “go South” with Fanny, but Elizabeth wouldn’t. She was very loyal, and wouldn’t take a holiday George couldn’t share. But by this time Fanny had become fond of George, very fond indeed. She was weary of Reggie, who was sometimes so absorbed in atoms that he neglected his functions as Fanny’s faute-de-mieux. She thought it might be an excellent plan if she and Elizabeth swopped riders, so to speak. Not that she wanted to “take George away” from his mistress. Oh! Not at all. Fanny didn’t want him as a permanence – Elizabeth was welcome to that. But she felt he might do excellently as a locum tenens, while Elizabeth was widening her experience with Reggie. So there was an unusual warmth in her farewell kiss to George, who had gone down to see her off at Victoria, and a lingeringly soft pressure of her hand, and a particularly inviting look in her beautiful eyes.
“Good-bye, darling!” and she leaned from the window and to his surprise kissed him again on the lips. “Of course, I’ll write – often. And mind you write to me. I shall be back in March at latest.”
Fanny did write – occasionally to Elizabeth, once or twice to them both, frequently to George. Her letters to George were much longer and more amusing than the others. George showed some of them to Elizabeth and forgot to show others. He replied punctually and affectionately.
Just before Christmas, Reggie Burnside passed through London on his way to Mürren. He dropped into Elizabeth’s studio for tea, and finding her alone asked her to marry him, in a casual, offhand way, rather as he might have suggested their going to Rumpelmeyer’s instead of having tea in the studio. Elizabeth was surprised, flattered, and fluttered. They had quite a long discussion. Elizabeth was amazed that Reggie should want to marry, and above all to marry her. If she hadn’t been so flattered, she would have been offended at any one’s thinking she would do such a thing. She had almost the “thank-you I’m-not-that-sort-of-girl” sniffiness about it.
“Is this a new brand of joke, Reggie?”
“Good God, no! I’m perfectly serious.”
“But why in heaven’s name do you want to marry?”
“It’s more convenient, you know, addressing letters and meeting people and all that.”
“But why want to marry me?”
“Because I’m in love with you.”
Elizabeth pondered a little over this.
“Well,” she said slowly, “I don’t believe I’m in love with you. I’m sure I’m not. I like you most awfully, but I’m not in love with you, I’m in love with George.”
“Oh, George!” Reggie waved a contemptuous hand. “What’s the good of your wasting your time with a man like that, Elizabeth? He won’t do anything. He doesn’t know anybody worth mentioning, except ourselves, and nobody at Cambridge thinks anything of his painting.”
Elizabeth was on the defensive immediately.
“Don’t talk nonsense, Reggie! George is a dear, and I won’t have you say things like that about him. And as if anybody cares a hang what mouldy young Cambridge thinks about a painter!”
Reggie changed his tack.
“All right, if you don’t want to marry me, don’t. But, look here. You oughtn’t to spend the winter in London with that cough and your chest. I’ll give up Mürren if you’ll come for a month with me to some small place on the Riviera. We can easily find a place where there aren’t any English.”
This was a far more gratifying and dangerous proposal to Elizabeth than matrimony. She was heartily sick of London fog and cold and drizzle and mire and soot and messy open fires which fill the room with dust but don’t warm it. More than once she had regretted not having gone away with Fanny. Moreover, a “month’s affair” with Reggie would perfectly well fit into the arrangement with George, whereas they hadn’t thought of and hadn’t discussed the possibility of either marrying some one else. Elizabeth hesitated, but she had a feeling that it would be rather mean to leave George suddenly alone in London and go off on her own with Reggie, if only for a month. She certainly was extraordinarily fond of George.
“No, Reggie, I can’t come this time. Go to Mürren, and when you come back, perhaps… well, we’ll see.”
Elizabeth made toast and tea, and they sat on a large low divan in front of the fire. The dingy light soon faded from the soiled sky; but they sat on in the firelight, holding hands.
She let Reggie kiss her as much as he wanted, but for the time being resisted any further encroachments.
Elizabeth’s resistance, at that precise moment, to the advances of Mr. Reginald Burnside, seems to me a striking example of George’s infelicity. I mean that I see a direct link between it and the sudden inexplicable standing up of a man in khaki before a murderous machine-gun fire, not long after dawn, on the morning of the 4th of November 1918… Not that I wish melodramatically “to set the brand of Cain” upon Elizabeth or upon Fanny or upon both jointly. Far from it. They didn’t make the war. They didn’t give George the jumps. And after all there is a doubt, almost a mystery, involved in George’s death. Did he really commit suicide? I don’t know. I’ve only got circumstantial evidence and my own hunch about it, a sort of intuition, a something haunting in my memory of the man, an Orestes-like feeling of some inexpiated guilt. Who is to say whether a man can really commit suicide on a battlefield? Desperate recklessness and looking for trouble may be the very means of his escaping the death which finds the prudent coward crouching in a shell-hole. And suppose he did deliberately get himself killed, ought we, ought I, to attach any blame to Elizabeth and Fanny? I don’t think so. There were plenty of other things to disgust him with life. And even supposing that he realized the war was ending, realized that in his state of mind he simply could not face the problem of his relation with those two women, still I think them utterly blameless. The mess was as much his fault as theirs. It was really quite an easy mess to clear up. What made it impossible was George’s shattered nerves, and for that they were not to blame. Oh, not in the least. Perhaps I’m as much to blame as anybody. I ought to have done something to get George sent out of the line. I think I might have gone to the Brigadier and have told him in private what I knew about George’s state of mind – or perhaps to his Colonel. But I didn’t go. At that time I was not persona grata with those in authority, for I happened to sympathize then with the young Russian Revolution, and had foolishly argued hotly about it. So perhaps my effort would have been wasted. And anyhow it was a very difficult and ticklish thing to do, and I was tired, very, very tired.
At any rate, just about a fortnight after Reggie went to Mürren, the abominable winter climate of London gave Elizabeth some sort of a chill inside and upset her interior economy. Within four or five days she became quite demented. She insisted that she was with child, and insisted that the only solution was for George to marry her – at once. Perhaps the afternoon with Reggie had somehow inserted the idea of marriage into her “subconscious”. At all events, her extraordinary energy was suddenly concentrated upon attaining a state which she had hitherto utterly scorned. It was a silly thing to do, but one really cannot blame her. Men are oddly callous about these mysterious female maladies and demoniacal possessions. They get peevish and pathetic enough if something goes wrong with their own livers, but they are strangely unsympathetic about the profounder derangements of their yoke-fellows in iniquity. Perhaps they might feel a little more humane if they too had a sort of twenty-eight-day clock inside them, always a nuisance, often liable to go wrong and s
et up irregular blood-pressure and an intolerable poisoning of the brain. George ought to have hiked her off to a gynecologist at once. Instead of which, he behaved as stupidly as any George Augustus would have done under the circumstances. He did nothing but gasp and stare at Elizabeth’s whirling tantrums, and worry, and offer exasperating comfort, and propose remedies and measures which, as Elizabeth told him, with a stamp of her foot, were impossible, impossible, impossible. Of course, by the Triumphal Scheme for the Perfect Sex Relation, it was duly enacted that under the circumstances there was nothing to do but marry the girl. But elementary prudence would suggest that it might be sensible to make certain the circumstances had arisen, a precaution which they entirely overlooked in the mental disarray caused by Elizabeth’s regrettable dementia.
The change wrought in Elizabeth’s outlook in a few days was amazing. If she hadn’t felt so tragically about it, she would have been ludicrous in her mental manoeuvres. The whole Triumphal Scheme was scrapped almost instantaneously, and by a rapid and masterly series of evolutions her whole army of arguments was withdrawn from the outpost line of Complete Sexual Freedom, and fell back upon the Hindenburg line of Safety First, Female Honour and Legal Marriage. It was, of course, ridiculous for them to marry at all, either of them. They weren’t the marrying sort. They were adventurers in life, not good citizens. Neither of them was the kind of person who exults in life insurance and buying a house on the hire-purchase system and mowing the lawn on Saturday afternoon and taking the “kiddies” (odious word) to the seaside. Neither of them looked forward to the “Old Age Will Come” summit of felicity, with an elderly and imbecilely contented-looking George sitting beside a placid and motherly white-haired Elizabeth in the garden of a dear little home, contemplating together with smug beatitude the document from the insurance company guaranteeing a safe ten pounds a week for the remainder of their joint lives. I am glad to say that George and Elizabeth would have shuddered at any such prospect. But Elizabeth insisted upon marriage, and married they duly were, despite the feeble protests of Elizabeth’s family and the masterly denunciations of Isabel, already recorded.
Death of a Hero Page 21