THE DANGEROUS YEARS
by
RICHARD CHURCH
Just when we’re safest, there’s a sunset touch.
ROBERT BROWNING
Contents
1. A Lonely Birthday
2. Battling Through Fog
3. A Long-Standing Invitation
4. Dinner in Paris
5. Morning Coffee
6. A Child Prodigy
7. Airing a Prejudice
8. A Clinical Conversation
9. Christmas Day
10. The God Disguised
11. Launching a Boat
12. Judas Also Wept
13. The Gathering Conflict
14. Husband and Wife
15. To the Mountains
16. Seeing People Off
17. The Embarkation for Cythera
18. Mid Snow and Ice
19. Winter Idyll
20. The Marriage of Mind and Muscle
21. This Cowardly Flesh
22. A Powerful Ally
23. The Summit
24. The Annunciation
25. Woman Proposes
26. The Choice
A Note on the Author
Chapter One
A Lonely Birthday
Mrs. Winterbourne had three letters on the morning of her fiftieth birthday. Being a person who loved to savour life to the full, she did not immediately open them, but examined the handwriting on the envelopes. One was from Paris, and she recognised the sender, Dr. Batten, who had been in the East Surrey Regiment with her husband at the Battle of Loos in the autumn of 1915, and had come home on leave shortly after, to call on her and tell her some details about his fellow-officer’s death, one amongst the fifty thousand in that ding-dong struggle which wiped out most of the young men from Limpsfield village, where she was still living in 1930.
The experiences of that battle, where poison-gas was again used, had affected Dr. Batten’s outlook on life. After the war he had married a French woman, and settled in Paris with the determination to specialise in respiratory diseases. Once a year he wrote to his friend’s widow. Now here was the fifteenth anniversary tribute.
Mrs. Winterbourne did not immediately open that letter. She knew it would be a polite repetition of its fourteen predecessors, carrying an invitation for her to come to Paris again—she had been once, in the first dark days immediately after the war when grief swelled afresh and drove her like an autumn leaf up and down the confines of her small world. Since then she had resumed control of herself and her destiny, as she thought, and anchored herself to the responsibility of bringing up her daughter Joan; a double responsibility now that the girl was fatherless.
The second letter was from Joan, twenty-five years old, and married to the man of her own choice, John Boys, a don at King’s College, Cambridge, whom she had met while she was an undergraduate at Newnham, during a winter vacation with a climbing party in Switzerland.
It was the fact that the third letter was from this son-in-law, that made Mrs. Winterbourne pucker up her still pretty brows. She was perplexed. Why did the children, as she called them, write each under separate cover? It was as ominous as sleeping in different rooms. She attacked Joan’s letter first.
“Dearest,” it began (habitually rather than emotionally), “a happy birthday, and I wish I could buy you the earth; but something is coming from The Stores by delivery van direct. If John were here I know he would include something intense, for he has always been more in love with you than with me. But he’s not here. Immediately the students went down he was off as usual to harden his muscles and reinforce his iron will. He’s walking in the rain along the Pennines I presume. I last saw him in studded boots and mossy flannel bags, with a rucksack containing a change of hair-shirt. He kissed the air somewhere about six inches from my carbolised face and with a wave of the hand was gone. I thank God I can’t go because I have a good excuse. I’m devilling for my Professor, digging into the Middle Ages again, Court Rolls and all that. And he wants the fodder urgently, to get his book done before some American rival steals his thunder.
“I wish I didn’t feel lonely here, in spite of the work. It makes me ashamed of myself, though I don’t know why I should be. Marriage should not be a one-sided affair. But I’m not grumbling. After all, fidelity is something to be thankful for in this libidinous age. And that is John’s strongest suit. He’s as faithful as Helvellyn, or The Rock of Ages. He could climb up his own constancy, and find it as formidable as the Matterhorn. It has its funny side. I mean the relationship, not the constancy. But I feel inclined to come home for a while, and to shut up the flat here in Cambridge, which is dreary in mid-winter after term finishes. It’s the coldest place on earth; and I begin to feel I would like a touch of extravagant, Latin warmth for once in a while. Dear old Limpsfield; I think of it now, a blaze of December colour along Titsey woods and along the secret brooks. And the bracken on the Common! Mother, I wish sometimes I’d never grown up and left you, or wanted things, and a person, so much. However, I must get on with the job. I will ring you up when it is done, and I may fulfil my threat to descend on you.”
Mrs. Winterbourne read this through twice, and tapped it against her teeth, as though it were a coin to be tested. The puzzlement did not leave her brow. Obviously she was haunted by previous thoughts on the matter. This letter was a straw in the wind. She turned to the third.
“Dear Mary,” it said. She had absolutely refused, from the start of the marriage four years ago, to be called ‘Mater’ as John Boys had shyly tried to name her. And ‘Mother’ was a little too close for a man of nearly forty, a rocklike individual, son of the Church, devoted to his work as a physicist. Being shy, he was at first shocked that his mother-in-law should demand to be treated so unceremoniously. Being also inarticulate, he accepted gratefully.
“I’m taking a walk, to harden up a bit after term. The weather is just right for it; heavy rains against bouts of N.E. counter-blasts. Quite a struggle at times on the summits, with patches of fog. Not a soul about, except a shepherd here and there looking for strayed animals. One or two noble sunsets in spite of the inclemency. I wish young Joan were here; but she’s losing heart lately. Working too hard for old Watson. Can’t you have a word with her? I’ve tried, but she just freezes when I jockey her. I’d like to talk to you about this sometime. She’s been getting into a habit of biting lately. It’s been going on all the year; and I can’t understand why. We both have our work to do, and our lives are very full. Do you think it rankles that she got only a Second instead of the predicted First? If so, it wasn’t my fault, for I did my best to keep her nose to the grindstone during her last year, after we had met on that climbing expedition in 1924. But she was so keen on getting married that she would live in the future, and day-dream about it instead of plugging away at the job in hand. She could have got that First without ropes! Well, I must push on. I’m writing this in a scruffy little hotel near Scafell, after an early breakfast. Rain still falling, and growing colder. Good hardening weather! Wish you were here, relieved from all your good works for a while. The wind on the heath, brother! Happy birthday to you. Joan is doing something at The Stores.”
The letter from Paris was opened last, and thoughtfully Mrs. Winterbourne first went to the window of her sittingroom, and looked across the woods. Rain was falling here too, steadily and musically, a quiet drumming on the roof of the old cottage, and a distant whispering among the bare twigs of the oaks and birches that stood around the clearing before the cottage. Suddenly she felt lonely. She would not allow herself to be disconsolate, however, and turned to Dr. Batten’s annual. It was, as she expected, the usual quiet reminder from a remarkable man. She had not seen him for over ten years, and during that
decade he had been working at pressure, a dedicated soul, supported by his wife, a woman of some property, and a nurse during the war. The invitation to visit them in Paris was repeated. What made Mrs. Winterbourne marvel was that so slender an acquaintance could be maintained, without more to feed it. Dr. Batten must have had close contact with hundreds of casualties during that dreadful September in 1915, but he had remembered, and remembered with emotion, the occasion of her husband’s death on the barbed wire so unexpectedly thrust up by the Germans on Hill 70 in the heat of the battle. The names of that fatal neighbourhood were stamped on her memory: Loos, Hulluch, Cité St. Elie, Festubert, Neuve Chapelle, and the terrible Bois Hugo where the enfilading machine-gun fire drove back the 24th Division. Details were beginning to fade; but names stood like gravestones in the cemetery of the past. Among them lay her love, her marriage, Joan’s father. There had hardly been time to explore his nature. Was it perpetuated in their daughter, the forthright, somewhat tempestuous young woman, given to great indignations and equally great recoils?
A fiftieth birthday spent alone, in familiar surroundings, is too ghost-ridden to be comfortable. Mrs. Winterbourne tried to busy herself, determined to throw off the depression that had settled over her after she had read the three letters, the only post that morning. Was she entirely forgotten by the rest of the world, the many acquaintances, the neighbours? What of the many people with whom she worked locally, and those in London, all of them fellow-folk in interests and matters of taste, members of the various societies working for peace, the several freedoms, the promotion of the arts and more enlightened gardening, a dozen activities in which she took part, with the intention of making the human family less bloody-minded and destructive? But no doubt all these good workers were more concerned with mankind as a whole, than with any single individual. She reflected modestly upon this, but it did her no good that day, and she had to confess to herself by the evening that the dear little cottage, the garden, the whole setting of her life for the past decade, were as unreal as a stage backcloth. A muggy drizzle fell after luncheon, and day faded out about three o’clock, beaten down by the tiny hammers of the rain thudding on what few leaves still hung on the trees. “Why was I born in December?” she asked Milly, her cook, who lived in the village and came in daily, cycling over the common and down the hill to the cottage in the woods.
Milly had not been able to answer this question; but she looked curiously at her employer, with whom she had been on friendly terms, unbroken by a cloud, ever since taking the job ten years earlier. During that time, Milly had married; but she would not give up her post with Mrs. Winterbourne, and there had been no arrival of a family to force her to do so. The relationship was a cool one, but it was serene.
“You want a bit of a change,” she said. “I always say that as soon as you start thinking about yourself, something must be wrong. It doesn’t do. Arthur got like that when he was away from work with shingles, and he properly got on my nerves. He began asking me questions about himself. It was uncanny, and I said so. I sent him off to his mother up North, and it did him a world of good. Just a change of scene, that’s all you need. It’s brooding, that’s the danger.”
Milly’s bracing remarks were effective, and Mrs. Winterbourne determined to take herself in hand. She was indeed surprised at her weakness, one quite out of character.
As though to draw her back to her more normal condition, the telephone rang soon after dark, the first sound to break the day-long silence indoors and out. She heard Joan’s voice, distant, querulous.
“Is that you, Mother? Look, I think I’ll come home to you for a few days. I’ve something I want to say, and I can’t talk about it on the phone. Is that all right? Am I putting you out?”
Mary did some quick thinking, for her diary was on the desk in her dining-room: but she knew that not much was happening, amongst her several committees, most meetings having been put off until after Christmas.
“Why not come to-morrow?” she said, quietly, though she was relieved to have this mood of loneliness so happily broken. “Let us meet in Town and get some of the shopping done on your way down.”
This was agreed, and Joan rang off. Her mother knew better than to try to get more information out of her by questioning her, especially on the telephone.
The house was quieter than ever after that interlude, and the widow shut herself in for the night, alone there, in the midst of a countryside where she played so active a part with her good works, and her apparently selfless nature. A wind sprang up, flinging masses of dead leaves against the windows, where they scratched and rustled like ghosts, clamouring from the past. She went early to bed, and to her astonishment, found herself weeping as soon as her head touched the pillow. ‘Milly must be right,’ she thought. ‘Something must be done. I suppose it is my time of life. Well, I hope it won’t last long.’ And upon that practical surmise, she fell asleep.
Chapter Two
Battling Through Fog
Next morning dawned cold and misty. Below the open and rising ground on which the cottage stood, the woods lay scarved, vague masses of dark vegetation under a milky sky. Mary felt more cheerful, however, as she bustled about, preparing for the day in London. In spite of the cold, the Austin Seven started up immediately, and Mary drove to Oxted station with time to spare.
As the train approached London, daylight faded away under an overhead fog, but the line was clear, and the train arrived on time. Mary took the Underground to King’s Cross, and waited there until her daughter’s train came in, half an hour late.
She saw Joan in the distance, walking towards the barrier, striding past people, her head up, a newspaper in one hand, a brief-case in the other. She saw her mother and waved the newspaper, but in a dispirited way that set Mary wondering again.
“You are tired darling,” she said, looking up at the young woman’s handsome face, a feminine replica of that of the dead soldier-stockbroker.
“I am tired,” replied the girl firmly, “I’ve hardly slept for a week.”
Mary took her arm, and they left the station, to come out into the dark Town.
“Good God!” said the girl. “How very appropriate!”
“Why, Joan, whatever is the matter?”
Mary stopped and turned to her, forcing the girl to stop too. She saw the over-intensity of those normally serene features, the emphasis with which Joan stood as though stamping the pavement into submission.
“Don’t ask me here, Mother. I can’t talk about it now. Let’s forget everything and concentrate on our shopping. There’s some sense in that, perhaps. Now where do we go first?”
Mary was instantly overcome by the illusion of being the younger of the two, and she followed Joan in silence for a while, trying to control her anxiety. She studied the rebellious hair, which made a halo round the shabby toque. She observed how the broad shoulders stooped, as though shrinking from something unpleasant. She was so nervous that she could almost feel the pavement vibrating under the girl’s angry tread.
“Where’s your luggage?” she said.
“Oh God, I’ve left it in the train! Not even competent to manage that! Here, hold this and wait for me.” She thrust the brief-case into her mother’s hand, and fled.
A quarter of an hour passed, while Mary stood outside the station, consumed by uncertainties, a forlorn figure in the gloom. Then Joan reappeared, carrying a small suitcase, which she held up triumphantly.
“It had already got to the Lost Property Office. What a fool I am. This won’t do, Mother. Let’s pull ourselves together, after wasting all that time.”
She was cheered by this small success, and kept this animation for the rest of the morning. Only once, during lunch in the restaurant of a crowded shop, did Mary venture to look enquiringly at Joan; but before she could speak, the girl took fright, having intercepted the glance.
“Don’t look at me like that, Mother. I know what you mean, but we can’t talk here. I’m not sure of myself. I don’t possess
your universal kindness. I’m really a wickedly selfish creature. You know that. You know how I bully you. It’s no use telling me …”
“I’m not telling you anything, Joan. Let us do as you say, and wait until we get home; if we ever do get home out of this dreadful atmosphere.”
The fog had now come down, and penetrated even into the heated shops. It hung about among the lights, cloaking each bulb with a nimbus of sulphury shadow. Shoppers began to cough, to draw their collars close about their throats and chests. The traffic slowed down, its roar diminishing to a rubbery rumble.
“We’d better make for Victoria station,” said Mary, “before the rush-hour begins.”
But Joan objected. She made the excuse that there were thousands more gifts to be bought. This was an excuse for putting off the confession, and Mary at last rebelled. They reached Victoria to discover that other people were of the same mind. The station was packed with a crowd of parcel-encumbered shoppers. Blackboards with cancellations and new directions stood on easels. Overhead, under the dome, a thick cloud of chocolate-coloured smoke hung like a sagging tent. Beyond the station, all was dark, though the hour was only three o’clock. From time to time, if there were such a factor as time, a fog signal exploded, and yet another train rumbled to a standstill. Distant lowings from down-river suggested that tugs were in difficulties in and beyond London Pool.
The two women fought their way to a barrier and a platform where a lunch-time train still waited. They found seats, and sat there, in a cold coach, with their parcels about them, the racks being already filled. “One thing, it teaches us patience,” said a passenger. Mary, sitting pressed against her daughter, felt the girl’s body start, and she half-expected her to make some rude retort. She put her hand on Joan’s lap, and patted the firm flesh. There was no response. Joan was determined on being alone in the universe.
After two hours of great discomfort and cold, mother and daughter reached Oxted, and groped their way to the car in the station yard. But now it needed some persuasion, and Joan had to lift the bonnet, tickle the carburetter, and swing the handle a dozen times before the engine woke. The fog here was vegetable instead of mineral, but it was hardly less thick, and Joan had to drive in low gear all the way to the cottage. But she appeared to welcome the needed concentration, and hummed to herself as she peered ahead, hugging the verge of the road up through the back of the village, over the Common, and down to the great wood. Here, where the Weald opened, the mist thinned a little, revealing the nearer trees and bushes beside the lane. The headlights of the car struck the coloured trunks and sweeps of halfnaked fronds, making sudden flares of yellow, umber and gold, but tarnished gold. A falling leaf from time to time crossed the windscreen, screaming with light, then vanishing. Once an owl glided in front of the car, an unreal apparition that left behind it a cry that choked upon itself as though smothered by the drip, drip of the clinging mist.
The Dangerous Years Page 1