The English Air

by D. E. Stevenson

  After a few minutes (in which the fact that Sophie understood became even clearer and was proved up to the hilt) Dane began to inquire into her feelings.

  “I knew you loved me,” she said, “and of course I’ve always loved you—I loved you from the very beginning—but you went away and Philip was there all the time. I was a silly little thing.” said Sophie shaking her head. “I didn’t really understand myself at all, and Philip was there, loving me and wanting me, and he was so like you, somehow; so at last I said I would marry him … but, Dane, you mustn’t think that I wasn’t happy with Philip; I was very happy indeed. He loved me, you see, and I loved him—not in the same way that I loved you, of course, but very dearly all the same. I suppose I must be a most extraordinary person,” said Sophie with a sigh. “I mean I’ve never read in any book about a woman who loved two men at the same time, have you? In books, if the heroine marries a man, she either loves him—and him alone—or else she hates him and is miserable with him. Well, I wasn’t. I was happy with Philip for seventeen years.”

  “Yes,” agreed Dane, “and Philip was happy with you. I’m glad to think that, because Philip deserved happiness. I really am very glad, Sophie—I suppose that shows I’m an extraordinary person too?”

  “I believe it does,” said Sophie thoughtfully. “You ought to have hated Philip, I suppose; but our way is much more comfortable, isn’t it?”

  Dane agreed that it was.

  “And if we’re both extraordinary people it doesn’t matter so much,” added Sophie.

  After a little while she said softly, “I’m happy … but it seems wrong when other people are so sad. Poor Frank, what will happen to him if this dreadful war comes? … and poor little Wynne … do you think you were right to send Frank away?”

  “Sophie!” exclaimed Dane, drawing away from her and looking at her in surprise. “How do you know anything about it?”

  “I just jumped to the conclusion,” she replied. “You’re always telling me I shouldn’t jump to conclusions, but it’s very useful sometimes and saves a lot of thinking out. I’m afraid even after we’re married,” said Sophie gravely, “I’m afraid I shall go on jumping to conclusions.”

  “Oh Sophie!” cried Dane, laughing. “Oh Sophie darling—you must just go on being exactly the same. I don’t want a single hair of you different … but I wish you’d tell me how you knew about Frank and Wynne. Has Wynne said anything to you?”

  “No—nothing really, but I was certain they loved each other and of course it worried me, so I knew you’d be worried too. I knew you would be thinking of Elsie and what happened to her … I thought of it all the time. It wasn’t really very clever of me to guess that you had sent Frank away, was it?”

  “I think it was very clever,” Dane said.

  Sophie ignored this, she was too intent upon her explanations to notice compliments. “At first, when I thought about it, I nearly died,” she declared. “It seemed like Elsie and Otto over again … it seemed too dreadful for words … but when I thought about it a little more I changed my mind.”

  “Sophie, it is dreadful,” Dane said earnestly.

  “Yes,” she agreed. “Yes … but Dane we can’t interfere with their lives. I mean we mustn’t do it. We can advise them and warn them, that’s all.”

  “But Sophie—”

  “And Frank isn’t like Otto,” Sophie interrupted. “He’s like Otto to look at but he’s made of different stuff. He’s stronger and better than Otto, he’s more reasonable, more considerate and much kinder.”

  “That’s true, of course.”

  “And Wynne is stronger than Elsie. They’re both whole people, Dane. They know what they want and go straight for it. They’re quite different from what we were when we were young.”

  This was true too, and Dane realised that Sophie was right.

  “So if he comes back,” said Sophie. “If he comes back and they both still want it … well then …”

  “Yes,” said Dane.

  “But I hope they won’t,” she added with a sigh.

  By this time the younger members of the party had finished their bathe and were ready for lunch.

  “Poor darlings!” cried Wynne, as she leaped down off the rocks, “Poor darlings, did you think we were never coming? You should have begun without us.”

  “Have you been sitting there all this time?” inquired Roy, flinging himself on to the ground beside them.

  “You haven’t been long,” replied Dane and Sophie with one accord.

  “Two hours,” said Roy, looking at his watch. “Two solid hours. What have you been talking about?”

  It seemed to Dane a reasonable question and he saw no grounds for evading a reply. The news would have to be broken sometime.

  “I asked your mother to marry me,” he said in a tone which was as matter of fact as he could make it.

  “Oh Dane!” cried Sophie. “Oh Dane, why—”

  “And she was good enough to accept my proposal,” added Dane.

  For a moment there was incredulous silence, and then Wynne recovered the use of her tongue. “Oh you darlings!” she exclaimed. “Oh, what a fool I’ve been! Of course that was why …” and she flung herself at Sophie and almost smothered her with embraces.

  Dane had been pretty sure of Wynne’s sympathy—it was Roy who might be the difficulty. He looked at Roy somewhat anxiously to see how he was taking it. Roy met his eyes … and looked away.

  “Roy,” said Dane. “Roy, I hope you … you understand. It won’t make any difference to anything.”

  “I can’t believe it, that’s all,” said Roy uncertainly, and Dane saw that his face was crimson with embarrassment. “I can’t … believe it. You and Sophie have always been … I mean you’ve been there … and now …”

  “We shall still be there,” declared Sophie, holding out her hands to him. “Roy darling, of course we’re there—here, I mean—always and just the same. No difference at all except that Dane can help me to bear things even better than before.”

  “Bear things?” he said, pulling at a tuft of grass that grew in a crevice.

  “Yes, darling,” said Sophie. “There’s such a lot to bear … war perhaps, and you going away. You’ve got your own life now, and Wynne has hers. Wynne may go away too, and then what would become of me?”

  “But Sophie—” began Roy, raising his eyes and looking at her.

  “But Roy, it’s right for people to have their own lives, isn’t it? You and Wynne have all your lives before you.”

  “Oh Sophie!” cried Roy taking her hands. “Oh darling, what a beast I am! As long as you’re happy—”

  “I’m happy,” Sophie declared, smiling through tears.

  Dane heaved a sigh of relief, for he was aware that the worst was over. Now that Roy had accepted the idea he would soon get used to it and all would go on as before. Wynne helped to ease the tension which ensued, she was so unselfconscious, so unselfish in her delight at her mother’s happiness—and Dane’s.

  “It’s perfect,” she declared, looking from one to the other with shining eyes. “It really is quite perfect. You’re both such lambs and you fit in together so beautifully …”

  She was opening the basket as she spoke and beginning to distribute the food, and they all discovered that they were very hungry.

  “It’s after two o’clock,” Roy pointed out as he seized the leg of a chicken and a large ham sandwich.

  “And such a lot has happened,” added Sophie.

  Fortunately there was a large bottle of hock in the basket, so healths could be drunk with proper ceremony and the mere fact of eating and drinking made everybody feel more normal. They laughed and talked, but Sophie talked faster and more fluently than anyone else. She had suffered an emotional strain and had exhibited a good deal of wisdom and understanding and the inevitable reaction had now set in. She talked about a picnic which had taken place when she was a child, and went on to discuss the difference between children then and now … and the ne
xt moment she had begun to talk about New York.

  “But you haven’t been there!” Wynne exclaimed in surprise, “so how do you know anything about it?”

  “That’s the extraordinary part of it,” Sophie explained. “I have been there but I don’t know anything about it. I went with my father when I was ten years old, and why he took me with him I can’t imagine. It was such a waste,” declared Sophie, shaking her head sadly, “such a terrible waste, because I couldn’t take it in at all. I was rather frightened, really, because I had never been away from home before, and everyone had told me that I musn’t be a nuisance to Father. Everyone had told me to be good and quiet and to be sure to remember my manners and not to make Father ashamed; everyone had given me so much advice that I was quite bewildered before I started. I was frightened, too, I was frightened of the noise and the bustle and of all the strange people who spoke to me. They were very kind, of course, and they asked me to parties with Father but I didn’t enjoy the parties at all—I was shy and tired and very sleepy because I wasn’t used to late hours, and all I longed for was bed. I must have been very dull—I expect they thought I was half-witted, don’t you?” Sophie paused for a moment and smiled. “You know,” she said, “the only thing I remember clearly is trying to darn my stockings—it was a nightmare to me. The holes would come and I didn’t know how to mend them, because, of course, Nannie had always mended them at home. They were black woollen stockings and I watered them with tears.”

  None of the others had heard of this visit to New York before, and when they could get a word in edgeways, they expressed their amazement that Sophie had concealed it from them for so long.

  “I don’t know why I remembered it,” Sophie replied. “Perhaps it was the vegetable salad—though I’ve often had vegetable salad before and not remembered New York. I don’t really remember it now,” she added, smiling at her family affectionately—“I mean there’s nothing of New York in me—there never was—and I’m exactly the same, now, as if I had never been there at all … that’s why it was such a waste.”

  Chapter Six

  The ultimatum which Britain had sent to Germany expired on Sunday morning at eleven o’clock and at eleven fifteen Mr. Chamberlain spoke to the people. He did not make a speech, he just spoke to the people of Britain quietly and from a full heart, and the people of Britain listened. There was no excitement, there was no waving of banners, but there was determination. The people of Britain were at one in their determination to fight against aggression in the cause of liberty and justice—it was in this spirit that Britain took up arms.

  Dane and Sophie and Wynne were in the Fernacres drawing-room listening to the radio, and it seemed very strange to all of them that war should come like this. It came so quietly in the pretty peaceful room that they knew so well. They listened to Mr. Chamberlain in silence and rose to their feet with one accord at the strains of “God Save the King.” When it was over and silence fell, Wynne could bear it no longer and she fled from the room.

  Sophie was sobbing quietly and Dane went over to her and took her hand.

  “Sophie dear,” he said—and then paused, for there was nothing that he could say.

  “Never mind me,” said Sophie, “I’m just silly … I’ll be all right in a minute. It’s just that I’m so sorry for him … he’s worked so hard for peace. Go after Wynne—go after her, Dane. Somebody must do something for Wynne.”

  “You go to her, Sophie.”

  “No—you,” said Sophie. “You’re so much cleverer than I am. You’ll know what to say.”

  He put his hand on Sophie’s shoulder for a moment and then went after Wynne, for Sophie was right—somebody must try to help her. It was doubtful whether anyone could do much for her but at least he could try. She had run out into the garden and after some trouble he found her in a little ruined summer-house beyond the tennis courts. She was sitting on the bench staring before her with sightless eyes.

  “Wynne!” he said a trifle diffidently, for it seemed improper to intrude upon the privacy she had sought.

  “Oh, Dane!” she said, looking up at him and speaking in a low, even tone. “Oh, Dane, I can’t understand it … I can’t even believe it … you know about wars.”

  Dane looked at her tenderly and he realised what she was trying to put into words. She felt that the whole fabric of life had collapsed, and the world, as she knew it, was in ruins. It was strange that he should understand her so well for the problems of one generation are seldom very real to the next and it is often easier for the old to understand the young than for the middle generation to understand either. He saw that perhaps they had been wrong to allow Wynne to grow up in ignorance of the stern realities of life, but he had loved her so dearly—like the little daughter which she might so easily have been—and he had wanted her to be happy and gay and carefree; he had wanted to give her a long lease of summer. She had been happy, there was no doubt, but perhaps the fact that her life had been lived beneath unclouded skies made it all the harder for her to withstand the tempest.

  “You know about wars,” said Wynne.

  “Yes,” replied Dane sadly. Like everyone else of his generation Dane had vivid memories of the last war. He remembered (for he was old enough) the time of peace before it, and indeed it seemed to him that true peace had been wrecked in 1914 and had never been properly mended. It was a wonderfully secure and comfortable and peaceful world that Dane remembered—“In the old days of peace ere ever the sons of the Achaeans came to the land,” as the Greek poet had written—Dane had been formed in that peaceful world but he had been hardened in the crucible of war. Yes, Wynne was right, he knew about wars. The last war was clear in his mind and since then, during the last twenty years, he had wandered over the face of Europe and had met and spoken with men who knew how brittle a thing was Europe’s peace. He had been in Germany and had observed for himself the frightful industry with which she was re-arming and re-educating her youth, forging her weapons for the conflict which she had now forced upon the world. He had been in Spain, and had seen the terrible results of modern warfare, wrecked cities blazing like devil’s bonfires, and homeless starving people. He had been in France and had stood amongst the great fortifications which France had built at the cost of millions—great fortifications hidden beneath fair fields and smiling meadows and amongst the tender green foliage of woods, but all the more strong and deadly and ominous for that … France was in no doubt as to her enemy. So, now, when the precarious peace had crumbled, Dane was not amazed; his soul was armoured against the blow; the frightful menace of war had not come upon him unawares.

  “It’s so dreadful,” Wynne was saying in a quiet voice. “It’s so dreadful that I can’t … can’t take it in at all. People killing each other … there’s Roy, you see … and … and Frank. I suppose I shouldn’t be thinking of Frank.”

  “Why not? He’s your friend.”

  “It seems selfish to think of one’s own … at a time like this, but I can’t help it. Will Frank be fighting against us, Dane?”

  She spoke with a gentle docility which Dane found very moving—far more moving than tears. Wynne trusted him, she had always looked to him to solve her difficulties, and he had always been able to help, but now—

  “I don’t know,” said Dane. “We don’t know where Frank is, do we? If he is in Germany, I’m afraid he will have to fight.”

  “He will be fighting against Roy,” she said, and there was horror in her voice … Roy and Frank, the two she loved best in the world.

  “Don’t think of it like that.”

  “But how—”

  “Think of it impersonally,” Dane urged her. “Not Frank and Roy fighting against each other, but each fighting for his country as a man must do.”

  “I can’t,” she said.

  There was silence then, for Dane could do no more. The winds were blowing very roughly upon his darling bud of May.

  The winds were rough but after the first onslaught Wynne stood up to th
em manfully. She was more grave than usual, and less ready to laugh, she was quieter and paler and her face seemed to be firming beneath the strain. Dane watched her and he was proud of her courage. He was all the more proud of Wynne because there was no bitterness in her sadness, she was not sorry for herself, she was not rebellious. It touched him very deeply to see her with her mother—there was a new gentleness in their relationship. Wynne was putting her own troubles in the background and was deliberately engrossing herself in Sophie’s affairs. It was natural, of course, that Wynne should share in the anxiety over Roy’s safety, but it was less natural that she should share in the happiness of Sophie and himself.

  One of the matters in which Wynne was deliberately engrossing herself was the problem of Sophie’s trousseau. It was a small matter, perhaps, but Dane thought that the mere fact that Wynne took an interest in it showed a noble spirit. Wynne was determined that Sophie should have a “proper trousseau,” and she was setting about the matter in her usual energetic way.

  “You must have another coat and skirt,” she declared.

  “But Wynne, I don’t need it, and it’s war-time,” complained Sophie.

  “And you must have a pretty frock for the wedding—and a really smart hat—”

  “But Wynne—”

  “You must,” said Wynne firmly.

  She ordered hats to be sent from London on approval and tried them on to Sophie’s somewhat reluctant head. Dane happened to come in during one of these orgies and found the drawing-room littered with hats and Wynne with a hat in each hand, weighing their merits.

  “What on earth—” began Dane.

  “She must have a new hat,” explained Wynne gravely, “and she won’t go to town and choose one so I’ve had them sent here. Put this one on again, darling, and let Dane see.”

  “But Wynne, I look a perfect sight—”

  “No darling, it’s just that you aren’t used to it. Look Dane, isn’t she sweet in that one.”

  Sophie had the type of face eminently suited to the present fashion. The perched Edwardian concoction of feathers in soft shades of blue was not what Dane would have called a “hat” but Sophie looked a perfect darling in it, and he said so.