The Memorial

He went down with Lily to look at the house on

Gatesley Brow they were to occupy—if Aunt Mary approved of it. She was coming up for a day or two to the Hall to make arrangements before bringing her goods and her family. It was strange to walk over that tiny, empty house and imagine his aunt and his new cousins living there. He speculated about them endlessly.

The day arrived, and he'd come into the drawing-room to find his mother sitting with a large dark woman, who wore her hair in circular plaits over the ears and was smoking a cigarette. His first impression of her was mixed. The cigarette and her clothes, which were somehow queer, over-sophisti­cated, almost foreign, repelled him. But her voice and her quick direct glance attracted him, seeming friendly. Aunt Mary looked a good deal older than Mother. She had a few white hairs already, some wrinkles round the eyes and in the forehead, and dark brown rings under the eyes—and yet, after a moment, one saw that she was in splendid health and full of energy. Her energy was of a quiet kind. She didn't fidget with her hands or talk quickly, but her eyes were bright and sparkling with life. She had kissed Eric in a sensible, friendly way, without making any personal remarks, and at once included him in their conversation, which was about her new home.

It had seemed queer to hear her say to Mother: Does Father do this, and Father seems rather that. Soon after she'd finished her cigarette, she rolled

another one for herself, very neatly, taking the tobacco from a tiny red leather pouch. And this set the seal on her strangeness for Eric.

He'd kept glancing at his mother to see whether she was being similarly impressed, but of this he couldn't be sure. He had never been sure, from that day to this, what Mother really thought of Aunt Mary.

Eric passed out into the stable-yard, surrounded by the barns where a troop of horse was said to have been sheltered during the Civil War. Grass grew between the cobblestones, framed in the archway of the Clock Tower. Kent wasn't in the saddle-room. He must be having his dinner. Eric felt under the doorstep, where there was a hole, for the key. He opened the door, releasing the pungent smell of embrocation, the flavour of brasso and the mustiness of leather. He wheeled out his bicycle.

It was getting old, and had long been too small. He'd soon have to get another. Suppose he asked Mother for a motor-bike? Why, he could buy one out of the money he'd got in the Post Office. The absurdity of the thought made Eric smile. Not that he wanted a motor-bike—but Maurice had said the other day that he simply couldn't under­stand anyone having the money and not buying one. Maurice was always saving, but then he was always spending, too. And Eric knew that his cousins weren't well off.

For a long time he'd been very mistrustful of

them. They were strange, like their mother, but without, it seemed, her more reassuring qualities. Maurice especially, with his self-possession, his obvious sophistication, his pale handsome face, black hair and dark eyes that seemed wide open with politely unspoken surprise at the place they'd arrived at. They were at first frankly town chil­dren. They wondered what people did to get through the time in the country, and were anxious to be informed. They went about Gatesley and Chapel Bridge looking faintly puzzled, with the air that there must be more in all this than met the eye. Eric thought them supercilious. They had beautiful "party" manners. The first time they met Mother they made a very good impression. Later, she had seemed not to like them so much. It wasn't till the Christmas holidays that the Scrivens had really begun to take their place in Gatesley life. It had been decided to have a variety entertainment in aid of the Red Cross Hospital, and Aunt Mary had been asked to help. After a week of rehearsals she was in command. She didn't push herself forward, but nobody could help recognising that here was someone who had a natural gift for managing things of this sort. The show was a tremendous success. Maurice and Anne had both appeared in it. Anne sang. Maurice recited a poem and danced a hornpipe. Eric had thought them absolutely wonderful—as good as any trained actors, easily.

He now expected that his cousins would become more distant, more supercilious than ever. He was quite wrong. They were so frankly pleased and excited at their triumph that he—and many of their other critics in Gatesley and Chapel Bridge— realised that they had, after all, only been shy and anxious for a chance to show their goodwill. After the theatricals, Eric began, in fact, the gradual process of falling in love collectively with the Scriven family.

For he was in love with them, it was nothing less. In Aunt Mary's house he was a different being. The presence of his cousins seemed to give him power. He felt wonderfully calm and sure of himself; everything seemed made easy and pleasant. He stammered less, he believed—especi­ally when talking to Aunt Mary or Anne. He had been shy longer with Maurice, whom he admired so painfully, but at least he'd made no pretences. It would have been quite useless, anyway. Maurice knew him as he was—clumsy, bad at games without any sort of skill or elegance. Maurice knew that Eric couldn't throw properly, couldn't bowl overarm, could only swim breast-stroke, couldn't dive, could hardly have told you the names of six well-known cricketers, and was still completely in the dark, although he'd watched it and had the whole thing explained to him scores of times, about the proper adjustment of valve tap­pets and the engine timing. And the extraordinary

thing was, Maurice didn't seem to despise him for all this in the least. They all knew Eric as he was. And they seemed to like him in spite of himself.

Eric still, however, had violent spasms of jealousy and self-disgust in which he saw, through all their kindness, a conspiracy to conceal from him that he was merely being tolerated and pitied. At such times he suspected their every word, every gesture; watched them narrowly and jealously; was even inclined to be curt and ill-tempered with them.

But Maurice, as if he knew of this jealousy, al­ways turned its edge by making references, in front of Gerald and Tommy, to times when he and Eric had been together and the Ramsbothams had not been there. So that, if Gerald talked too much about the famous car they were building, in which they hoped to do a hundred, and which greatly inter­ested Maurice, Maurice would nevertheless keep chipping in with: "You remember last Friday, Eric, when you said" so and so.

Indeed, he never seemed to resent the claims Eric's admiration made upon him. And if, as once or twice, his conversation about women with the Ramsbothams had really shocked Eric—not but what he was quite used to it at school—because it jarred upon his conception of his cousin, Maurice would notice this at once. When they were alone, he would be oddly apologetic, propitiatory; saying seriously and frankly such things as:

"Do you think I'm awful, Eric?" "Do you get awfully bored with me?" Remarks which Eric didn't know how to answer.

Once he'd been stung by jealousy to a violent, hypocritical outburst. Maurice had repeated ah obscene limerick which genuinely amused him. Indeed, it had amused Eric. But it came from Gerald Ramsbotham. Eric, who'd had a rather humiliating afternoon, because they'd been playing cricket on the lawn and he was as clumsy as usual, suddenly lost all control of himself and broke out, in front of everybody, with something about being sick to death of all this filth. It was an almost in­credible scene. Stammering cut him short. He had walked straight out of the garden and ridden off home, his eyes full of tears of rage, hearing Gerald's laughter behind him. When he grew calmer, he'd been appalled at his behaviour. Of course, he'd never be asked over to Gatesley again. He took that for granted.

But the very next day, when Eric had been sit­ting in deepest gloom, Mrs. Beddoes had come in to say that his cousin was downstairs in the hall and would like to speak to him. Eric had hardly been able to believe his own eyes. There was Maurice; he'd biked over, called on his own account, without being invited—a thing absolutely without pre­cedent. And while Eric was beginning a prelimin­ary stammer, wondering how on earth he could

excuse himself, so hopeless of being able to do so that he nearly yelled: Get out of the house! instead, Maurice had begun saying how sorry he was about what happened yesterday, and he hoped Eric would forgive him—he hadn't meant to hurt Eric's feel­ings—he swore that he'd done it quite uninten­tionally—and so forth. And before Eric could get a word in edgeways, Maurice had ended up that if Eric had really quite forgiven them he must show it by coming to tea there that afternoon. Eric had looked hard at him to be sure that all this wasn't simply making fun of himself, but Maurice was perfectly serious. Obviously, though he didn't quite understand what all the fuss had been about, he'd made up his mind to placate Eric at any cost. And this had been all his own idea, as was shown by a chance remark of Aunt Mary's at tea that day. She hadn't known that Maurice had been over to the Hall. As for Eric—it was no use his saying anything now—he actually had to accept the posi­tion of being the injured party.

From this, and from many other incidents of lesser importance, Eric had learnt that there was a very feminine side to Maurice's nature. He was soft, like a girl. And yet this slim, delicate-looking boy would not only do things which the Ramsbothams would never have dared, but even made their very insensitive nerves tingle on his account. More than once Gerald had cried out involun­tarily: "Steady on, Maurice!" They would take

risks themselves, but he would do things which were purely mad—dancing about on the parapet of the mill roof, riding down the Brow backwards on his bike at top speed, or fooling about in a punt on the river and pretending that he was going to shoot the weir. He was wonderfully agile and erratically brilliant at tennis and cricket—but not at all physically strong. Eric could have put him on the ground without an effort. Sometimes he baited Billy Hawkes and the Ramsbothams until they lost their tempers with him and punished him soundly. On these occasions, after screams of agony, he merely laughed, showing neither resentment at their tortures nor the least shame at his own weakness.

Anne was not spectacular, like Maurice. She was quiet. She quietly fitted into the picture which Eric had formed for himself of the life of his cousins and his aunt in their little house—as the life of beings altogether singular, more gifted, happier than other people. It was this life of the Scrivens, as he saw it, that he had fallen in love with. He liked to imagine the three of them together in their home, at all times of the day—calling to each other from room to room, running up and down stairs, weaving, like shuttles, the strands of their exist­ence, which seemed so mysterious to Eric because it was so happy.

The house was usually full of people. Aunt Mary would be holding a committee meeting in the

sitting-room. In the dining-room there was often another committee meeting or a rehearsal, to which she would come and attend presently. Maurice's friends gathered in his bedroom or ran about the garden. Anne belonged to both worlds. She helped at the rehearsals, sometimes sat on the committees, lent a hand in the kitchen with whatever meal was preparing, mended socks, and then came running out to make up a four at tennis. The boys all liked her. She was admirable with Gerald and Tommy, who often kissed her in semi-serious horseplay: for she was handsome, though not exactly pretty. She was very dark, like her brother, with a bold fore­head, too broad for a girl, and eyes drawn down at the corners, giving her at moments a wise, kindly, rather masculine appearance. But she didn't affect tomboyishness. She didn't wish or attempt to be taken on the same terms as one of themselves. The other day Billy Hawkes, moved by some impulse, had held a door open for her. She had walked through first, quite naturally, like a grown-up woman. It had given Eric a slight shock of recog­nition that they were all growing up. Anne had left school very young, because—as Eric had been told (they made no bones about it)—Aunt Mary couldn't afford to educate both her and Maurice in the proper style; and education was more important for a boy. Maurice went to a good public school, while Anne helped her mother with the house and Gatesley affairs.

This morning, in the churchyard, Anne had asked Eric to help them with the school picnic. Maurice was coming. They were to have charge of a special party. "And I want you to keep an eye on him," she had said. "You know what Maurice is. He mustn't take them climbing in the quarry."

So they trusted him. They treated him as one of themselves. They saw in Eric no fatal deficiency, no reason why he should not be regarded as nor­mal, sane. Absurd as it was, he couldn't help dwell­ing on these assurances with the most exquisite pleasure. It seemed to him that, if he could live always with his cousins, he would expand like a flower, breaking out of his own clumsy identity, gaining strength and confidence. At that moment, at the thought of seeing them so soon, he was extraordinarily happy; he was transfigured with happiness. He stood on his pedals as he raced through the park. In less than five minutes he was in the village street, bouncing along over the setts, whistling piercingly. Several people stared. It occurred to Eric suddenly that he was recognised as the Squire's grandson, many people must know him by sight—and of course they were thinking it very strange that he should be racing about Chapel Bridge, whistling so loud, on a day like this. Per­haps they even know where I'm going to, he thought. He blushed violently, slowed down, then speeded up again, to escape them, up the steep side

street, past the Sunday school, past the doctor's, past the Conservative Club.

But a moment later he had forgotten his self-consciousness. He was thinking that it would be well worth while to win an entrance scholarship to Cambridge, to work and become a don, if only to fulfil the opinion which Maurice and Anne had of him. For they had—or pretended to have, Eric added—a great respect for his cleverness. Maurice sighed at the mention of exams. "I wish I was you, Eric," he had said. And that afternoon Eric was full of confidence. He wouldn't fail them, if he had to work like a nigger. This, at least, he could do to be worthy of his cousins.

One afternoon, when he'd been riding over to see the Scrivens, Eric had had an idea which he'd later tried to put into a poem. Chapel Bridge and Gatesley were like the two poles of a magnet. Chapel Bridge—the blank asphalt and brick vil­lage, his village, clean, urban, dead—he called the negative pole. Gatesley—their village, lying so romantically in the narrow valley, its grey stone cottages surrounded by the sloping moors—that was the positive pole. And if you rode over from Chapel Bridge to Gatesley, from Gatesley back to Chapel Bridge, you were like a pin on a bit of metal filing, being drawn first by one pole, then by the other. That was where the poem had broken down, because a pin would never move between the poles at all, but fly to one and stick there. Also, "magnet" is

an awkward-sounding word to get into a sonnet. Anyhow, Eric had the sensation, although he couldn't express it as well as he would have liked. As he climbed the hill to the waterworks he felt the strong negative pull of Chapel Bridge trying to drag him backwards like a harness. The Hall was behind it. His mother. All the morning's scruples. The War Memorial itself. But as he passed the waterworks, as he climbed the hill to Ridge top, the field strength of Chapel Bridge grew weaker. Weaker it grew, until the neutral point was reached, the farm which stood at the last corkscrew of the road. A few yards more, and the faint pull of Gatesley could already be felt. And now Aunt Mary and Maurice and Anne were drawing him forward, so that it seemed no effort to jump on to his bicycle and pedal up the last of the slope.

From the Ridge you could see right out across Cheshire—on a clear day, to the mountains. At night, the lights of Manchester, Stockport and Hyde were sprinkled over the north-western plain, seemed sometimes to quiver and move in the tre­mendous cataract of air pouring over the hills. And when there had been a snowfall, Kinder Scout looked awful and lonely with black outcrops of rock, under a bare sky. One year the Downfall had frozen to an enormous icicle, reflecting the red sun. Stone walls criss-crossed the wild, bleak country spreading towards Macclesfield Forest and the

Peak. Maurice had become an expert on ordnance maps, and though he seldom walked further than he could help, he reeled off, within a few months of coming to Gatesley, names which Eric had never heard, fascinating him: Hoo Moor, Flash, Stoop, Adder's Green. At the top of the Ridge it was al­ways cool; though Cheshire lay trembling in haze. Eric got off his bicycle for a few moments, liking to stand there, feeling on one hand the lonely country of cart-roads, broken sign-posts, stone farms and walls, on the other the solemn wilderness of tram-lines and brick and the tall mills scribbling the sky with their smoke.

Then he sprang on to the saddle and rode on, past the quarry, where you could get white heather; past another farm; beginning to apply the brakes as the hill got steeper: suddenly turning a corner, Gatesley lay below him.

And now he was at the edge of Gatesley Brow. It dipped very steeply, trees arching across, the Buxton road running through the village at the bottom—so that, if you weren't careful, you got cut in half as you reached the foot of the Brow, by a car travelling at full speed.

In a minute I shall see them, he thought.

In a minute I shall see them, he repeated to him­self, getting off his bicycle, standing still. He often teased himself thus, letting his pleasure at the coming meeting sharpen, by a few moments' delay, into absolute bliss.

He walked slowly downhill, wheeling his bicycle, until he came within a dozen paces of the gate of their house.

He could see the whole of the little garden, and they were all on the lawn. Gerald and Tommy Ramsbotham were there, and Edward Blake and Maurice and Anne. They were knocking a hockey ball about, not taking sides but tackling whoever had the ball. Edward Blake was in his shirt-sleeves and rather out of breath. Maurice, who loved, whenever possible, to dress up in some way or other, was wearing an extraordinary old straw hat, much too big for him, on the back of his head.

And now Aunt Mary had come out of the sitting-room, with Ramsbotham, through the French windows. She smoked and watched them, smiling, a bundle of papers in her hand. Edward Blake saluted her with his hockey-stick. Maurice, skipping about in the sunshine, got the ball and drove it with all his might into the fence at the back of the garden. His delighted scream of "Oh, God!" echoed down the Brow. Anne called out: "Idiot!"

They went over to examine the fence. Eric could hear Gerald Ramsbotham say: "Here's the ball, any road." Tommy, the more serious-minded of the brothers, went over to Mary and told her it was all right. "Only a loose board, Mrs. Scriven." Mary smiled and answered something. Then she turned and went into the house, followed by Rams­botham. Maurice balanced the hockey-stick on

his chin. Edward Blake came up behind him and tripped him with his stick. "Oh, would you," cried Maurice, "would you?" He tapped Edward Blake on the shins. They circled round each other, laughing and feinting blows. "Peace!" cried Maurice. "You swine, you started it. Peace! Ow!" Then Gerald and Tommy began a bully. In another moment, they were all playing again.

Eric turned and wheeled his bicycle slowly up the hill. They hadn't seen him. And now, he had the feeling that he had never meant to go into Aunt Mary's house that afternoon at all, but just, as he had done, to look in at them, to assure himself that they were there, as he had pictured them, on the lawn. He felt no jealousy now of Edward Blake, nor of Gerald, nor of Tommy. He was glad that they should have been there, helping to complete the scene. As though something were accomplished, he was ready to go back to the Hall. At tea-time he would see his mother, and be kinder and more con­siderate to her than he had ever been before.

And after all, he reflected, I'm certain to see Aunt Mary, at any rate, next Monday.

Free-wheeling down into Chapel Bridge, he was calm, almost happy, had even a certain" faint sense of relief; surrendering himself altogether, now, to the attraction of the negative pole.

BOOK THREE 1925

I

"Yes," said Gerald Ramsbotham, "tomorrow I'm going to get her flat out on the straight."

He lolled back nearly prone, his powerful thighs stuck forward like buttresses, clothed in aggressive check plus fours. His gold wrist-watch looked tiny and over-elegant on his beefy red wrist.

"The timing's all to pot," said Farncombe, knocking out his pipe on the fender.

"She's beastly stiff on the controls," said Moody.

"Did you ever know an American car that wasn't?" said Hughes.

Maurice looked down on them from the fender-rail on which he stood, twirling at the end of a wire what had once been the throttle-control of a motor bike.

"Teddy's Moon isn't," he said.

"That's a damn fine bus," said Farncombe earnestly. "My Christ, Gerald, you should see the way she picks up."

"I don't know why," said Hughes, "but I don't like Yankee cars."

Gerald Ramsbotham yawned and stretched himself:

"Did you see the new Brough on the corner by Trinity yesterday afternoon?"

"Yes," said Farncombe, "with the Webb forks."

"A Brough hasn't got Webb forks, "said Hughes.

"The new ones have."

"Bet you they haven't."

"How much?"

"Nothing," said Hughes, yawning; "what's the time?"

Gerald looked at his gold watch. "A quarter to twelve."

"Goddy!" said Maurice, "I've got to see the Tutor at twelve."

"And I've got a lecture," said Farncombe, "unless I cut."

"You're going to give me that essay to copy, aren't you, lovey?" asked Maurice anxiously.

"It's in my digs, if you want it," said Farncombe briefly.

"Thanks most frightfully."

They rose slowly, yawning.

"What does Jimmy want to see you about?" asked Hughes.

"About Saturday." Maurice made a face.

"How much do you think he knows?"

"That's the point. I don't know."

"That girl may have said something."

"Not she. She'd lose her job."

"It must have been the old bitch, then."

"She didn't see us in the hen-house."

"No, but she saw the hen-house after we'd been

in it."

"You were a madman," said Farncombe. Maurice giggled. "They looked so damn funny

with their little heads tied up." "I don't suppose she thought so." "Well, it didn't do them any harm." "It did harm to the sitting-room, though." "She's got to prove it," said Gerald. "I'm afraid Jimmy won't want much proving,"

said Hughes. "He'll accept circumstantial evi­dence."

"There's no justice in this College," said

Maurice.

"You thank your God there isn't, my boy. If

there was justice, you'd have been sent down your

first term."

Maurice giggled, flattered. Going across to the

cupboard, he hooked his square and gown off the

peg. His square had had all its stuffing long since

removed. It hung floppy like a cap.

"Jimmy eats out of my hand," Maurice boasted.

"Good-bye, you chaps. Don't go away. I'll be back

soon."

All the same, he felt a little uncomfortable as

he hurried downstairs and out into Silver Street—

not forgetting to put his head into his landlady's sitting-room and say: "Good morning, Mrs. Brown. How's the kitten?"—for it was most important to keep on the right side of Mrs. Brown, who'd even once or twice risked saying nothing about the times they came home from London in the early hours, without late leave. He wondered, hurrying towards his College, how much Jimmy really did know—and how much he'd believe. His thoughts ran on earlier rows. His first—his first term—when he'd let off that aerial torpedo under a Robert's feet on Guy Fawkes night. The Robert had been quite badly burnt and there'd been a terrific fuss. Maurice had had to go round and interview an important official, who'd ended by asking him to lunch. Then there was the smash-up last year on the Newmarket Road, when Stewart-Baines had been killed and they'd had to appear at the inquest. That was awful. Maurice had expected anything up to a manslaughter charge, but they'd got through it somehow, and only poor old George, who'd really had nothing to do with it, had been sent down. And then there were the minor rows. The row over the disturb­ance they'd made by bringing a boat with an out­board motor up the Backs and swamping punts. The row over the fire in Hughes' room after a birthday party. Endless rows about bills. Cam­bridge tradesmen were much too ready to get into touch with the College Tutor.

Thinking of bills was always unpleasant. He was in the hell of a mess over bills now. The people at the Garage wouldn't wait much longer. They were always the worst. The tailor was not serious. The gramophone shop he could square. God only knew what Mother would say to the Buttery bills. Anyhow, he couldn't expect any money from her this term. She'd been awfully decent already. Anne had long ago taken to flatly refusing loans. He'd had a lot from Farncombe and a lot more from Gerald Ramsbotham—but, after all, Gerald could afford it. All these sources were dry for the present.

I must wire to Edward Blake, Maurice thought, and ask him to come down for a few days. He'd written to Edward already, but Edward was hope­less. He never answered letters. And it was really essential that he should come at once. I'll wire to­day, now, on the way back from Jimmy's, Maurice decided. Edward might be able to help. Maurice avoided the word "pay" even in his own mind. It was unpleasant to think of cadging. But Edward had such a lot of money and such a casual, hap­hazard way of spending it—and the thought of money was like a nice warm fire. Maurice felt he wanted to be near it. It would be nice to see Edward.

Crossing the College Court, he mounted the stair­case to Jimmy's room. Knocked. Jimmy's secretary opened the door. As usual, she was very bright.

"The Tutor won't be a moment now."

Maurice sat down with a faint sigh, wishing his gown wasn't so torn. Jimmy always kept you waiting. At last the secretary emerged from the inner room.

"Will you go in, please?"

Maurice knocked. Jimmy's voice sounded very gruff: "Come in."

And, of course, he was busy writing. So busy that he didn't condescend to look up at Maurice for nearly a minute.

"Sit down, won't you, Mr. Scriven?"

And Maurice sat, on the edge of the chair, waiting while Jimmy turned over some papers, blotted a sheet, signed three forms and finally took off his horn-rimmed spectacles and cleaned the lenses with a silk handkerchief. His eyes moved round the familiar book-shelves to the challenge-cup on the mantelpiece at which he'd so often blankly stared while Jimmy's mild sar­casms glanced around him and he waited patiently for the sentence—so many weeks' gating, so much to pay, or just a warning. His eyes unconsciously assumed that look of injured, yet not resentful, innocence with which he would presently be saying: "Yes, sir, I see. Thank you, sir. Good morning."

At length Jimmy was ready.

"Now, Mr. Scriven, I dare say you know why I sent for you. It's about this affair out at Hunting­don last Saturday." .

"Yes, sir?" Maurice looked helpful.

"Well, I don't propose to go into a lot of details which may, or may not, have been exaggerated. I only want to say this: the Master and the Dean and I have discussed the whole affair, and we've come to the conclusion that this sort of thing can happen once too often—you understand me?"

"Yes, sir." This sounded bad, but Maurice was, at any rate, relieved that he hadn't got to do any more lying. He hadn't had an idea what to say.

"I needn't remind you of other occasions on which incidents of this sort have occurred." Jimmy smiled faintly for an instant, was immedi­ately grave. "We won't bring up old scores. I only want to warn you"—Jimmy took off his glasses again—"that if any more charges are brought against you, substantiated or unsub­stantiated, the Master will be obliged to send you down."

"Yes, sir, I quite understand."

"You will see that the damages are settled between you. I have talked to the lady concerned, and you can thank me that she will be satisfied with fifteen pounds."

"Yes, sir."

There was a long pause. Jimmy puffed squeakily at his pipe.

"Tell me, Maurice, why do you do this kind of thing?"

"I don't know, sir."

Jimmy rose, crossed slowly to the mantelpiece.

"I simply fail to understand it."

The clock ticked.

"Any sort of a damn fool can waste his time up here like that. But why do you?"

Maurice slightly shifted one foot.

"Do you know, your career at this college has been one of the biggest disappointments I've had in fifteen years?"

The clock ticked, incredibly loud.

"You could have been more to the life of this college than any other man of your year. I wonder if you'll ever realise that."

Maurice moved the other foot until the toes of his shoes were in line.

"And I'm not thinking only of the college. Have you ever considered what's going to happen to you when you leave this place? What sort of a position do you think you can make for yourself in the world? You can't simply bluff your way through life. That doesn't work."

"No, sir," said Maurice faintly. Jimmy knocked out his pipe.

"When you leave this place, you'll have to make a very big change. If you can. If you can."

"Yes, sir."

The clock ticked and ticked. Jimmy scratched the bowl of his pipe with a small sharp tool: "Very well. That's all I wanted to say."

Maurice did not rise too quickly to his feet:

"Thank you very much, sir, for helping us about the damages."

This visibly pleased Jimmy. He said:

"The best way you can thank me is to try and make this term a little different from your others."

"Yes, sir, I'll try."

Maurice hurried down the staircase, out across the Court. Well, he'd got off much better than he'd hoped. Jimmy was in a soft mood. The only snag was the fifteen quid. How in God's name was he to raise it? Gerald must be made to pay at least half—more than half—he could afford it. But even so—yes, certainly I must wire to Edward at once, thought Maurice. And it'll be worth it if I put "Reply prepaid." That'd be two bob. He'd only got a quid, which he didn't want to break into till this evening. But there was the college porter at the gate in his silk hat. Maurice headed for him.

"Oh, Brougham, darling, do lend me two bob till this evening."

"I'm afraid I've got nothing but a shilling on me, Mr. Scriven."

"Oh, well, that'll do beautifully," said Maurice, reflecting that after all he'd risk Edward's not having the energy to answer.

This term, the afternoon was always a bad time for Maurice. For eighteen months now, he hadn't

been allowed by the doctor to play games. His heart was supposed to be strained by a motor-bike crash. He never noticed it. But it was a nuisance, because Gerald Ramsbotham played rugger, and Hughes and Moody squash, and Farncombe rowed; so that very often he was left between lunch and tea-time alone. Maurice hated being alone, even for a moment.

He paused outside the College Hall, wondering what to do. Occasionally, at this time of day, there crept into his mind, like a faint unpleasant smell, the thought of work. He'd done absolutely no­thing now, since last summer. About twice a term there was a paper set, but it was easy to bring in a few cribs. As for his essays—that reminded him, he might go and fetch the essay from Farncombe's digs. No, he hated copying out essays when alone. It was much less trouble when one was a bit tight and the room full of people.

So he decided on the gramophone shop. It was nice to pass a dreary spring afternoon there, in one of the sound-proof cabinets, playing through dozens of records and buying one or two—they were very long-suffering. He was nearly certain to meet somebody there whom he knew. He knew half Cambridge.

By half-past four, Maurice's room was full of people. And Maurice came bursting in upon them

in great spirits, waving a bag of cakes and the records he'd bought'

"Hullo, you chaps!" he cried—his pale face puckering up into delighted smiles and flushing deeply, so that the veins stood out on his temples: "Hasn't the old bitch brought you any tea yet?"

He was so delighted to see them all that every­body brightened up at once, as they almost always did when Maurice appeared. They started the gramophone playing; and when the landlady came up with the tea, Maurice threw his arms round her neck:

"Darling Mrs. Brown, do you think we might have just one more little cup?"

"Oh, do let me go, Mr. Scriven, please; you'll make me drop everything!"

"Oh, Mrs. Brown, you are marvellous!"

At tea, Farncombe and one or two others talked rowing, football, actresses and machinery. Maurice, standing at his favourite position on the fender-rail, listened seriously for a minute or two at a time, seldom longer. Even when they were discussing the merits of the Scott Squirrel, he interrupted the conversation by starting a game of lobbing screwed-up balls of paper into the hideous new pink-veined marble lamp-bowl—Mrs. Brown's pride. And presently he picked up a golf ball from the mantelpiece and threw that. Everybody laughed at his gasp of relief when the bowl didn't break. Encouraged, Maurice took a glass paper-weight

from his desk and, weighing it in his hand, hold­ing his breath, lobbed it very gently into the bowl. It landed—but the bowl smashed to atoms. "Oh, Goddy!" screamed Maurice. And they collected the bits hastily before Mrs. Brown appeared.

"I thought I heard a noise, Mr. Scriven. I hope nothing's broken."

"You can't see anything broken—can you, Mrs. Brown?"

Mrs. Brown looked round, her every movement followed by the others, their faces writhing with half-controlled laughter. Actually, for a minute, she could find nothing. Then she realised:

"Oh, Mr. Scriven! that's too bad of you, really it is. My beautiful new shade!"

"I'm most dreadfully sorry, Mrs. Brown. I simply can't imagine how it happened. Perhaps one of its little chains wasn't very strong."

"And to think—I only bought it the day before yesterday!"

"I know, Mrs. Brown. It's most awfully sad. But you shall have another just exactly like it. We'll buy Mrs. Brown another, won't we, chaps? Has anyone got a quid?"

None of Maurice's regular friends responded, of course, but a second-year man named Currie, who didn't know Maurice well, eagerly pro­duced it.

"Thanks most terrifically, ducky. I'll let you have it back first thing tomorrow."

"Oh, there's no hurry," said Currie, delighted to have been of service.

Mrs. Brown retired, partially soothed.

"That was a blasted silly thing to do," said Farncombe severely.

Maurice's spirits seemed rather dashed. He kept quiet for a minute or two. But conversation had hardly begun again, when the gramophone uttered a long continuous squealing scream. Maurice had been quietly tinkering about with it. The record was being played at several times the fastest normal speed. There was a general roar of laughter, in which Maurice delightedly joined. How he loved it when he could make everybody laugh.

During Hall, that evening, Maurice was in even higher spirits. He'd had a couple of gin and vermouths at the Buttery. The least drop of alcohol made him visibly excited. Sometimes, it seemed, he needed only to look at it. And in the Porter's Lodge he'd found a wire from Edward:

"Arriving lunch-time tomorrow."

That was splendid.

Sitting in his favourite place, commanding the whole room, craning his neck to catch the eyes of his special friends, waving to them, throwing bread at the College servants; scribbling notes,

which were passed round from hand to hand, and getting back replies; fighting Hughes and Gerald Ramsbotham and being forced under the table; glancing every few moments quickly towards the dons to make sure that he wasn't being noticed—-he got through the meal in his usual style.

"What shall we do this evening, honey?"

"I think I'll give the 'bus an airing," said Gerald.

Maurice was pleased. He'd hoped Gerald would say that. He'd discovered, at tea, that their new friend Currie also had a car: a Sunbeam. He had pots of cash. And when Maurice had casually suggested that one day they might all go out together, he'd simply jumped at the idea. Maurice had asked him to coffee that evening.

"We'll get the others, won't we, lovey?"

"Sure thing," said Gerald.

Currie proved most amenable. After several more drinks, they went round to the garage to fetch the cars.

There were too few of them for Hide-and-Seek. They decided just to "crash around a bit." Maurice got into Currie's Sunbeam with Farncombe and Hughes. Gerald Ramsbotham had Moody with him.

"Where shall we go?" asked Gerald.

"There and back," said Maurice.

Off they went, flashing round the corner by the church, catching a glimpse of the Proctor and his Bullers coming up towards the Theatre—Maurice

waved to him—past the station, out into the dark­ness.

The Sunbeam had guts, but it soon became obvious that Currie wasn't a very experienced driver. He was nervous when Gerald brought his car abreast and they raced down the road doing close on sixty. Maurice shouted and screamed with joy. Farncombe told him not to make such a filthy row:

"They'll think we're a girls' school coming home from a picnic."

They struck into side lanes, twisted and turned, until Currie said that he was quite lost. But Maurice and Gerald knew the way. They knew the country for miles round.

Swinging into a main road, they found an A.A. box. There was nobody there. Maurice had a key and wanted to ring up Jimmy. He would have done so if Farncombe and Hughes hadn't dragged him away.

"You're madder than usual tonight," said Hughes.

When, presently, they were passing through a long straggling village where there were still several people about, Maurice suddenly scrambled out over the windscreen, opened the bonnet and got hold of the accelerator control. He waggled it up and down. The car moved forward in a series of bounds. At the end of the village was a right-angle turn and a high arched bridge. When they reached

it, Maurice opened the car full out. They skidded round the corner somehow and did a jump—it was a marvel how the back axle stood it—with Maurice clinging on like a monkey, his hair flying. Currie was scared, but he wouldn't stop the engine. He tried to take it all as a joke. It was Farncombe who shouted out:

"You damned little fool!"

Maurice climbed back into the car, temporarily subdued:

"You're not angry with me, are you, lovey?" he asked Currie.

"Do you imagine anyone'd waste their time," said Farncombe, "being angry with a little twirt like you?"

"Come and sit in the back," said Hughes, "where you'll be out of mischief."

So Maurice and Farncombe changed places. And presently Currie asked Farncombe if he'd like to drive. He was disappointed not to be sitting next to Maurice.

Soon Maurice had a new game. He fished an old plug out of his pocket and a coil of string. In another minute the plug was trailing out behind the car. They were leading. Maurice let out more and more string until the plug was bouncing along just in front of Gerald's headlights. Gerald put on a spurt, trying to overtake it. Maurice, screaming with laughter, sat on the hood playing the plug, which bounded along, skidding from one side of

the road to the other. Suddenly Hughes yelled: "Look out!" A cyclist was passing. The plug whizzed out and caught the spokes of the cyclist's back wheel. Maurice let go of the string, but too late. The cyclist wobbled and nearly went under Gerald's car—for Gerald had no time or room to swerve. Finally he collapsed, cursing, into the ditch. Gerald switched off all his lights, and they vanished round the corner.

When Farncombe realised what had been happening, he asked Maurice whether he wanted to get them all hanged.

"But it was really your fault," he told Hughes, "for letting him do it."

Currie, however, had enjoyed the joke im­mensely.

"I've never laughed so much in my life," he told Maurice later.

At last they got to a place where there was an old two-armed signpost. The names on it were quite illegible.

'' That's not much good to anybody,' 'said Hughes.

"Let's take it back with us," said Maurice.

Amidst roars of laughter, they dug with spanners in the earth, straining now and then at the post. By combined efforts they worked it loose.

"I'm afraid it'll dirty your lovely clean car," said Maurice.

"That doesn't matter a bit," said Currie, who was feeling a tremendous devil.

On the way back to Cambridge, they discussed where it should be put. Maurice's digs was the only possible place. They'd haul it up through the window. It was late. There weren't many people about. Maurice held its head, Farncombe its middle and Hughes its foot. It was wrapped in rugs.

They only met one person—an undergraduate —on the way from the car to the door. As he passed them, Maurice exclaimed:

"Hullo, Eric! Where have you sprung from? I never see you nowadays."

Eric, faintly smiling, very sober, said:

"I've been out to dinner with a don."

"How lovely!" Maurice laughed. "Well, look, darling, when am I going to see you?"

Maurice didn't quite know why he said it. But he never could help giving invitations:

"Look here; come to lunch tomorrow."

Eric seemed about to make some objection.

"You must, see?"

Eric smiled: "Very well. Thank you."

"That's glorious. At half-past one. Edward Blake's going to be there."

They were silent. Eric said :

"What's this you've got?"

Maurice raised a corner of the rug.

"It's the Unknown Warrior. Don't tell the Vice-Chancellor, will you, lovey?"

"No, I won't. Good night."

"Was that your cousin?" Farncombe asked, when Eric had gone.

"Yes."

"He isn't very like you, is he?"

"No," said Maurice, "worse luck. He's the brainiest man in Cambridge."

II

My God, thought Eric, at the window of his large, dark, bare room, looking down into the College Court, where the Tutor was just emerging from a doorway in earnest conversation with the Dean, who wore shorts, dressed for fives; three young men with gowns slung over their shoulders were grouped chatting; a College servant hurried, carry­ing a pair of boots—how I hate them all!

Standing there, he enclosed, he enfolded them all in his hatred—the discreet funny dons, telling legends about Proust; the sincere young neurotics, writing each other ten-page notes explaining their conduct at a last night's tiff; the hearties, divided between shop-girls, poker and the C.U.I.C.C.U.; the College servants, so oily in their deference to all these rich young ninnies; the bed-makers, thievish gossipy old hags, who drank as much of their gentlemen's whisky as they dared, and stank so that you could hardly put your nose inside their broom-cupboards after they had gone. And if, at that moment, Eric could have given the order, the

Round Church and the Hall of Trinity and King's Chapel and Corpus Library and dozens of other world-famed architectural lumber-rooms of price­less venerable rubbish would have gone up sky-high with enormous charges of dynamite, and the silk-jumpered young gentlemen and dear old pro­fessors been driven out of their well-furnished academic hotels at the point of the bayonet. And Cambridge would have returned to its proper status as a small market-town, inhabited by commercial travellers, auctioneers, cattle-dealers, out-of-work jockeys, and other bar-flies—a soured, defeated tribe, given over to betting and drink, in the middle of this swamp of a country, with rheumatics and damaged lungs. And good riddance, Eric thought.

Well, anyhow, whether I go or not—he knows what I think, Eric reflected. He'd been pretty frank in London last Vac. And Maurice had actu­ally seemed impressed. Yes, Eric, I quite under­stand. No, I think you're absolutely right. Thanks awfully for telling me.

From anybody else it'd be a deliberate insult. But Maurice never insulted anybody in his life. He couldn't. He was merely being, as usual, quite thoughtless, like a child.

And how sick I am of children,' Eric thought. Everybody up here is a child—a nice, jolly, over­grown boy. All of them artless and kittenish and naive. Maurice does it better than the others. He's more genuine. But I'm sick of the whole push.

Altogether, that visit to London last Vac. had been a most miserable failure. Eric had looked for­ward to it all through last term. It was to be an escape from Chapel Bridge, from the whole situa­tion at the Hall. He was going to get back into the old Gatesley atmosphere.

He didn't. Aunt Mary's house in the mews seemed to have nothing whatever in common with her other home. And even the Ramsbothams, even Billy Hawkes, seemed preferable to Aunt Mary's new strident friends in their large black hats. Aunt Mary was the same, of course. And so was Anne. But they spoke a new language. They seemed less remarkable; less unique. They had lost power.

Only Maurice, Eric felt, hadn't become, as he put it to himself, a Londoner. Maurice had not suffered from transplantation. And that was why it had seemed worth while saying what he had. He'd been careful, of course, to mention no names. But surely not even Maurice could be so dense— no, there was no way round it, Maurice must have known exactly whom Eric meant.

And here was all the result—an invitation to lunch.

Eric hated the Hall. Sometimes he felt posi­tively suffocated there, as though he'd choke.

"When it's mine," he told Lily, " I shall have it pulled down."

She was not horrified, for she didn't really be­lieve him. Seeing this, he launched into Commun­istic schemes, quoted Lenin, talked priggishly of the Manchester slums:

"We've no right to live here when all these people are starving."

But she wouldn't argue. He had to go on goad­ing her:

"I know what I shall do. I shall give the land to the Corporation for a model village."

She replied:

"I don't know what I should do if anything happened to the Hall."

She was not attending to what he said, aware only of the tone of his voice and its intention of wounding her. Her listless sadness made him suddenly fierce.

"You care more for this house than you do for human beings."

She only answered, obstinately sad:

"I care for it because it reminds me of the time when I was happy."

And there they were, together in the slowly decaying house, alone to all intents and purposes, for Grandad was now so comatose that you could hardly describe him as alive at all, and Mrs. Potts and Mrs. Beddoes kept their respectful distance— alone, with no Gatesley, no Scrivens, slowly grind­ing down each other's nerves.

In lucid intervals he even discussed the situation

with her, trying to rationalise, be clinical. He'd glibly generalised: "It's the same with everyone. Parents never get on well with their children. That's just human nature." Had they both at the same instant remembered Aunt Mary? But Lily only sat with moist eyes and shook her head:

"All this is very difficult for me to understand. I don't think my generation felt these things."

"But, Mother, you must see that this can't go on. What are we to do?"

"Darling, you know I only want you to be happy. You must do whatever you think best."

No, she wouldn't help. She surrendered no­thing.

But neither do I, Eric admitted to himself.

"You're always arguing," she told him once.

"I hate arguing."

Her gentle, ironic smile. He'd burst out ludi­crously :

"I hate arguing, because I'm always in the right."

It was horrible. It became a habit. There was barely a subject they could safely mention. And always, as it seemed to him later, the fault was en­tirely his. He was crude, overbearing. She was mild and persistent. She seemed barely to argue at all—merely, with an air of distaste, she kept the discussion alive. And in his stammering days, when he'd first begun to lecture her, she'd waited patiently for him while he gasped and mouthed— red with fury at his own impediment.

But he'd suffered enough in exchange. His self-reproaches tortured him. His diary was full of vows that he'd be better, that this miserable bickering should stop. He wildly exaggerated trifles. "An­other vile scene this morning," was an entry which recurred. He'd said to himself: What would Father have thought? Father, who'd left her in his charge. Suppose Father were to come back from the grave, suppose it turned out that he'd never been killed, was a shell-shock case, unidentified, in a far-away hospital—and suddenly his memory returned? This was one of Eric's nightmares. Father would come back to find that the two people he loved, who'd once loved each other so much, were leading this sordid, miserable life. Eric thought: But I should shoot myself or die of shame.

And yet this existence continued, did not im­prove. A horrible facility grew upon them, so that they acquiesced in it. And now it had begun to dawn upon Eric that the suffering was not equally shared. His mother, he now knew, did not feel this friction as he did. Often she'd seem even unaware that what he'd later describe as a "vile scene" was taking place. He detected, with sorrow, a certain hardening and blunting of her sensibilities. She could give a sharp answer without realising that she was quarrelling. And this, a reflection of him­self in her, gave him more pain than any other aspect of their relationship.

There had been really serious quarrels, of course. Quarrels leaving half-healed wounds which were daily reopened by sarcasms, trivialities.

One day he'd come in tired and found a strange book lying in his bedroom—Mrs. Eddy. He was in an absurd, resentful mood. He remembered a friend of his mother's whom he disliked, a Miss Prendergast. She lived in the village. All at once he'd seen a vile, a loathsome plot to do a little stealthy propaganda. He'd stalked in to confront his mother:

"How did this book get into my room?"

"What book, darling?"

"This." He tossed it down on the sofa beside her.

She was annoyed at his rudeness. She answered more coldly:

"I suppose I must have left it there by mistake."

"Is it yours?"

"It belongs to Miss Prendergast."

"Then I wish she'd keep it."

"She lent it to me to read," said Lily. "It's very interesting."

Eric burst out in a tone of ferocious mockery:

"I thought you were such a great Protestant."

"That doesn't prevent me from listening to what other people have to say."

"You think people ought to dabble in every Re­ligion?"

"I think people ought to be broad-minded."

"You Protestants aren't very broad-minded about Rome."

" 'You Protestants,' " she couldn't help smiling at this; "why, what are you, darling?"

"It doesn't matter what I am. I'm an ath------"

but he couldn't pronounce the ridiculous word. Turning furiously, he made a violent gesture: "I don't believe in anything."

She took it quite seriously, rather disconcerting him, for he was prepared to meet a sneer.

She answered:

"But surely you don't object to different people seeing the Truth in different ways?"

"You don't understand. I do object. Because it isn't the Truth. I don't just tolerate Religion; I loathe it. All Religion is vile. And religious people are all either hypocrites or idiots."

There! He'd said it, at last. But she only answered with chilly dignity:

"If you feel like that, I can't imagine why you come to church with me on Sundays."

"I come to keep you company," he said. "In future I won't—if you'd rather not."

"I'd much rather you stayed at home."

That was the end of that interview. Later in the evening he'd come in and found her in tears. They had had a reconciliation. He begged forgiveness for his rudeness. They kissed each other. In bed that night, and during the next day, Eric thought over what he had said. And although he was full

of compunction for his treatment of her, and the thought of that quarrel was almost intolerable to him, he couldn't, nevertheless, take back, in his own mind, anything he'd said about Religion. It seemed to him that he had only expressed what had been his conviction for a long time. When next Sunday came round he was prepared, all the same, to go with his mother to church if she asked him to do so. He was sufficiently eager for a complete recon­ciliation. But Lily didn't ask him. She never asked him again.

Eric turned away from the window, deeply sighed. He was weary—weary to the bone. He was weary of the Hall, of Cambridge, of London, of him­self, of everything and everybody. He was too tired to feel unhappy, except by starts. And now he'd got to work. He was always working. He was getting very round-shouldered and his head continually ached. He needed stronger glasses. He knew it and did nothing. There was a certain satisfaction in doing injury to his health and a certain pride in his obstinate, stupid powers of resistance. Other people had nervous breakdowns. He despised them. He knew that, tired out as he was, he'd get through the Trip. He'd get a first. Other people were brilliant and erratic. He just slogged on. He couldn't help it. If he'd gone into the examination-room with the deliberate intention of failing, he couldn't have

brought himself to it—his nature would have revolted. His Tutor had no need to urge him anxiously, as he sometimes did: "Don't overstrain. Don't get stale." He wasn't a neurotic heavy­weight boxer. He wouldn't disappoint his backers.

In his first year, Eric had been something of a social success. To be a senior scholar was, after all, a distinction. And for a time he'd lent himself to the atmosphere, gone in for politics, written articles in one of the less frivolous University magazines, occasionally even spoken at the Union, where his measured sentences, carefully avoiding the stam­mer, had produced an impression. He'd joined a running club and gone for long gruelling runs. Now all that seemed mere waste of time. He'd dropped completely out of College life, become a recluse, the subject of mild jokes.

After all, Eric decided, I'll go. What do I care if he's there or not. It'll make a change. I shall get out of this room for an hour or two, at any rate.

But now I must work, thought Eric, turning wearily to his books and files of notes, sitting down at the table, prodding forward his tired, patient brain, already so overburdened with the loads he had put upon it during the last two years—now I must work.

"Is that you, ducky? Come up," shouted Maurice from the top of the stairs.

He was very smartly dressed and rather con­scious of it. Eric didn't like his fashionable little double-breasted waistcoat or his pointed shoes. He'd obviously already had a few drinks:

"I haven't seen you for simply ages."

"Not since last night," Eric smiled.

"I say, did I really see you last night? So I did, of course. What an idiot I am, aren't I?"

"What did you do with the signpost?" Eric asked.

"It's been in the sitting-room. But Mrs. Brown doesn't like it; do you, Mrs. Brown?" For the land­lady had appeared with a tray.

"No, indeed I don't, Mr. Scriven. And I hope you'll take the nasty dirty thing away soon. You'll be getting me into trouble."

"Darling Mrs. Brown, yes, of course we'll take it away if you're really sure you don't like it."

Edward Blake was in the sitting-room, with a woman. Eric was rather surprised to recognise her as a painter whom he'd met once or twice at Aunt Mary's last Vac. Her name was Margaret Lanwin. Aunt Mary was having a show of her pictures at the Gallery. She smiled when they shook hands, as much as to say: I expect you're wondering why I'm here. Eric remembered that he had liked her.

"Edward's been showing me a perfectly mar­vellous new cocktail," said Maurice. "What's it called, Edward?"

"Satan's Kiss," said Edward Blake.

He had greeted Eric quite warmly, and yet, as Eric always felt, with a sarcastic grin. He looked very ill, iller than ever. His face was streakily grey, as though his cheeks had been rubbed with an india-rubber, and there were sharp lines on either side of his mouth. His big pale eyes were mocking and full of light. His sallow nicotine-stained fingers were mere bones. The signet ring was quite loose on his hand, and Eric noticed how it shook as he lifted his glass.

"Is there any left?" Maurice asked.

"Unfortunately not."

"Well, be an angel and make some more."

"I'm afraid we've used all the Angostura Bitters."

"It won't be quite the same kind of kiss as the last," said Margaret Lanwin.

"No two kisses are alike," said Edward.

As he talked, his mouth gave a nervous sideways twitch and he spoke deliberately, as though he had to concentrate on pronouncing the words. It pro­duced the effect of something said in a foreign language.

Eric sipped the cocktail, which was, he thought, very nasty. It tasted rather like cough-mixture. But Maurice declared it was even better than the last.

"How on earth do you do it, Edward? You are marvellous.!'

Edward didn't answer. He smiled.

"If it's not a terribly rude thing to say, Maurice," said Margaret Lanwin," I'm nearly dying of hunger. All those fascinating things on the sideboard are making my mouth water."

"I hope you don't mind all this cold stuff," said Maurice.

But he really apologised to Edward, not to Margaret.

At lunch, Edward ate scarcely anything, al­though he refused nothing. He drank a great deal —first of College ale, which Eric found terrifically strong; then of brandy, which Maurice produced with cigars. As he drank he seemed to become steadier. His hand no longer shook.

Maurice was telling him about Currie's Sun­beam. "By God," said Maurice, "that was a mar­vellous bus. You know, Edward, you ought to get a car."

"What does one do with a car?" Edward asked.

"One drives about, of course. I mean, it's miles cheaper when you want to get anywhere."

"But I never do want to get anywhere."

"I'm sure Maurice would exercise it for you," said Margaret, smiling.

She obviously didn't mean to be malicious, but Maurice answered rather shortly:

"I don't quite see what the point of that would be."

Later, Edward did a balancing trick with a

knife, two glasses and an orange. It was not a very difficult trick. The principal wonder lay in Edward's being able to do it. He seemed to hold himself steady by sheer will. And Maurice kept repeating:

"Edward, you are marvellous."

"Can you do this?" said Edward, picking up the knife and addressing only Maurice. He had turned in his chair, away from the others. He slowly opened his fist, until the knife seemed to cling unsup­ported to the palm.

"How on earth do you do that?" Maurice asked, round-eyed.

"Just watch once more."

Edward sat smiling, holding the knife aloft like a snake-charmer. From the tone of his voice, he and Maurice might have been alone together in the room. Eric suddenly glanced at Margaret Lanwin. She smiled back at him.

"No, I haven't an idea. Do tell me, Edward."

"Watch once more."

Maurice watched.

"Oh, you might tell me!"

"Do you see how it's done?" asked Edward, suddenly turning to Eric.

Eric felt himself blushing angrily as he answered:

"Yes."

He picked up the knife, holding Edward's faintly mocking gaze with his own. Slowly, awk­wardly, he opened his hand.

"Oh, how clever of you!" said Margaret.

"I believe I see how it's done now," said Maurice.

Edward was silent. He only smiled, filled him­self another glass of whisky. Eric flushed a deeper red. There was a long pause.

"I ought—it's time I was going," said Eric abruptly.

"Oh, Eric," said Maurice, with sudden concern; "you can't go yet."

But Eric had already risen to his feet. Margaret Lanwin looked at her watch.

"Where can I find out about trains?"

"In the Porter's Lodge," said Maurice. "I'll show you."

But he obviously didn't want to leave Edward Blake.

"Oh, by the way, Edward," he said, "hadn't we better go and see the room I've booked for you? You mayn't like it."

Rather to his own surprise, Eric found himself saying to Margaret:

"If you care to come with me, I can find out about the trains at our Lodge."

She rose at once.

"Thank you very much." Turned to Maurice:

"And thank you very much indeed for my wonderful lunch."

To Edward she said:

"Shall I see you again?"

"Come back here for tea," said Maurice—"the

only thing is, if we don't happen to be here—I mean—you won't mind------?"

Margaret smiled:

"I think I'll go straight to the station; thank you, all the same. I've promised to hold your mother's hand tonight at a ghastly party."

"Give her my love."

"I will. Good-bye and thank you again. Good­bye, Edward. Enjoy yourself."

"I'll endeavour to," said Edward, making her a bow.

Eric followed Margaret out. They walked along the street in silence.

"That's King's, isn't it?" asked Margaret, at length.

"Yes," Eric answered, and added:

"Have you been here before?"

"Once. Ages and ages ago. Before the War."

After they'd talked to the College porter about trains, Eric said:

"I say—if you care to—I'll make you a cup of tea in my room. It wouldn't take a second. And there's no point in going to the station yet."

She smiled: "Thank you very much."

"This is nice," she said, when he had shown her into the sitting-room. She wandered round the shelves, picked up 'Cunningham' and turned over a few pages, tapped 'Stubbs' thoughtfully with her forefinger as if testing its solidity. Eric was a little embarrassed by the strangeness of her presence

there. Aware of her semi-bohemian elegance, her aura of sex—for she was very attractive, certainly, although probably somewhere near forty—he got the kettle, filled it, lit the gas-ring on the landing, put his head into the cupboard for cups. When he came in with the tea she was on her knees at the fender, poking up the fire.

"It must be rather a nice life here, I should think," she said; and Eric did not demur, did not even condemn her in his own mind as stupid.

There was a long silence. Then Margaret asked, as if half speaking to herself:

"I suppose you're a great friend of Edward Blake's?"

"I've known him a very long time," said Eric. "He was a friend of my father's."

She did not appear to notice anything in his tone.

"Yes, I see," was all she said.

There was another pause. They talked in a desultory way about indifferent topics. Then Mar­garet said she must really be going. Eric offered to accompany her to the station. She refused, smiling:

"I've made quite enough of a nuisance of myself already.''

III

Eric asked at the office for the number of Mr. Blake's room. Upstairs, in the corridor, he met a maid with a breakfast-tray. The shoes still stood outside several doors. He had not realised that half-past nine might be considered by some people as early. And he wished now that he hadn't brought his books and gown. There was a lecture at eleven. Plenty of time to make a second call at his College. But he had thought: Why should I put myself out? For him.

Angrily, Eric was aware of his red hands. Out-of-doors it was cold. And he could feel how untidy his hair was. He smoothed it clumsily, slung his gown over his other arm, dropped his books, cursed, picked them up and knocked at number eleven.

Complete silence. Eric waited, half-raised his hand to knock again, let it fall. He had an almost overwhelming impulse to run away, and might have done so, had not the chambermaid reappeared at the end of the passage. Drawing himself together,

marshalling his rehearsed intentions, his pre­arranged attitudes, closing the eyes of his reason, he rapped loudly on the door. "Come in."

It was quite a small room, and Edward Blake lay in bed, facing the window. He did not turn his head at once, and Eric had a moment's impres­sion of the profile of an invalid—pale, unshaven, staring passively at the daylight. His breakfast stood beside him on a little table, but he seemed to have eaten nothing.

He turned slowly, beginning a yawn which abruptly ended:

"Hullo? Good morning."

He may well look surprised, Eric thought. Answered gravely:

"Good morning."

There was a pause, during which Edward seemed to become fully awake:

"Won't you sit down?"

"I'd rather stand, thank you."

Edward yawned, stretched himself, grinned:

"Do by all means, if you prefer it."

"I'm afraid I'm disturbing you," said Eric, feeling the anger rise within him. "I shouldn't have come so early."

"Not at all."

"I shan't keep you long."

Edward reached a thin, sallow hand out to the table for a cigarette case:

"Won't you smoke?"

"No, thank you."

"As a matter of fact," said Edward, lighting his cigarette, "I'm very grateful to you for calling me. I've got to catch a train up to town today."

"I know. That's why I came."

"I see."

"There's s-something"—Eric made a desperate effort to control his voice, but it was loud, hoarse, abrupt, and the stammer seized him—"s-something I must t-talk to you about."

A very faint smile seemed to pass like a shadow over Edward's mouth. He was sneering again. The swine. He exclaimed suddenly:

"I say, I do wish you'd sit down."

Eric made no acknowledgment. He took a chair, curtly, with a certain pleasure that he'd managed to get on Edward's nerves. There was a long silence. Eric was quite calm again now—ready for the attack. But he wasn't going to lose the least advantage. Edward should speak first.

"Well, what is it?"

Eric moved his chair a little.

"It's about Maurice."

A chambermaid passed down the passage with a clinking tray.

"About Maurice?"

"Yes."

Again that shadow of a smile on Edward's face.

"What about Maurice?"

"I think you know quite well." Eric felt the blood suddenly burn hot in his cheeks. He said furiously: "And I'm p-perfectly well aware that it's none of my business."

"Don't let that worry you." Edward openly grinned. "I suppose you came here this morning to tell me to leave Maurice alone?"

"Yes, I did." But Eric, for all his defiance, couldn't help showing surprise.

"You're wondering how I guessed?"

"I suppose all this is just a joke to you."

"I beg your pardon, Eric."

"It's all very well for you to smile. Perhaps you d-don't realise that one person can wreck another p-person's whole life."

Edward stubbed out his cigarette. Took another.

"So you think my influence over Maurice— such as it is—is bad?"

"I think it's about as rotten as it could possibly be."

Edward smiled. Said pleasantly:

"Hadn't you better tell me exactly what it is you object to?"

"You give him presents. You pay for every­thing. You take him everywhere. You encourage him to rely on you for money. You follow him about. Even when he's up here you can't leave him alone------"

"You know yourself that that isn't true."

Eric disregarded the interruption:

"Perhaps you're not aware that you're the talk of the College?"

"Really?" Edward laughed. "The College must have very little to do."

"That doesn't make it any better for Maurice."

"And what does the College say?"

Eric felt himself blushing again:

"You can imagine."

"And you agree with them?"

"What I t-think"—Eric's voice shook—"is n-none of your business."

There was a pause. Edward blew a puff of smoke from his cigarette. He said mildly:

"I suppose you realise that, in making these insinuations, you're suggesting that Maurice is as bad, or nearly as bad, as I am. After all, he isn't a child."

"He's as weak-minded as one."

"And you can't imagine that there could be a perfectly decent and respectable friendship be­tween two people, one of whom had money and the other hadn't?"

"Of course I can imagine it. But not between you and Maurice."

"Why not?"

"Because you're old enough to be his father."

Edward laughed, but Eric could see that he was taken aback.

"Do I seem so old to you?"

"It doesn't matter what you seem to me"— Eric was contemptuous—"the point is: you are old."

"And even assuming my great age, you don't think it should ever be permitted for an old man to prefer the company of a young one to that of other old men?"

"All I think is," said Eric impatiently, "that you're doing Maurice harm. And so I've come to ask you to leave him alone."

Edward was sitting up in bed now. His hair was ruffled into a kind of crest, making him look like an alertly impudent bird. He asked, smiling:

"And supposing I don't? What shall you do?"

Eric answered gravely:

"I can't do anything."

"You could tell Mary, for instance, what you think."

"She wouldn't understand."

There was a long silence. Edward smoked, smiling faintly to himself. At length he asked:

"I suppose, Eric, I'm the wickedest person you've ever met?"

"I don't think you're wicked. I think you're weak."

Edward grinned broadly.

"You don't blame me too much?"

"I don't blame you at all. What you d-do is no affair of mine."

"So long as it doesn't affect Maurice?"

"Yes."

"But tell me, Eric—this interests me. If I'm not wicked, I suppose you think I'm really a bit mad?"

Eric felt himself go scarlet. He said confusedly:

"I know you had a very bad time in the War."

"So did others."

Eric was silent.

"You think it's about time I pulled myself together?"

"At least"—Eric did not mean it unkindly— "you could make an effort."

Rather to his surprise, Edward smiled:

"Yes, the War's getting a bit old as an excuse now, isn't it?"

Edward dropped the stump of his cigarette into the coffee-cup. Added:

"Well, I'm afraid I can hardly promise to re­form myself. But I'll do my best to keep clear of Maurice. Will that satisfy you?"

"If you really mean what you say."

"I give you my word of honour. But, of course, I forgot. I haven't any, as far as you're concerned."

Eric did not reply. Edward continued in a different tone:

"Eric, your father was the only real friend I've ever had. It seems rather silly that we should be enemies."

"I'm not your enemy."

Edward made a grimace.

"I'm afraid that's not saying very much, is it? Well I, at any rate, rather admire you."

"I d-don't want your admiration!" exclaimed Eric in a loud, childish voice. He had risen to his feet. Trembling, furious with himself, he knew that in a moment he would burst into tears. "I m-must be g-going," he muttered. Gathering his books and gown, he made blindly for the door.

"Good-bye," Edward called after him. "And thanks for waking me up."

That evening Margaret was in her studio. There was a terrific postman's knock.

"Thank God, you're in."

"Why, Edward, Whatever's the matter?"

He stumbled across the room, collapsed on the divan like a sack. He looked up at her slowly, with an uncertain grin:

"Don't get the wind up. I'm only a bit tight."

Margaret thought that he looked much worse than tight. She said briskly, in a voice she hadn't often used since Red Cross days during the War:

"That's all right. Put your feet up. Shall I make you some black coffee?"

"My God, if you would!"

She hurried into the little kitchen, came back with cups. At first Edward lay with closed eyes. Then he opened them and watched her. She moved briskly. The coffee was soon ready. Surprisingly soon. Margaret was never to be taken un­awares. She'd made Edward coffee before.

"Here you are," she smiled.

Edward tried to raise himself on one elbow. Sank back with a groan.

"I'm all done in."

"Let me," said Margaret.

Smiling, she slipped an arm under his shoulder, raised him gently with a strong movement, brought the cup to his lips. Edward drank greedily. Then he lay back. She sat down on the edge of the couch and smiled at him. Edward's gaze cleared.

"Margaret."

"Yes, Edward."

"I want to ask you a question."

"Ask away."

"Why"—Edward brought out the words with his peculiar deliberation—"are you so damned good to me?"

"Am I?"

"You are. Christ alone knows why. Well, I want to know too."

Margaret turned away her eyes.

"Does it matter particularly?"

But she spoke very low, hardly above a whisper. And Edward had made a sudden violent move­ment, as though he were trying to break a mesh of ropes. He raised himself on his elbow. Almost shouted:

"Margaret!"

"Yes, what is it?"

"Take me away from here."

She smiled.

"Where?"

"Anywhere. Out of this damned town. Out of this cursed country."

"All right."

"You will? You promise?"

"Yes," she soothed him. "Of course."

"How soon?"

"As soon as possible."

"Tomorrow?"

"We couldn't start tomorrow."

"But soon?"

"Yes."

"Thank God!"

He raised himself, half turned, let his head sink back into her lap. Looked up at her with a strange, unhappy, boyish smile.

"You really mean it?"

"Of course, my dear. If you really want it."

Edward lay still for a second. Then he said quite distinctly, but half to himself, as though he were perfectly sober:

"I wonder if you can bring it off."

"I'm going to try," said Margaret, and her fingers moved softly through his hair. She couldn't look down at him. Her lips were trembling. The tears smarting in her eyes. So he had said it. At last.

Like a prisoner strapped ready for torture, Eric lay rigid, his fists clenched, in his narrow bed. Liar! he thought. Hypocrite! Liar! Cheat! He stared furiously at the dark ceiling. I was jealous. The whole thing was nothing but jealousy.

I'm ten thousand times worse than Edward, Eric thought. Ten million times worse.

Jealous; jealous; jealous!

I'm not fit to live.

It was more than three weeks later that Eric received a card postmarked from the South of France. A staring blue bay backed by a sky the colour of strawberry ice-cream. The tinting of sea and sky overlapped a little at the edge, staining the horizon puce.

All it said was:

"Please accept this as an alibi.

Edward"

Maurice also had received a card. The message was one word shorter:

"This is where I am."

Maurice stuck the card on his mantelpiece after a single glance. He was sorry, but not particularly surprised, to hear that Edward was out of reach.

Edward had promised to take him to Paris next Vac. Very likely he'd forgotten. There was no expecting anything from Edward, and Maurice was much too worried to waste any time thinking about him just now.

A very awkward thing had happened.

Currie had said, once or twice, that Maurice might borrow his Sunbeam when he wasn't there. And so, naturally, Maurice had taken to using it regularly. And, of course, it had had one or two little knocks which the garage people had grinned over and charged to Mr. Currie's account. Ap­parently he never made a fuss.

And so things had gone on in a very nice friendly way until last week, when Maurice had had the bad luck to run straight through a brick wall when swerving and skidding to avoid some fool on a push-bike. And Farncombe, who'd been with him, had broken his arm and his collar-bone. And Currie had suddenly become quite beastly, which Maurice couldn't understand. He was sorry he'd ever made friends with the man. Worst of all, Jimmy was making a thorough enquiry into the whole affair.

So Maurice had almost forgotten Edward's existence.

Eric's brain, whenever he was not actually working, struggled with the composition of a

letter to Edward. He made drafts of it and tore them up immediately. Sometimes it was to be very long. Sometimes very short. What exactly did he want to say? He didn't know. That letter was never written.

BOOK FOUR 1929

I

The headlights of the car illuminated a notice on a tree. "Trespassers will be prosecuted." Somebody had cut this with a penknife and scribbled it over with chalk.

Maurice drew on the brake and turning yelled out:

"Wake up, we're here."

Mary stirred comfortably on the back seat and came out of her doze far enough to say:

"Be quiet. We aren't."

"Does one open the gates," asked Edward, "or do we wait for the lodge-keeper?"

"You're the lodge-keeper," said Maurice.

"Why all this excitement?" came Margaret's voice languidly, from the back seat. "Has there been an accident?"

"No," said Edward, "we've reached John o' Groats and Mary's forgotten to bring the bathing-suits."

He opened the door of the car and got out stiffly.

"My God, it's cold!"

"Well, keep it to yourself, my lad," said Mary. "We'll believe you."

Edward shivered. The morning was horribly damp and raw. The gates were clammy and wet. The trees along the side of the road were dripping from every twig. Dawn showed cold and sickly over the Derbyshire hills, dimming the rays from the headlamps.

Just behind, Tommy Ramsbotham's two-seater was panting. Edward walked up to it, put his head inside and said:

"Hullo! Good morning."

"Good morning," said Tommy; and Anne, sitting beside him, asked:

"Did you sleep well?"

"Incredibly."

Edward felt himself suddenly in high spirits. Abruptly, he uttered a short strong laugh, slapped his sides and cut a caper on the wet road.

"Your rear passengers are dead," he added.

There they sat, in the dickey, two shapes stuffed into greatcoats, pullovers, fur helmets, swathed with woollen scarves, resembling very fat owls. Georges had completely sunk into himself, so that you could just see a vast ovoid mass, but poor Earle Gardiner was upright, in a position sug­gesting how terribly he'd been bumped during the journey.

"Are you all right?" Edward asked.

"Sure, I'm fine," Earle smiled heroically.

Edward put his mouth to Georges' ear and suddenly bellowed:

"Sept heures moins un quart!"

Georges woke up without a start and gave him a dazzling smile. Maurice began sounding long blasts on his horn.

"Gates!" he yelled: "Gates!"

Edward pushed them open and Maurice drove through into the park, Tommy following. As they moved off down the drive, Pamela woke up and turned round. The sight of Mary seemed to sur­prise her. She sat up sharply, in a way which instantly conveyed that not more than a year ago she'd been a schoolgirl, with her innocent head full of abductions and the White Slave Traffic. Then she was properly awake and recognised them all with a grin of relief.

"I must have been asleep," she confessed, with surprise.

Mary was thinking how narrow the drive was and how much smaller the whole park seemed. In less than a minute they were running downhill to the house. Anne, beside Tommy, fixed her eyes on the red spark of Maurice's tail-light. The hood of the two-seater was draughty. She had got a stiff neck. Tommy's profile, as he leant forward to the gear-lever, showed sharp against the pale stretch of land. It was getting lighter every minute. She rested her cheek for a moment against his shoulder.

"What is it?" asked Tommy, his eyes fixed ahead.

Then he realised and slipped one arm round her shoulder as he drove. He would, perhaps, always be a little slow, a few seconds late. My darling. My precious treasure. Feeling the rough tweed against her cheek, Anne spoke in a small dreamy voice:

"She's been running splendidly, hasn't she?"

"Not too badly. It's this new juice. We must stick to it."

Their voices were so warm and intimate with love that they might have been talking of a new­born baby. Gerald's old two-seater, which he'd turned over to Tommy when he got the Bentley. And within a week came the smash. The doctor said that if he'd lived he'd have been a cripple. It was impossible to think of Gerald as a cripple. It made Anne shudder. She'd sometimes felt a sort of hatred of his red beefy health. He was strong and stupid like an animal. And like an animal he had been suddenly and stupidly killed, with a pipe in his mouth, travelling at seventy miles an hour. She'd never forget how Tommy had come to her, that afternoon, straight from the hospital. He had seemed quite dazed. He had to keep telling her exactly what had happened.

"You know, Anne," he kept repeating, "at first I didn't recognise him at all. It might have been a stranger."

And through all her horror—strange, remorse­less, as it seemed—she'd felt a curious, new joy,

growing up swiftly and secretly in the darkness of her heart. Gerald had done this for her. At last. Within a week of the funeral she'd told Tommy that she loved him.

How queer to think that people could say, almost certainly did say, that she was marrying Tommy for his money. Now they would be rich. Gerald had had everything—Cambridge, holidays at Monte Carlo, money for actresses. And now it would be Tommy's. But all that was merely a joke, so long as Tommy never believed it. And he never shall believe it, Anne promised him.

"Well, here we are."

Edward had opened the garden gates. Swinging on them like an urchin, he waved his hat to Maurice and Tommy as they drove past and round the sundial to the front door. Maurice swerved too sharply, crushing a bit of turf from the corner of the grass with his wheel.

"I'm awfully sorry," he said to Tommy, jump­ing out. "I've spoilt your lovely lawn."

The others followed stiffly, stretching them­selves. Gathered in the shelter of the porch. Edward, having closed the gates, came bounding across the garden towards them.

"How incredible this is," he said to Mary, "I feel as if I'd just arrived for the Christmas holi­days."

"Why," asked Pamela, "have you been here before?"

"It was some time ago." Edward grinned.

"Ring the bell, Tommy," said Maurice.

Tommy rather solemnly advanced and rang the bell. They waited. Now that the engines of the cars were stopped, there was a deathly silence. You could hear the trees dripping in the park.

"No one at home," said Edward.

"It's awfully early," said Maurice, as though apologising to some one. Curiously enough, none of them had fully realised this. They looked at each other guiltily.

"I don't suppose anybody's up yet," said Margaret.

"Hadn't we better clear off for a bit?"

"Let's go and knock them up at the Station Inn," suggested Mary.

But Tommy, with a decision which reminded them that he was junior master of the house, merely pressed the bell again. They waited. It was cold.

"Is there any of that beer left?" asked Edward. Mary shook her head. Earle, who'd stayed in the dickey, now climbed out, cautiously, being careful not to disturb Georges, who was sound asleep again.

"What I like," said Edward, grinning with pure glee, "is that you can't hear the bell ring. It's such a long way off. Do you know," he added, turning to Earle, "the bell rings at least a quarter of a mile from here?"

"Is that so?" said Earle politely. "Don't you believe him, my dear," said Mar­garet. "He's only taking advantage of your innocence."

"I expect it's out of order," said Tommy.

"You'd much better leave them alone till breakfast-time," Mary said.

But Tommy sternly shook his head. His honour as host was, it seemed, at stake. Mary felt sorry for him. It was really no fault of his, for he'd never suggested this mad expedition. That, naturally, had been Maurice's idea, inspired by Edward. And last night it had certainly seemed amusing to pack into the cars and go racing off through the suburbs, mildly drunk, shouting and singing. One always forgets that car drives take such a long time. Like that awful occasion when Edward had persuaded them to set off at a few minutes' notice for Penzance. They'd ended up in an hotel at Bournemouth, where the food was beneath criti­cism.

Tommy knocked heavily with the iron knocker. They could hear the hollow echo of the knocking inside the house. No answer.

"This building must be tremendously old," said Earle, in his polite, formal way—so that they all laughed.

"Come away, Tommy," said Anne, laughing.

Tommy, with a smile, knocked four times. A dog began barking somewhere inside.

"Something's begun to materialise," said Edward.

"It's the cry of a haound, Watson!" Maurice did one of his stock impersonations. Edward pulled a dreadful face. A bolt inside the door went off like a pistol-shot, making them all jump. They hadn't heard footsteps. The door opened five or six inches on the chain. It was Mrs. Compstall, the housekeeper, who'd been taken over tempo­rarily with her husband from Eric when Ramsbotham bought the house. She had her head in a shawl. She didn't for a moment recognise Tommy.

"What is it?" she asked, her face a blend of aggressiveness and alarm.

"May we come in, Mrs. Compstall?"—Tommy was quite humble now. "I'm afraid it's rather early.''

She opened the door with a bad grace, mutter­ing an apology, of which was audible only:— "... of course, if we'd been let know. . . ."

They trooped in, a little awkward. Edward recovered first. As the lights were switched on he looked round and exclaimed:

"Welcome to the Hall!"

Mary caught the look of open dislike with which Mrs. Compstall eyed him. And no wonder. She naturally regarded this surprise visit as an attempt to find her out, to catch her red-handed in some sort of unlawful enterprise—baby-farm­ing or a secret distillery. They all stood round, stale-looking in their motoring things, eyeing the

dismantled hall. The daylight paled the lamps. The lamps made the daylight ghastly. The whole house felt damp and draughty and freezingly cold. The furniture looked at that hour like ugly, dirty lumber. Catching sight of herself in a mirror, Mary thought: Oh, God! it's not half so dirty as my face.

Pamela came into the hall with a shiver and a timid grin. Could she be the same girl who, nine hours earlier, had put her head on Edward's shoulder? She was a 'cello student at the Royal College.

"Can we have something to eat, please, Mrs. Compstall?" said Tommy, who seemed determined to see this visit through in the right style.

This was almost too much for Mrs. Compstall. She snapped:

"There's nothing in the house."

"We can go and get something in the car," said Maurice, who perhaps thought that he would thus ingratiate himself, "if you'll tell us what to buy."

Again Mrs. Compstall was reduced to mutter­ing;

". . . couldn't undertake ..."

Tommy surprised them. He was really annoyed. He said:

"In that case, we'd better go."

There was such unmistakable menace in his tone that Mrs. Compstall admitted:

"There's eggs. And you could have coffee, if that would be sufficient."

"That'll be splendid," said Edward.

But Tommy turned to Mary, Pamela and Margaret:

"Will that be enough for you?" He seemed almost to be asking them to say that it wouldn't. They assured him that it would. Mrs. Compstall was looking round, counting the party. At this moment Georges appeared in the doorway, sleek and composed, trailing a muffler along the ground behind him, with his "Aha!" of satisfaction. Mrs. Compstall looked quite alarmed. She asked, in a frankly cowed voice, if they would have their breakfast in the smoking-room. She would be as quick as she could. She hurried away.

"I wonder," said Edward, "if my memory deceives me!"

He walked over to the porter's chair and lifted the padded seat.

"Do you remember," he asked Mary, "the day you first showed me that?"

"Nonsense, my lad. You found it for yourself. I was an exceptionally modest girl."

Maurice had never seen the chair before. He was delighted. He jostled Edward, for they were both trying to sit down at once. Pamela looked slightly shocked. Margaret said conversationally to Earle:

"It's rather touching to think of the poor dear never leaving his post."

"Who?" asked Earle, quite at sea as to what was going on—admiring the pictures.

Maurice was shouting that the cistern was empty. Tommy had begun to laugh in spite of himself, keeping an eye on Anne, hoping she didn't mind. So Anne laughed. And really it was quite funny until Georges made the whole thing heavy and French by roaring out:

"Ca ne marche pas?"

"Do you think we might wash a bit?" said Mary to Tommy.

He was all responsibility in a moment.

"Yes, of course; I'm sorry. I'll go and see if I can get you some hot water."

At length breakfast was announced ready. The smoking-room looked very bare. There were three new small tables covered with American cloth. People had been given teas here in the days when the Hall was open to trippers.

Edward asked Mrs. Compstall:

"Has the Squire been over lately?"

She was plainly puzzled. He had to explain:

"I mean Mr. Ramsbotham."

That was really rather unkind, thought Mary, especially in front of Tommy. Edward could be malicious when he liked. Poor old Ram's B. The second Mrs. Ram would do all the squiring for him.

Mrs. Compstall said yes, Mr. Ramsbotham had been over. Mrs. Ramsbotham was somewhere

in the South, he'd said, visiting. Of course, Mr. Ramsbotham was always so busy at the mill.

"She's gone to see her people," explained Tommy, rather stiffly. Anne had noticed that he avoided mentioning his stepmother as much as possible. Though he never uttered a word against her. Bitch that she is, thought Anne, with sudden fierceness, remembering how Mrs. Ramsbotham patronised Tommy. Always so gracious, always assuming that he knew absolutely nothing about anything—had no education; always stopping to explain when she talked of county families or restaurants, or art, or places abroad. The way she pronounced Italian names or quoted French made one really in love with the Lancashire accent. Anne had once, after a lunch with Mrs. Ram, suddenly kissed Tommy because he'd made grass rhyme with Bass. How good he suddenly seemed. How honest. How pure in heart.

"It's a pity," said Maurice suddenly, "that Eric isn't here."

It seemed strange that they hadn't remembered him before.

"I suppose," said Margaret, "he's busier than ever nowadays."

"Edward's the only one who sees him," said Mary.

Pamela wanted to know who Eric was and what he did.

"I think that's perfectly ripping," she said,

when Mary had explained. She turned to Edward: "And you've been helping him?"

"Only for the last month. With the Boys' Club."

"It must be fearfully interesting."

"If you like that sort of thing," said Edward; and catching Margaret's eye, he grinned.

"It's the first honest work Edward's ever done in his life," said Maurice.

"We all know what a toiler you are, my lad," said Mary.

Maurice made his injured-innocence face:

"Me? I bet you wouldn't like to swap jobs— snoring away all day at your Gallery."

"But how exactly does one sell cars?" asked Pamela.

"Well------" Maurice loved being asked this.

He drew up his elbows on the table, began: "Last Wednesday, for instance . . ." He was really very funny describing how he'd persuaded a rich Nonconformist boot-manufacturer to buy a rather wonky, but handsome-looking, second-hand saloon. And this, thought Anne, was really the story of how he'd always wangled everything out of everybody—out of Mother, out of tradesmen, out of his masters at school. Anne felt a sudden violent pang of love for her brother. There he was, so artful and unprotected and innocent. An artful little boy.

"But surely, Maurice," she asked, "he won't be

very pleased when he finds out what this car's really like?"

"Of course he won't," said Maurice. "Then I shall sell him a new one."

They all laughed, feeling brighter now that the hot coffee was inside them. Out in the garden it was broad daylight. And Mary, looking at the party as they sat round the table, thought suddenly of Father. I wonder if he can see us now, she thought. I hope so.

"You must love this place, Mrs. Scriven," said Pamela, still a little formal with Mary, whom she'd only met once before last night. Georges made a pun. Earle wanted to know the date of the panel­ling. Nobody could tell him. Maurice suggested that they should go round the house.

They went upstairs. Edward led the way. He'd forgotten nothing.

"Look, Mary," he said, "they've moved that little table that used to stand in the corner."

"So they have," said Mary absently.

She was thinking: How extraordinary that real live people have lived here. For now the house was quite dead. It had died of neglect. It was a show place, like all the others. Mrs. Ramsbotham would probably not bring it back to life. She would like it better dead. She would have garden-parties here and house-parties from the South. She was a climber. Ram's B. would be kept out of the way. He would be an outcast, spending most of his

time at the Midland or at his old home with Tommy and Anne. Anne, at any rate, would look after him and put him up when he was too tight to come out to Chapel Bridge. And Mrs. Ramsbotham, with her elegant jokes, would ex­cuse her husband's absence and spend his money. Well, well, thought Mary, it's none of my busi­ness.

She questioned Tommy about the alterations they were going to make, and Tommy rather apologetically explained that they were putting in another bathroom, building a garage in the barn, making a hard tennis court. The work would start as soon as Christmas was over.

"Of course," he added, still apologising, "nothing will really be altered—on the outside, I mean."

"I'm sure it'll be a great improvement," she reassured him.

He brightened.

"I'm glad you think so. Of course, we're going to keep everything just the same."

"I guess it must be a tremendous responsibility to own a place like this," said Earle, who was being much impressed.

Edward opened the folding-doors into the drawing-room. The room was nearly dark, for the shutters had been closed. Only one light lit in the chandelier. Edward walked across to the big mirror, regarded himself for a moment, then

raised one arm above his head like a Fascist and exclaimed:

"Salut!"

"Whatever did you do that for?" asked Pamela.

Edward glanced at her with his quick impudent; smile. He said:

"I'm certain we could produce ectoplasm here."

"What's ectoplasm?"

"It's white. Rather like sago pudding. It usually forms downwards."

Quite seriously, so that they couldn't be sure if he were joking or not, he described a series of experiments with an Austrian medium. He seemed to have read a great deal on the subject. Pamela was thrilled.

"I do think this house is weird. One could quite imagine seeing a ghost here."

They wandered to the window to admire the view. Mrs. Compstall came in, having fetched her husband, who was obviously just out of bed. He repeated that if only they'd known Mr. Thomas was coming, etc., etc. He lingered for a few minutes and then disappeared, evidently feeling that he'd done his duty.

Mary suggested that they should go out into the garden. She had a feeling that she didn't like being in the house. It was old, nasty, suffocating. She hoped that Anne and Tommy wouldn't come to feel the same about it.

On the staircase, Edward announced that the

little eighteenth-century portrait under the window was obviously a trance-picture.

"You turn that face to the wall some evening when you're alone in the house," he said to Mrs. Compstall, "and in half an hour or so you'll find it's turned round again."

Mrs. Compstall looked at him narrowly, scent­ing a joke.

"I don't know that I should hardly like to," she answered at length, "not if Compstall wasn't here."

Pamela and Maurice were in giggles over this for some time. Maurice was slightly hysterical with fatigue. He began sparring with Edward, mocking him, until Edward turned on him suddenly and they crashed down the staircase, almost head first, and out into the garden, through the gates, away across the park. Maurice, nearly a head the taller, ran like a greyhound, but Edward overhauled him. The others watched from the window, quite fascinated.

"By Jove!" said Tommy, "he can run."

When Maurice, caught, returned slowly, pant­ing, towards the house, Edward was scarcely winded at all. He vaulted the fence at the edge of the park and bounded across the garden to meet them in the porch, his face radiant with energy. Maurice followed, gasping. Edward grinned:

"Honour is vindicated."

Mary noticed how thin his hair was getting. When the forelock was pushed aside you could

see the small hollow in the skull where he had had the operation after his motor accident, last winter, in Berlin. It must have been a beastly smash. Mary didn't like looking at it. She asked, smiling:

"Need you give my child indigestion?"

"I'm sorry."

They walked back across the hall and out on to the terrace. The morning was grey and clear, ready for more rain.

"Say, I could look at this view for ever!" ex­claimed Earle.

He seemed so innocent, so much of a Red Indian, in his collar buttoned down at the points, standing there, his hands on the mossy wall, gazing out over the valley. But you wouldn't like it if you had to, my lad, thought Mary, looking at him, mooning in his absurd Yankee vision of the six­teenth century, with a mixture of affection and irritation. And she felt—as so often—yes, they are all my children.

They are all my children, she felt—including Georges, who at that moment came placidly into sight at the end of the terrace, in his broad-brimmed hat, spotted bow tie, check suit and liver-coloured boots, having wandered off and explored the barns.

"I 'ave seen ze hen," he announced, beaming.

The Compstalls, it appeared, had kept poultry as a side-line.

Margaret was making a sketch on the back of an envelope.

"Come and see the hen," said Edward.

"Are you coming?" they asked Mary.

"No, children; I think I'll go and sit down. I shouldn't be sorry to get my poor old feet off" the ground for a few minutes."

"Lazy old sow!" said Maurice.

"Thank you for them kind words, my child."

Mary entered the house, pausing to light a cigarette. She'd noticed that there was still a moderately comfortable sofa in the drawing-room, and anything was preferable to being out-of-doors on a morning like this. All the same, she had to admit she didn't like being here. It was creepy— probably literally creepy, with black beetles—and damp. The place must be an absolute sponge after all these years without regular fires. As a little girl she'd always felt scared of being alone in this part of the house. Nothing would have induced her to use the front staircase after dark. By daylight it was bad enough. You had always the feeling that there was somebody standing just round the corner above, waiting for you to come up. In the archway to the corridor, where there was a deep shadow. Standing stone-still and wait­ing. "My God!" said Mary, almost aloud.

"Why, Mother," said Anne, "did we startle you?"

"You did, indeed, for a moment."

"Did you think we were the family ghost?"

They laughed.

"We were just discussing, "said Anne," whether, if we ring up the mill, there's a sporting chance of scoring a lunch."

"My dear!" said Mary, "we can't possibly all descend."

"Father'd like it," said Tommy earnestly, "he's all alone. He'd never forgive me if he heard you'd been up here and I hadn't brought you over."

"Perhaps the others will want to be getting back."

"You won't be late. We can eat quite early. At twelve, if you like."

"But are you sure, really, that it's all right?"

"Perfectly," said Tommy. "We'll just run up to the Post Office in the car. It won't take a quarter of an .hour."

So that was settled. Mary gave up the idea of a nap with a sigh. After all, it would be nice to see Ram's B.

They were off down the stairs at once. Mary, at the window, saw Edward and Margaret come strolling across the garden. They were evidently having one of their mysterious private talks. Mary had years ago given up trying to guess exactly how things were going at any particular moment.

Edward looked up and saw Mary. He waved to her mechanically, not altering the tone of his voice as he asked:

"And how's the latest? Is he from Oxford too?" Margaret nodded:

"I seem doomed to instruct the young." "Was it his first go?"

"Really, my dear, you presume too far upon my female modesty." Edward grinned.

II

His hands folded upon his umbrella-handle, his head slightly bowed, Major Charlesworth was borne smoothly upwards in the lift, like a martyr ascending into heaven. At the door of Mrs. Vernon's flat he paused for a moment before ring­ing, raised his fingers with a humble, saintly gesture to his thin moustache. Today he felt so little sure of himself that it seemed necessary to rehearse even the half-dozen words he would have to say to the maid.

But it was Mrs. Vernon who opened the door:

"I've been waiting for you."

This afternoon she seemed almost gay. She smiled:

"I've let the maid go out with her young man. We can make tea ourselves."

Actually, there was nothing to do. The tea-things were set out ready on their lace-edged cloth. It was only necessary to bring the kettle to the boil and fill the silver tea-pot. She gave it to Ronald.

He held it like a sacred vessel in a religious mys­tery. She smiled, pouring in the hot water:

"Be careful of your fingers!"

And when they were seated facing each other across the low table, she said:

"And now, tell me all about Thursday."

On Thursday Ronald had been to a sale at an old house in Essex. She had been unable, at the last moment, to accompany him. Ronald de­scribed the remarkable collection of old prints. And there had been a set of chairs he had par­ticularly admired.

"Oh! I do wish I'd been there," she exclaimed.

He wanted to say that without her the sale had lost its interest. That indeed he'd only gone be­cause he knew she would like to hear about it. He answered merely:

"I think it would have interested you."

"I'm sure it would."

She sipped her tea; asked:

"Shall you be going to the meeting on Satur­day?"

"I'm not quite certain."

"I shan't go," she said," unless you'll be coming. When shall you know?"

She smiled, as if challenging his evasion. He coloured a little, but bravely answered:

"I was waiting, really, I meant, to know whether you would care to come."

She smiled at him, quickly, with soft brilliance.

"I often wonder," she said, "how much of my interest in the Past is genuine. I know I should find it terribly dull to go to these places alone."

Ronald felt that his face was betraying him. He murmured:

"One likes to compare notes with someone."

Again she smiled.

"You must promise never to desert me."

She laughed gaily. He laughed. To imitate her was his only protection. Striving to keep his tone light, even gallant, he answered:

"Yes, Mrs. Vernon, I promise."

She poured him out another cup of tea. Looking him smilingly straight in the eyes, without em­barrassment :

"There's a favour I've been meaning to ask you for some time."

His heart seemed to swell:

"Yes?"

"I should like it very much if you would call me Lily. May I call you Ronald?"

He bowed his head—could hardly trust himself to speak:

"Yes, please do," he managed to say.

She leant back a little in her chair, lightly yet beautifully dismissing the subject:

"Thank you. It seemed rather absurd to be so formal, now that we are friends."

This brought tea to an end. They sat for some time silent. Ronald was aware of the silence of the

lamplit flat, high up in the great building, above the intense crawling movement of the far-away traffic. It was as quiet and isolated as a shrine. Lily sat thoughtfully gazing before her, at her hand with its single pale-shining gold ring. She asked:

"Tell me, Ronald. If you had your life to live again, would you alter anything?"

He considered her question. It was the first time he had ever been asked it. He was unaccus­tomed to talk about himself.

"I think," he said carefully at length, "I might have been better off in a cavalry regiment. But it was a question of money at the time. It was im­possible to live on one's pay."

Perhaps this had not been quite what she had meant, for she said, with a faint smile:

"I suppose everything is so different for a man."

He considered this carefully also:

"Yes, I think it must be."

Lily smiled gaily.

"Men always seem to me so restless and dis­contented in comparison with women. They'll do anything to make a change, even when it leaves them worse off."

He must have made some faintly deprecatory movement, for she said:

"Oh, yes, they will! You know you would your­self, if you got the opportunity."

She smiled; she laughed at him with a strange

note of opposition, as though holding him back at arm's distance.

"Whereas," she added, "we women, we only want peace."

He did not answer. She pressed him, almost mockingly:

"I suppose you think that sounds very selfish?"

He replied gravely, with a certain dignity:

"I'm afraid I can't believe that you're being quite sincere."

She laughed strangely.

"Perhaps I'm not; I don't know."

There was a silence. He wished he had not said that. It seemed that she had opened some door, only to shut it again. They avoided each other's eyes, and when Lily spoke, it was to change the subject:

"You know something about silver, don't you?"

"Only a very little."

She rose, smiling:

"Have I ever shown you this?"

Opening a cupboard, she took out a box padded with cotton - wool, unwrapped several layers, brought it across to the light of the lamp.

"As a matter of fact," she said, "I'm sure you can't have seen it, because it has been in the Bank since the War. I've only just got it out."

"It's beautiful," he said, turning the shallow, heavy dish over in his hands.

"It's supposed to be Jacobean."

Ronald examined it carefully:

"Yes. I should say it must be very valuable."

"I believe it is. It belonged to my aunt. She gave it me as a wedding present."

Lily thoughtfully put the dish down on the table. It stood there between them. Then she spoke, not sadly, but with a quiet note of wonder, as if to herself:

"How perfectly extraordinary it seems to think that I'm still alive and the dish is still here. It's like something dug up from another civilisation."

He was silent. He feared by the least word to jar upon her mood. She continued:

"The modern idea seems to be that the old people should enjoy themselves and go about just like the young ones. That there shouldn't be any distinction. They should dress alike and talk alike and do their best to look alike."

She paused, gazing into the shadows.

"I think, myself, that happiness belongs to young people. Old people have got memories."

She was so beautiful as she said that, that Ronald might have interrupted, protested, told her that she wasn't old, but young—would always be young. But he was awed by her strange, rapt manner. She spoke dreamily, like one delivering oracles:

"I think that if one has been very very happy for part of one's life, then nothing else matters."

She added, after a moment, as though pursuing the same line of thought:

"I wish you and Richard could have known each other. I think you would have had a great deal in common."

He sat quite silent, could not reply. She smiled. She said quite simply:

"I've sometimes felt that he is pleased we are friends."

The lift slid down its shaft. He had passed out of the flat, it seemed, like a somnambulist; was walking with long strides through the lamplit streets.

Now, at last, he could value, as never before, the beauty of his treasure—their friendship. Walking erect like a hero, swinging his umbrella, he knew himself to be the most fortunate, the most privi­leged, as the most unworthy of living men. And this great happiness was not realised too late, about to come to an end. It would go on and on. Week would follow week. I shall see her, he thought. I shall speak to her. We shall have tea together. We shall talk.

And to think that only this morning he'd been tormenting himself with ridiculous madman's hopes, schemes, illusions. He had considered his meagre bank balance, his pension, his little flat. Yes, he'd been ready to commit that supreme folly, that insolence. They could never have met again. He saw now that she'd have interpreted his proposal as a sort of treachery, a betrayal of his trust, his honoured position. He was ready to agree now that it would have been a betrayal.

How beautifully she had saved him from that folly, the misery of her refusal. How beautifully she'd indicated what their relationship must be. She must have read his thoughts, for surely her every word that afternoon had been a warning, exquisitely conveyed. How gladly he accepted it. For he knew now that he could be of some small service to her, and that was all he had ever really hoped. It was enough of happiness.

If I had met her as a boy, he thought—not supposing that then things might have happened otherwise, but thinking: If I had met her then, how much better my life would have been. It is women like her, he thought, who raise men from the brutes they are. Without them we could be nothing. She is a saint, he thought. I have known a saint.

Tired, walking more slowly, he stopped at last before a door which seemed familiar. It was his Club. The few fellow-members who nodded to him, as he passed through the smoking-room and sat down in his favourite chair, remarked that Charlesworth was actually a quarter of an hour late. Usually, you could set your watch by him— any of his three dining nights in the week.

III

"And so I'm taking myself off," Edward wrote, trying to steady his hand against the vibration of the little table. "I rely on you to make the peace with Mary. For God's sake, invent some extra­ordinarily subtle reason for my departure, and be sure to write and tell me exactly what it is. Then I can send her a Christmas card. The truth is merely that I had a sudden dazzling vision of what it will be like at the Gowers' and at the Kleins', and on New Year's Eve at Mrs. Gidden's. And it was too much for me. Please forgive this, certainly not my last, betrayal."

They were well beyond Hannover; had finished lunch. The sad level plains, unfenced, dotted with woods, rotated smoothly beyond the thick pane curtained with green baize to prevent the least draught. The dining-car smelt richly of the cigars of stout shaven-skulled passengers with student scars on their cheeks. Edward's light impertinent eye surveyed them, his fingers drumming the stem of his glass.

Raising it, he sipped; sucked his pencil, added: "I shall be back early in the New Year."

He lay in the deck chair under the tattered eucalyptus tree. The leaves stirred in a faint breeze puffing over the headland. Looking sleepily down the slopes of the terraced hill writhing with black vine-roots, upon the orange and pink houses clustered round the belfry tower. Every pebble of the gritty hillside showed hard and clear in the intense light. But across the dark blue gulf the low, grey, secret-looking destroyers were almost in­visible against the opposite shore. Far beyond, high above the terrestrial horizon, snow-facets of Alpine precipices were printed, like a half-developed photograph, on the dazzling air.

Margaret was standing behind him. She had just come down from the house.

She smiled. Her teeth showed bone-white against the darkness of her sunburnt skin. She was radiant. Her eyes shone.

"Food's ready."

"What is there?" asked Edward, with a big yawn.

"Omelette, fruit, salad—I've tried it the new way Therese showed us."

"Splendid."

He rose wearily, weary of sitting still. He'd eaten enough for months. He ate with her eyes

upon him, forcing down the mouthfuls. She asked anxiously:

"Isn't it good?"

"It's first-class."

"No, but tell me, the flavouring isn't quite the same—is it?"

He roused himself to consider.

"I believe it needs a little more of that stuff that looks like parsley and isn't—what's it called?"

"Yes. You're right. It does."

That afternoon he'd lain watching her as she stood before the easel. She worked rapidly and decisively, dabbing at the canvas with a sort of triumph, half-smiling to herself. He knew that she liked him to lie near her, on the verandah or under the tree. If he went away by himself, down into the town or across the headland to Pampelonne, he'd find, when he returned, that she'd done scarcely any work. She missed her pet cat.

Yet she was always urging him to make little expeditions. To be independent.

"I believe old Morel is taking his car into St. Rafael tomorrow. Would you care to go?"

"Not particularly. Are you going?"

"Oh, I shall be working."

"You want to get rid of me."

She laughed: "My dear, you know I don't."

"Then come, too."

"Of course I'll come—if you want me."

"Why shouldn't I want you?"

So they stayed at home.

Sometimes Edward felt she'd be quite pleased if he came home drunk. She wanted him to be naughty. She encouraged his evenings out. So Edward dutifully strolled down to the little port with its picturesque fishing-boats, its three cafes and its brothel, which boasted an extremely antique and well-worn indecent film. Sometimes he sat up three-quarters of the night chatting to the painters or playing cards. The thin, delicate, staccato Frenchmen fiddling nervously with their cigar­ettes, winding themselves up slowly like springs while the others talked, then pouncing into a half second's opening in the conversation with their: "Je suppose que . . ." The small, untidy, worried-looking Spaniards, sombre and tragic, yet some­how like hairdressers. The large, lazy Russians with many wives. Scarcely a single Englishman. For that Edward was grateful. Yet he was bored. His boredom was like a nostalgia for the whole world. He was homesick for everywhere but here.

When he spent his evenings up at the villa, Margaret and he sat together on the verandah. They read to each other aloud. Or played poker-patience with two little travelling cases which had pockets for the cards. At twelve o'clock it was bed­time. They kissed:

"Good-night, my dear."

Margaret and Therese did all the housework. Edward wanted to help, but she wouldn't let him.

"The women must work and the men must sleep," he said.

She only laughed with her quiet, disconcerting triumph. At times it really angered him. It was like being patted on the top of the head.

He took to bathing. He walked down to Pampelonne, the great wild beach littered with bleached sea-rubbish, like bones. The currents were danger­ous. In perverse moods he punished her with anxiety. Every morning he did exercises on the verandah; lay outstretched, crucified, drinking in the sun with his naked body. His skin turned to darkest bronze. Stark naked, with furious ironic energy, he performed his comic religious ritual of strainings, stretchings and heavings. Margaret watched him, smiling. And when he saw her looking at him, he felt suddenly ashamed of himself.

Then he went out sailing with the son of the lighthouse-keeper. Often they were away from early morning till sunset. Margaret would come down to the port to meet them.

"I should like to do a picture of Mimi," she said one day.

"Why?"

"He's such a magnificent type. Really beautiful, of his kind. Like an animal."

"Is he?" Edward felt irritated because quite unreasonably guilty.

"Really, Margaret," he added, with his most

unpleasant smile, "you describe people like a nursery governess at the National Gallery."

But after this he didn't go out with Mimi any more. Another boy, named Gaston, was only too glad to take his place. Gaston had a squint.

A few days later Edward asked if she'd men­tioned the portrait.

"No, I haven't."

"Why not? I'm sure he'd be delighted."

As a matter of fact, Mimi had been rather attracted by Margaret. He found an excuse to call at the villa. Edward told him, in front of Margaret, about the picture. He was very much flattered. And, of course, after this, Margaret had to do it. Edward thought it the worst thing she'd ever painted. It was bold, cheaply attractive. One day, coming back to the house, he found she'd hung it in his bedroom. He got really angry:

"I wish you'd take that damned thing away!"

And so it was finally presented to Mimi him­self. Presumably it occupied a place of honour in the lighthouse.

At length, one evening, Margaret said: "Edward, how much longer do you want to stop here?"

"Where would you like to go?"

"I didn't mean that. I meant—I know sometimes you like to be alone. You mustn't ever feel tied."

"But aren't you happy here?" he asked uneasily.

"Of course—so long as you are."

Nothing more was said. A few days later she told him:

"Edward, next week I'm going to Paris."

He accepted this. Alone, he was able to stand the villa for two days. Then he left for Marseilles and so by boat to Constantinople. In the autumn he was back again in Paris with a slight fever. They met. He said:

"You see, I fly to you when I cut my finger."

She laughed.

"My dear, that's what I wish."

But they were happy together. They went everywhere, playing a game that they were Americans seeing Paris for the first time. They bought horn-rimmed glasses and conversed in what they imagined to be Yankee accents. The joke collapsed rather feebly, however, when they met an extremely nice sculptor from Carolina and had to explain their behaviour.

Soon they crossed to London. Margaret settled at her studio. Edward took a flat. They went out everywhere together—were always invited as a married pair. They made endless jokes about this —particularly Margaret. Mary was really the

funniest. Her discretion, her unobtrusive air of giving her blessing, was really funny.

Margaret said:

"Mary's so sweet. She's really awfully innocent."

She added:

"Ah! Edward—if they but knew you as you are."

This kind of joking made him uneasy. She struck the wrong note; her humour was always slightly strained. They avoided being alone to­gether. At parties they were very bright, playing up to each other like trained actors.

At the villa they'd already discussed what Ed­ward described as "our duty to our neighbours." As he'd said: "Of course, we must try it one day. One never knows. It might be a success." And Margaret had laughed: "To think, Edward—I might cure you."

And so one evening, at the studio, after a par­ticularly hectic party, they'd started—and it had been really very funny and not in the least dis­gusting—but quite hopeless. They sat up in bed and laughed and laughed. "Oh, Edward!" laughed Margaret—for she was pretty tight, too—"I shall never be able to sleep with a man again. At the critical moment I shall always think of you."

"I might return the compliment," said Edward.

In the spring they went south again, stopping

several weeks in Paris. They hadn't been very long at the villa before news came of the General Strike. Edward wanted to return at once.

"But what would you do?" she asked him, half impressed, half amused.

"I don't know. But I want to be mixed up in this."

He didn't even know which side he'd be on. She laughed at him. He was as angry as a boy.

"You don't understand," he said. "Something important is happening. There may be a revolu­tion. And you want me to sit here, hiding in this damned country."

"Why not admit, my dear, that you're simply bored?"

This stung him. It was partly true. Partly—like all women's wisdom. He meditated leaving her. If she'd tried to stop him he'd certainly have done so, but she was too cunning. The days passed. At length came a letter from Mary, making the whole thing seem, of course, a tremendous joke. Maurice had driven an engine. She and Anne had worked at a canteen. The letter ended:

"We all missed you. You would so have en­joyed it."

"I feel quite sorry," said Margaret, "that you didn't go, after all."

The summer passed. The port was infested with painters. Edward sailed, swam, lay in the sun. Margaret didn't offer to paint any more Mimis,

but often he had the impression of being ironically watched. Sometimes the whole situation would seem quite impossible; then, the next day, so simple that one couldn't imagine whatever had seemed wrong. According to Margaret's favourite phrase:

"I can't see that anything's unworkable, if people are really honest with each other."

That infuriated Edward. One day he would retort—yes, but who's being honest?

When the weather began to get cooler, Mar­garet said:

"Why don't we ask Olivier here?"

Olivier was one of their Paris friends. A young ballet dancer.

"Why should we ask him?"

"Only that I thought you liked him."

He'd found himself, in spite of all control, blushing.

"At any rate, I know quite well that you don't."

Margaret laughed.

"My dear, wherever did you get that idea from? Besides," she added, "what on earth has it to do with me? Are we to cut each other off from our friends?"

"I don't notice," he said maliciously, "that you bring your friends here such a lot."

"My friends?" she smiled. "I haven't any."

There it dropped for the moment. But she re­turned to the attack a few days later:

"Edward," she said, "I wish you'd ask Olivier here."

His temper was not at its best. The mistral had been blowing all day, so that every window in the villa banged and grey clouds of dust swirled up from the town. And Edward's friend, the chemist, had run out of his supply of powders which he administered to chronic sufferers from the weather. Edward flashed a look at her:

"What makes you think I'm pining for Olivier?"

She was a little cold in her reply, as if dealing with an ill-mannered child, but patient:

"I never said you were 'pining'. I merely know you well enough to know that you sometimes require other kinds of company than mine. So I suggest Olivier."

"And what," he said, "do you mean exactly by 'other kinds of company'?"

"I mean what I say."

"How typical it is," he said, "of a woman, that she can never stop reminding people of their obligations."

"I don't understand."

"Well, then, I'll put it more plainly. You regard me as married to you."

"Edward—you can't be serious!"

"But I won't stand it—do you hear? I won't have you sneering at me."

The quietness of her reply suggested that she regarded him as a mere invalid:

"You simply aren't thinking what you're saying."

He looked at her for a moment, with his quick mechant smile. Then he said:

"I think you might spare me the final humilia­tion of being pimped for."

She went out of the room.

Later they made it up. Edward took refuge behind exaggerated surrender. It was his liver. It was the mistral. He hadn't meant a word. She shook her head sadly:

"No, my dear. Don't say all that. You did mean some of it."

There was a pause, and she added:

"And perhaps you're right. Perhaps I some­times am a bit—possessive."

He protested. She said:

"I sometimes wonder if all this is workable. The way we live."

"It's worked, hasn't it?"

She smiled sadly.

"Has it?"

"You mean, for you, it hasn't?"

"Oh, I'm satisfied," she answered quickly.

"Then you oughtn't to be," was on the tip of his tongue. He didn't say it. Like a coward he avoided, as always, the final issue between them. That evening they were gentle with each other, but sad. He was polite and she accepted it. Next morning she told him that she was going to England in a few days' time. As before, she spared him the unpleasantness of being the one to make the move.

"I believe I have overcome this difficulties," said the young Dutchman, in his incorrect con­clusive English, tapping the ash from a small cigar and glancing without interest across the Place de l'Opera. He was pale and rather stout. Edward nodded seriously and ordered another absinthe. The Dutchman drank only lemonade.

A week later they had left Paris. The experi­ments were being made at a village not far from Beauvais. The Dutchman had invented a new type of aeroplane engine. He was working as cheaply as possible, but had run out of cash. It was only a matter of a few hundreds. Edward telegraphed to his bank. To Margaret he'd written in a mood of unashamed enthusiasm: "I really believe that this is the genuine Resurrection from the Dead. It's extraordinary, after all these years, to be of some slight use. I only wish I hadn't forgotten all the engineering I ever knew. But even that is coming back by degrees."

Margaret answered warmly, handsomely. He could read between the lines that she was anxious. But she talked gaily of the future. Perhaps Edward would be quite famous.

Everything went splendidly. The French Government was interested. The experts were coming to visit them in a few weeks' time. Two or three reporters appeared, lurked about for a day or two, and were finally driven off, disappointed. The days passed quickly in long hours of work, in discussions, in trial flights. Edward found that his nerve hadn't gone. He was cutting down his drink­ing. He felt ten years younger.

The Dutchman was killed one morning while flying alone, a few days before the experts came. An elementary piece of carelessness on the part of one of the mechanics. A strut broke in mid-air. The machine side-slipped and was burnt to a tangle of wires within a few minutes of striking the ground. All that Edward could do was to make an idiotic plunge into the flames, attempting to reach the pilot's seat. They barely rescued him alive.

"I'm going to carry on," he told Margaret two months later, when he came out of hospital.

"I only wish I could help you more," she said.

But it was not so simple. There was a legal difficulty, it seemed, as to the ownership of the plans. Edward, of course, had made no business arrangement. Some relatives arrived from Amster­dam and carried them off. Edward raved for a week, talked of going to law, wrote furious letters. Margaret made no comment. They both knew that he could do nothing.

A month later, and he was out of Europe. His first destination was Damascus, but he could rest nowhere. Kerkuk, Suliemaniyeh, Halabja. He shot in the mountains. Paid a visit to Sheikh Mahmoud in his cave. In Halabja he nearly died. He had blood-poisoning in the left hand and ami.

When he got back, late that autumn, to London, he told Margaret:

"I'm getting old. That was the last time. I shan't run away again."

One should never say such things. Next summer, in Paris, he'd met Mitka.

A month passed. On the impulse, he wrote one day to Margaret, who was still at the villa. She must come up and visit them. Rather disconcert­ingly, she answered that she would.

Edward had found a studio in the Rue Lepic. Margaret admired it, smiling, while he made tea.

"You've no right to a place like this, my dear," she said.

Edward answered that he'd have to take up sculpture to justify his existence. They spoke French. Margaret had tactfully started it. But Mitka wouldn't be drawn into saying a word. He just sat, watching them, and occasionally—with a furtive movement—pushing the lock of fair hair away from his eyes. Her faintly amused smile explored everything. She asked:

"Who mends your socks?" and

"Which of you gets the breakfast?"

At last Edward couldn't stand it any longer. He packed Mitka off brusquely to the cinema, with twenty francs. And Margaret looked on at this little performance, smiling.

They were alone. Staring out of the window, frowning, with his hands in his pockets, Edward asked abruptly:

"Well?"

"Well what, my dear?"

Edward's frown tightened.

"What do you think of him?"

"I think he's charming," said Margaret sweetly.

It was just beginning to rain. Edward turned wearily from the wet pane, crossed the room slowly, sat down on the divan:

"I suppose I was a fool to have asked you here."

"By that, my dear, you mean that I was a fool to have come."

"No."

"I must admit," said Margaret, "that it was largely out of curiosity."

"And you've been disappointed."

"Is my approval so essential to your happiness?"

"On the contrary."

"Well, then------?"

"The truth is," said Edward, with his quick, unhappy, malicious little smile, "you wanted to be

quite certain that the exception really did prove the rule."

Margaret asked, with a sigh:

"Need we discuss this?"

"It seems to me that we might as well. Foronce."

She was silent.

"But tell me, Margaret, this interests me. What have you got against Mitka?"

"That child? I barely noticed him."

"'That child?'" He mimicked her voice. "You're starting to show off, my dear."

"Well, perhaps I am, a little bit," she grinned; "but I'm really and truly not saying one word against—Mitka? What a pretty name."

"Very. You mean you think this kind of thing is always a failure?"

"No, I don't say that. Not always." She hesi­tated. "Not for everybody."

"But for me?"

"Yes, Edward, I admit I do think that."

There was a silence. Edward cleared his throat slightly; asked in a different, softer voice:

"Why?"

"I don't know. It isn't your style. It's so------"

she paused suddenly, uncontrollably laughed.

"Oh, Edward, I'm sorry, but I just can't see you------"

"I wish you'd tell me the joke."

"There isn't a joke. Or, at least—yes, I can't help it, it is funny—it's like------"

"What?"

"Like being a nursery governess. Or a respons­ible private tutor."

"Thank you."

"I'm sorry, Edward. You made me say it, you know. But it is. I think one would have to have absolutely no sense of humour. You've got far too much."

"Perhaps not so much as you imagine."

"My dear, you're not angry with me, are you?"

"No."

"You are."

"Not in the least. I'm very much interested."

Again she sighed.

"Gracious! it's late. I must be going."

He followed her down the flights of stairs.

"My dear," she said suddenly, "you know I hope I'm wrong."

"I'm certain you hope you're right."

They parted smiling. Edward grinned, made his little bow. But he hated her. Really hated her. Taking hold of himself, clenching his will into a hard fist of obstinacy and hatred, he slowly climbed the stairs to the studio to wait for Mitka.

One evening, nearly seven months later, Mitka left the studio. He was going downstairs, he said, to the cafe for a packet of cigarettes. Edward had not been much surprised when, after three hours,

he had not returned. Yet he couldn't sleep. He could seldom sleep nowadays until he was pretty drunk. He sat up three-quarters of the night becoming so.

Next morning Mitka wasn't there. That evening Edward went down to the Rue de Lappe. He did not come back to the studio until the afternoon of the next day.

On the third day he telephoned to the hospitals and the police. But Mitka had not been arrested or injured. He was simply gone.

Gone. So it's happened at last, Edward had thought, in the instant before losing consciousness, after his crash in Flanders. Thank God!

Within a week he was getting out of the boat-train at Victoria, gloriously tight. "I'm never going to be sober again," he told Margaret. "Never, never again." She had looked scared. They had all looked slightly scared of him. Rabbits. He wasn't going to hurt anyone. What a comic little town London was. He went to their rabbit parties and played at being a rabbit—the biggest rabbit of them all. People who didn't know him were charmed. His friends were very bright and friendly and a trifle scared.

But this was all temporary. It couldn't go on, and he knew how it would end. At last he had got to be alone. But not here. Not in Paris. Someone

mentioned Berlin. He'd taken it for an omen. In forty-eight hours he was on his way.

And that was a year ago.

Edward's brilliant forlorn eyes looked out from the warm, lighted dining-car into the cold brief afternoon world. Twilight was gathering on the huge revolving disc of the plain. The passengers were going back to their compartments. Not long to wait now. His mouth twitched into a little nervous grin. He picked up his pencil. He'd suddenly thought of something funny to write to Margaret.

IV

Mary rang the bell. Lily herself opened the door of the flat.

"Why, Mary! This is a surprise!"

"Good afternoon, Lily. How are you?"

After a moment's hesitation they kissed.

"Very well, thank you. Come in."

Mary followed Lily into the grey and silver sitting-room, admiring the condition in which everything was kept.

"Sit down, won't you?" said Lily, smiling, pushing forward a chair.

"May I look round a little, first?"

"Of course. Why, you've never seen the flat—-have you?"

"No—may I?"

They smiled at each other. Lily, smiling with sudden childish pleasure, opened a door.

"This is my bedroom."

Over the bed hung a water-colour of the Hall as seen from the end of the garden.

"I've never seen this before," said Mary.

"Richard did it."

They stood together in silence looking at the picture. Then Lily quietly moved away:

"And this is the bathroom."

"I see you've got the shape of bath I've always wanted."

"Yes, it's quite comfortable."

"And what a nice shade for the light."

"Do you know who sent me that the other day? Mrs. Beddoes."

"Really? Where is she now?"

"She's gone back to her married daughter in Chester. Her son-in-law has a lamp shop, she says."

They moved into the little kitchen.

"I wish I'd known you were coming," said Lily; "I wouldn't have let the maid go out. But really, when I'm alone, there seems no reason for her to stay in. I generally have a cup of tea by myself in here."

"Well, then," said Mary, "let's have it here together."

"Oh, yes, let's! How nice."

"May I take off my coat, and I'll help you?"

"Of course."

Smiling, Lily took plates from the rack. Mary cut bread and butter. Lily heated the kettle on the ring. Mary fetched the teapot. Lily watched.

"Is that how you warm the pot?" she asked.

"Yes. It prevents it from cracking."

"Oh! what a good idea. I should never have thought of that. I must remember it."

They sat down. Mary sipped the tea with relish. It was better than she could afford. And how Lily wasted it!

"I really came here to thank you," she said, "for Anne's wedding present. She'll come herself as soon as she's back in London, but she's staying at the Ramsbothams' just now."

"Yes, she wrote and told me so."

"Really, Lily, it was most awfully good of you. It'll be quite the show piece at the wedding. We shall have to hire a detective to watch it."

Lily smiled: "It was in my aunt's family."

"A friend of ours from the British Museum saw it the other day. He says it's Jacobean."

"Yes."

"You know, you really shouldn't have------"

Lily smiled. And suddenly she was no longer young. There were crow's-feet round her eyes. And her throat drew tight, a trifle skinny.

"I thought Anne might like to have it."

"You should have kept it for Eric."

Lily smiled.

"I sometimes think," she said, "that Eric isn't going to marry."

"Maurice always says that too," Mary laughed.

But she never felt quite comfortable with Lily on the subject of Eric.

"Please tell me about the wedding."

"Well—it's to be at Chapel Bridge."

Lily's eyes lighted up.

"Oh, I'm so glad!"

"And Maurice is to be Best Man. So we're keeping it all in the family."

"And have you fixed the date yet?"

"Not exactly. But some time in February."

"And what will Anne wear?"

Mary went into details. Lily was delighted.

"I'm so glad it's going to be a nice grand affair. Nowadays the weddings seem so plain and in­formal."

Mary couldn't help smiling, thinking of her own. She said:

"And of course you'll come?"

"Shall I? Really?"

"But, of course, you must support me. I can't face the second Mrs. Ramsbotham alone."

Lily laughed, with childish pleasure.

"Yes, I think I really must."

"Well, you know," said Mary after a pause, "I really must be getting along."

"Oh, must you?" Lily's face fell. "I suppose you're very busy."

"I've got a good deal to do over Christmas. The children will both be at home."

She paused at the door; added:

"You know, Lily, we should be awfully glad

to see you if you cared to come round any time."

Lily smiled:

"It's very kind of you. But I always feel you've so much to do."

"I'm afraid my house is rather a bear-garden! But I tell you what—you've never been to the Gallery, have you? Do come one day, soon. The light's almost gone at four, and we can have a quiet cup of tea all to ourselves without being disturbed. I've at last managed to get the place fairly decently heated."

"I should love to."

"Well, don't forget. Here's the address." ,,

"I'll come as soon as Christmas is over."

"Well, good-bye. Thank you so much for my tea."

"Thank you for coming."

"Good-bye, Lily."

"Good-bye, Mary."

They kissed.

Riding home on her bus, Mary had Lily's figure still before her—the thin, pale, blonde woman bravely smiling at the door of her lonely flat. Poor old Lily. What would she do at Christ­mas?

That afternoon she'd suddenly had an idea. Why not a show of Richard's and Lily's water-

colours at the Gallery? People still bought that sort of 1910 stuff, and it'd make a change. But no, most likely Lily wouldn't hear of it. She wouldn't want to sell. Better not to mention the subject.

It was queer, but today she kept thinking of Desmond. Sometimes she forgot him for weeks on end. Perhaps I'm not well, Mary thought. She'd never felt better. Yes, deep down in her bones she felt a power. She was powerful and old. The Future didn't worry her, and she had done with the Past. The Past couldn't hurt her now. And yet, thinking of it all—thinking of Dick and of Father and Mother and of Desmond—of all that had hap­pened, there seemed so incredibly much and everything so complicated and so difficult that if, when she was a girl of fifteen, somebody had brought her a book and said: Look. That's what you've got in front of you, she'd have felt like an examination candidate confronted with a pre­posterous schedule: But I can't possibly manage all that! And yet it had been managed, down to the very last item; and, after all, it had been easy and not specially strange or exciting. And how soon it was over!

"Mary as Queen Victoria," shouted everybody that evening at the Gowers', after the concert, "But you must all have seen it."

"We all want to see it again."

"Very well," said Mary, smiling; "since you're all so kind. But this is really and truly the very, very last performance on any stage."

"Liar!" Maurice shouted.

V

Edward sat at the table by the window of his room, overlooking the trees and the black canal and the trams clanging round the great cold fountain in the Liitzowplatz. It was quite dark already. The reading-lamp lit up the gleaming white tiles of the stove, on top of which was perched a metal angel holding a wreath. Edward lit a cigarette and opened the two letters which had arrived by the afternoon post. He read Margaret's first:

"I could think of no 'subtle' reason, so finally ended by telling Mary all, without disguise. It worked much better than I expected. In fact, I don't think she was at all seriously aggrieved. I remarked: You know what Edward is, and she agreed that we all knew what you were. You may be thankful, my dear, that we don't.

"Well, the Festival seems to be upon us and this shall be my Christmas letter. I am feeling Christmassy this evening, in spite of a wretched drizzle. And so let me wish you (and myself too)

the very best of the Season, and may we both enjoy ourselves according to our own tastes and in our own ways.

"My dear, I feel as though I were very near to you tonight. And I'm curiously happy. (The truth is, I was at a cocktail tea at Bill's studio. But let that pass.) Somehow, I feel awfully secure. About us two, I mean. All our little escapades and adventures suddenly seem so completely trivial beside the fact that we've got each other. Yes, Edward, whatever happens, that stands firm. And it's all that matters. And now I am quite certain that as we get older this will grow stronger and stronger between us and the other thing be­come less and less important. When I look back over the last year, I see how this has been happen­ing. And, believe me, it will go on happening.

"A merry Xmas, with my dear love, and good­night, my dear."

Edward picked up the other letter:

"Dear Edward,

"This is to thank you for your most handsome subscription to the Club. I wish you could be here in person to help us with our Christmas Party. I think it will be a success.

"There is something I should have told you if I'd known you were meaning to leave London. I am going to become a Catholic. Perhaps this will surprise you. It would have very much more than

surprised me a year ago. I don't know exactly when I shall make my first Communion, but it will be soon. Until that is over I shall say nothing to Mary or to my Mother, but I wanted you to know. It is impossible for me to say much about it. I don't propose to try to convert you by describ­ing how it happened. Only I have the most extra­ordinary feeling of peace. And you who know me will know what a lot that means. Needless to say, I shall carry on with the work here.

"My best wishes for Christmas and the New Year. Eric"

A long whistle sounded from the darkness of the trees by the canal bank. Edward rose from his chair, pushed open the window, peered down:

"Franz?"

"Edward?"

"Look out."

Edward took the key of the flat from his pocket, let it fall.

"Good. I've got it."

A moment later, and the door opened.

"Well, Edward, you old house, how goes it?"

Franz took off his overcoat, coat and scarf. Then he went, as usual, to the glass and carefully parted his hair with a pocket comb. After this he poured water into the basin and washed his hands.

"How goes it?" Edward asked.

"Bad."

"Been having another quarrel with your step­father?"

Franz nodded, uttered a sudden animal sound like a laugh and performed three rapid handsprings on the back of the sofa.

"Wonderful," Edward mocked. He picked up a paper-knife from the table; asked:

"Can you do this?"

"No. How do you do it? Show me."

"It's quite simple."

"No. Show me. Do it again."

"What's that?" asked Edward, to change the subject, pointing to a long scar on Franz's arm.

"That was last May. At my sister's. The police broke one of our windows with machine-gun bullets."

"Are you a Communist, then?"

"No, of course not."

Franz laughed. Asked suddenly:

"You've got a scar, too."

Edward was rather startled. He didn't think it showed.

"How did you get that?"

"I shot myself."

"You mean, you had an accident?"

"No. On purpose."

"Where?"

"Here in Berlin."

"When?"

"Last winter."

"Why aren't you dead?"

"Because the German doctors are very clever. That's where they dug the bullet out."

Franz laughed. Edward smiled:

"Don't you believe me?"

"Of course I don't."

"Why not?"

"Why should you shoot yourself? You've got money."

His flickering attention moved about the room, fastened on the letters. He examined them with interest:

"Erich? Is that your friend in London?"

"Yes."

"And these are both written in English?"

"Yes."

"Read some of this one. I want to hear how it sounds."

Edward, faintly smiling, read aloud:

" 'In fact, I don't think she was at all seriously aggrieved. I remarked: You know what Edward is, and she agreed that we all knew what you were. You may be thankful, my dear, that we don't.' "

He paused, asked:

"Well, did you understand it?"

"A little."

"What?"

"There's a bit about something being expensive, isn't there? Doesn't 'dear' mean expensive?"

"Yes,"

"You see? I can understand English."

Franz smiled complacently, helped himself to a cigarette:

"No, but tell me, Edward. How did you really get that scar?"

"I've told you."

"No. But really. Wasn't it in the War?"

"Yes, if you like."

"You fought in the War?"

"Yes."

"Did you kill many Germans?"

"Quite a lot."

"Then I shall kill you," said Franz, catching Edward by the throat. But he became serious almost immediately:

"It must have been terrible."

"It was awful," said Edward.

"You know," said Franz, very serious and evidently repeating something he had heard said by his elders: "that War ... it ought never to have happened."