“Have you been to see my father?”
He shook his head dumbly with eyes still averted. The hopelessness in his attitude gave her a renewed pang. Deeply touched, she came up to him and took his arm.
“You must come in,” she said. “I’m going there now. You look quite ill.”
“No,” he muttered, drawing away childishly, “they don’t want me.”
“But you must,” she insisted. And like a child he yielded and allowed her to lead him towards the house. He had the awful feeling that at any moment he might burst into tears.
She took a key from her bag, opened the door, and they went into the back sitting-room which he knew so well. The sight of his shaven head forced a gasp of pity from Laura’s lips. She took him by the shoulders and put him in a chair by the fire. He sat there with his prison pallor upon him and his clothes hanging on his drooping prison-shrunken frame while she hurried into the kitchen. There she said nothing to Minnie, the maid, but herself quickly brought him a tray with tea and hot buttered toast. She watched him with concern while he drank the tea and ate some of the toast.
“Finish it,” she said gently.
He obeyed. His intuition told him immediately that neither Hetty nor her father was in the house. Momentarily his mind detached itself from Hetty. He raised his head and for the first time looked at Laura.
“Thanks, Laura,” he said humbly.
She did not answer, but once again that quick sympathy flashed into her pale face as though a sudden gleam from the fire had illumined it. He could not help thinking how much older she looked; there were shadows under her eyes, she was dressed indifferently, her hair quite carelessly arranged. Through his daze, the change in her reached and astounded him.
“Is anything wrong, Laura? Why are you here, alone?”
This time a deep and painful emotion broke through the surface of her eyes.
“Nothing’s wrong.” She bent and stirred up the fire. “I’m staying with father this week. You see, I’m closing up the house at Hilltop, in the meantime.”
“Closing your house?”
She nodded, then added in a low voice:
“Stanley’s gone down to Bournemouth to a rest home; you probably didn’t know he’d been shell-shocked. I shall join him when I have settled things up here.”
He looked at her helplessly; his brain refused to operate.
“But the works, Laura?” he exclaimed at last.
“That’s been arranged,” she answered in a flat voice. “That’s the least of it, Arthur.”
He continued to look at her in a kind of wonder. This was not the Laura he had known. The fixed sadness in her face was quite startling, that droop to her mouth, ironic yet pained. A deep, mysterious instinct, born of his own suffering, made him sense a wounded spirit, behind this outer, indifferent crust. But he could not work it out just now, the insufferable fatigue bore down on him again. A long silence came between them.
“I’m sorry to be a trouble to you, Laura,” he said eventually.
“You’re no trouble.”
He hesitated, feeling she might now wish him to go.
“But now that I’m here, I thought — I thought I might as well wait and see Hetty.”
Another silence. He could feel her looking at him. Then she rose from the hearthrug where she had been kneeling, staring into the fire, and stood before him.
“Hetty isn’t here any more,” she said.
“What?”
“No,” she shook her head. “She’s down at Farnborough now — you see—” A pause. “You see, Arthur, that’s where Dick Purves is.”
“But what—” He broke off, a barb twisting in his heart.
“You don’t know,” Laura said in that same flat voice. “She married him in January.” Her eyes slipped from his, she put her hand on his shoulder. “It was a sudden affair; when they gave him the V.C., it was just immediately after your mother died, after the inquest. He got the V.C. for bringing down the Zeppelin. We never thought, Arthur… But Hetty just seemed to make up her mind. The wedding was in all the papers.”
He sat perfectly still, in a kind of graven stolidity.
“So Hetty’s married.”
“Yes, Arthur.”
“I never thought of that.” He swallowed and the spasm seemed to pass over his entire body. “I don’t suppose she’d have had anything to do with me in any case.”
Wisely, she made no attempt to console him. He made an effort in the chair.
“Well, I ought to be going now,” he said in an unsteady voice.
“No, don’t go yet, Arthur. You still look seedy.”
“The worst of it is… I feel it.” He got shakily to his feet. “O Lord, I do feel queer. My head’s full of feathers. How do I get to the station?” He raised his hand stupidly to his brow.
Laura took a step forward, intercepting him on his way to the door.
“You’re not going, Arthur. I can’t let you go. You’re not fit. You ought to be in bed.”
“You mean well, Laura,” he said thickly, swaying on his feet. “I mean well, too. We both mean well.” He laughed. “Only we can’t do anything.”
Resolution formed in her. She put her arm round him determinedly.
“Listen to me, Arthur, I refuse to send you out in such a state. You’re going to bed… here… now. Don’t say another word. I’ll explain to father whenever he comes in.” Supporting him she assisted him into the hall and up the stairs. She lit the gas fire in her bedroom, quietly but firmly helped him out of his clothes and into bed. When this was done she filled a hot water bottle and put it to his feet. She considered him anxiously: “How do you feel now?”
“Better,” he answered, without meaning it.
He lay curled up on his side, realising that he was in Hetty’s room, in Hetty’s bed. How amusing! — he was actually in dear little Hetty’s dear little bed. Nice bit of skirt tonight, eh, Cuthbert? He wanted to laugh but could not. Recollection twisted the barb in his heart again.
It was about five o’clock in the afternoon. The sun, breaking through the low clouds, came slantingly into the room, making the wallpaper glow. In the small back garden some young thrushes were whistling. It was very still and unreal, and the softness of Hetty’s bed was unreal, and Laura must have gone away and the unknown longing in his breast hurt him.
“Take this, Arthur. It’ll help you to sleep.”
Laura had returned. How good she was to him. Resting on his elbow he drank the bowl of hot soup she had brought him. She sat beside him on the edge of the bed, filling the silent room with her real presence. Her hands, holding the tray for him, were white and soft. He had never thought much about Laura before, never cared much for her; but now her kindness overwhelmed him. Out of sheer gratitude he cried: “Why do you bother about me, Laura?”
“I shouldn’t worry, Arthur, if I were you,” she said: “everything’ll come all right.”
She took the empty bowl and placed it upon the tray. She made to get up.
But he reached out and stayed her, like a child fearful of being left alone.
“Don’t leave me, Laura.”
“Very well.”
She sat down again, placed the tray on the bedside table. She began gently to stroke his forehead.
He sobbed, then started to cry brokenly. In complete abandonment he lay against her, his face pressed against her, against her soft body. The comfort of his face against her softness was unbelievable, an ease flowed like warm milk through his being.
“Laura,” he whispered, “Laura.”
A fire of indulgence blazed in her suddenly. His attitude, his need of comfort, the pressure of his head against the lower part of her body raised a wild tension in her. Staring rigidly across the room she saw her own face in the mirror. A quick revulsion took her. Not that, she thought fiercely, no, not that gift. She gazed down at Arthur again. Worn out, his sobs had stopped, he was already on the edge of sleep. His lips were open, his expression undefended, helpless, exposed. She saw the wounds plainly. There was something infinitely sad and wistful in the flaccid closure of his eyelids, the narrow foreshortening of his chin.