He put out his hand and stroked her cheek.
“It’s difficult to explain, Jenny. You know what I’ve told you… since the disaster… since I got the sack from the school… I’m chucking the B.A., teaching, everything. I’m going to make a complete break and join the Federation. Well, while this war is on there’s not much chance to do what I want to do at home. It’s a case of marking time. Besides, Sammy has gone and Harry Nugent is going. It’s the only thing.”
“Oh no, David,” she whimpered. “You can’t go.”
“I’ll be all right,” he said soothingly. “There’s no need to worry about that.”
“No, you can’t, you can’t leave me now, you can’t desert me at a time like this.” She created the picture of herself forsaken, not only by him, but by everyone she had trusted.
“But, Jenny—”
“You can’t leave me now.” She was quite beside herself, her words came all in a rush. “You’re my husband, you can’t desert me. Don’t you see I’m going… that we’re going to have a baby.”
There was a complete silence. Her news staggered him, not for an instant had he suspected it. Then she began to cry, letting her head droop while the tears simply ran out of her eyes, to cry as she always cried when she had offended him. He could not bear to see her cry like this; he flung his arm round her.
“Don’t cry, Jenny, for God’s sake don’t cry. I’m glad, I’m terribly glad; you know I’ve always wanted this to happen. You took me by surprise there for a minute. That was all. Don’t cry. Jenny, please, don’t cry like that, as if it was your fault.”
She sniffed and sobbed on his chest, snuggling up to him. The colour came back into her face, she looked relieved now that she had told him. She said:
“You won’t leave me now, will you, David, not until our baby’s born at any rate?”
There was something almost pitiful in Jenny’s eagerness to share the baby with him; but he did not see it.
“Of course not, Jenny.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
He sat down and took her on his knee. She still kept her head against his chest as though afraid to let him read her eyes.
“The idea,” he said gently, “crying like that. Surely you knew I’d be pleased. Why on earth didn’t you tell me before?”
“I thought you might be angry. You had that much to worry you and you’re different lately. I don’t mind telling you you’ve frightened me.”
He said mildly:
“I don’t want to frighten you, Jenny.”
“You won’t go then, will you, David? You won’t leave me till it’s all over?”
He took her chin gently in his fingers and raised her tear-stained face to his. Looking into her eyes he said:
“I’ll not think about the army until you’re all right, Jenny.” He paused, holding her glance firmly in his. She looked vaguely frightened again, ready to shrink, to start, to weep. Then he said: “But will you promise to give over drinking that confounded port, Jenny?”
There was no quarrel. A sudden final relief swept over her and she burst into tears.
“Oh yes, David, I promise,” she wailed. “I really do promise, I swear to you I’ll be good. You’re the best husband in the world, David, and I’m a silly, stupid, wicked thing. But oh, David…”
He held her closely, soothing her, his tenderness strengthened and renewed. Amongst all the troubled darkness of his mind he felt a shaft of light strike hopefully. He had a vision of new life rising out of death. Jenny’s son and his; and in his blindness he was happy.
Suddenly there came a ring at the bell. Jenny raised her head, flushed now and relieved, her mood altered with almost childish facility.
“Who can it be?” she queried interestedly. They were not used to front-door callers at such an hour. But before she could surmise the bell rang again. She rose smartly and hurried to answer it.
She was back in a minute, quite excited and impressed.
“It’s Mr. Arthur Barras,” she announced. “I showed him in the parlour. Can you think of it, David, young Mr. Barras himself? He’s asked to see you.”
The fixed look returned to David’s face, his eyes hardened.
“What does he want?”
“He didn’t say. I didn’t think to ask him, naturally. But imagine him calling at our house. Oh, goodness, if I’d only known I’d have had a fire going in the front room.”
There was a silence. The social occasion did not seem to strike David as important. He rose from his chair and went slowly to the door.
Arthur was walking up and down in the parlour in a state of acute nervous tension and as David entered he started quite visibly. He looked at David for an instant with wide, rather staring eyes and then came hurriedly forward.
“I’m sorry if I’m disturbing you,” he said, “but I simply had to come.” With a sudden gesture, he sank into a chair and covered his eyes with his hand. “I know how you feel. I don’t blame you a bit. I wouldn’t have blamed you if you had refused to see me. But I had to come, I’m in such a state I had to see you. I’ve always liked you and looked up to you, David. I feel that you’re the only one who can help me.”
David sat down quietly at the table opposite Arthur. The contrast between them was singularly pathetic: the one rent by a painful agitation, the other firmly controlled with strength and forbearance in his face.
“What do you want?” David asked.
Arthur uncovered his eyes abruptly and fixed them on David with a desperate intentness.
“The truth, that’s what I want. I can’t rest, I can’t sleep, I can’t be still until I get it. I want to know if my father is to blame for the disaster. I must know, I must. You’ve got to help me.”
David averted his gaze, struck by that strange recurrent pity which Arthur seemed always destined to evoke in him.
“What can I do?” he asked in a low voice. “I said all I had to say at the Inquiry. They wouldn’t listen to me.”
“They can reopen the Inquiry.”
“What would be the use?”
An exclamation broke from Arthur, a sound lost in bitterness, between a laugh and a sob.
“Justice,” Arthur exclaimed wildly. “Ordinary decency and justice. Think of these men killed, cut off suddenly, dying horribly. Think of the suffering among their wives and children. O God! it won’t bear thinking of. If my father is to blame it’s too brutal and horrible to think it should all be glossed over and forgotten.”
David got up and went to the window. He wanted to give Arthur the chance to collect himself. Presently he said:
“I felt exactly that way too at first. Worse, perhaps… hatred… a terrible hatred. But I’ve tried to get over it. It’s not easy. It’s human nature to have these violent reactions. When a man throws a bomb at you, your first reaction is to pick it up and throw it back. I talked all this out with Nugent when he was here. I wish you’d met Nugent, Arthur, he’s the sanest man I know. But throwing back the bomb isn’t a bit of good. It’s far better to ignore the man who threw the bomb and concentrate on the organisation which made it. It’s no good looking for individual punishment over this Neptune disaster when the whole economic system behind the disaster is to blame. Do you see what I mean, Arthur? It’s no good lopping off a branch when the disease is at the very roots of the tree.”
“Does that mean you are going to do nothing?” Arthur asked desperately. The words seemed to stick in his throat. “Nothing? Absolutely nothing?”
David shook his head, his features rigid and saddened.
“I’m going to try to do something,” he said slowly. “Once we get rid of the war. I can’t tell you, I can’t say. But, believe me, I am going to try.”
A long silence fell. Arthur passed his hand across his eyes with that nervous, bewildered gesture. Perspiration was beaded on his brow. He stood up to go.