He did the best he could. He saw that Robert was uncomfortable and wet, and though he had not much experience with napkins he took Robert’s napkin off. Robert seemed pleased and by way of gratitude when David lifted him aloft again he clutched hard at David’s hair.
David laughed and Robert laughed too. He seemed hungry, but otherwise much relieved. David put Robert down on the hearthrug and Robert sprawled and kicked before the fire. He seemed altogether a healthier baby these last few weeks, he was fatter, his rash had gone and he did not snuffle so much. But now he was extremely hungry, he cried a good deal again as it came towards ten o’clock.
With a rising indignation at Jenny’s lateness David got down on his hands and knees and began to talk to Robert, to try to soothe and reassure him. At that moment the door swung open and Jenny came in. She was in tremendous spirits. She had been to the pictures with Clarry and had her glass of port. She stood in the doorway with one hand on her hip and a broad smile on her red lips, then all at once she began to laugh; she was convulsed with laughter at the picture made by David and Robert on the hearthrug.
David drew his lips together.
“Don’t laugh like that,” he said sharply.
“I can’t help it,” she giggled. “It’s something… something just come in my head.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, nothing,” she said hurriedly. “Just a kind of joke.” There was a short pause. He got to his feet and lifted the child.
“Robert’s hungry,” he said, still angry and indignant. “Can’t you see he wants his feed?”
She came forward rather unsteadily.
“Here, then,” she said, “I’m the one that can see to that, amn’t I?”
She took Robert from him and sat down with a bump on the sofa. Perhaps two glasses of port gave a certain generosity to her movements. David watched her grimly. She ripped open her blouse. Her big full breasts protruded like udders, veined and white and fat, the milk was already dripping from them. As Robert nestled to one breast and sucked the milk spurted from the other. Flushed and happy Jenny smiled, rocking sensuously back and forward on the sofa, careless of the dripping milk.
But David turned away. He felt suddenly revolted. He made a pretence of stirring up the fire, then he faced her again.
“Remember!” he said in a low, serious tone, “I expect you to look after Robert when I’m away!”
“I will, David,” she gushed. “Oh, you know I will.”
He left for Tynecastle the following day and from there he was drafted straight away to camp at Catterick. Three months later, on the 5th of April, he went with the field ambulance unit attached to the fifth battalion of the Northumberland Fusiliers to France.
NINE
On that second Sunday of September, 1915, Hetty’s car drew up briskly on the gravel drive of the Law. As he stood at the dining-room window with his hands in his pockets Arthur watched Hetty get out, very smart in her khaki, and advance towards the front door.
Arthur had known that Hetty was coming to the Law today. Impossible not to know of Hetty’s coming. Aunt Carrie had mentioned it, his mother had mentioned it, and at lunch, on Saturday, Barras had looked down the table and remarked with unusual significance:
“Hetty will be here for tea to-morrow. She has asked the day off specially.”
Arthur had not answered. Did they take him for a fool? It was too obvious; that “specially” had a grim humour all its own.
During these last eight months Hetty had been frequently at the Law. Hetty, as one of the first to join the Women’s Emergency Corps, had now secured a commission in the W.V.R., executive headquarters, Tynecastle. She was often useful to Barras in his activities, dashing between Tynecastle and Sleescale in her two-seater runabout, bringing official papers for his signature. But on this Sunday Arthur was fully aware that Hetty’s duties would not be official. Hetty was having a day off to be sweetly unofficial. He saw it plainly and for all his bitterness he could have laughed.
She came into the room. And at the sight of him there, by the window, she smiled brightly and extended her hands with a little twitter of pleasure.
“You’ve been looking out for me,” she said. “How nice of you, Arthur.”
She was extremely bright; but he had anticipated that. He did not smile back. He said flatly:
“Yes, I expected you.”
His tone might perhaps have warned her, but she was not dismayed.
“Where are the others?” she asked lightly.
“They’ve all disappeared,” he said. “They’re all conveniently out of the way so that we can be alone.”
She laughed reprovingly:
“You sound as if you didn’t want us to be alone. But I know you don’t mean to be unkind. I know you better than you do yourself. Come on, now, what shall we do? Shall we go for a walk?”
He coloured slightly and looked away from her. But in a moment he said:
“All right, then, Hetty, let’s go for a walk.”
He got his hat and coat and they set out on the walk they usually took together, though they had not taken it for some months now, the walk through Sluice Dene. The autumn day was calm, the dene was full of russet colour, the bracken crackled under their feet. They walked in silence. When they reached the end of the dene they sat down on the high root of an oak tree which a subsidence had unearthed. It was their usual seat. Below, the town lay subdued in the Sunday quiet and the sea stretched out beyond, shimmering away into the distance and merging with the sky. The headstocks of the Neptune rose up black and high against the clear background of sea and sky. Arthur stared at the headstocks, the gallows headstocks of the Neptune pit.
And presently, having tucked her skirt round her trim legs with seductive modesty, Hetty followed his gaze.
“Arthur,” she exclaimed. “Why do you look at the pit like that?”
“I don’t know,” he said bitterly. “Business is good. Coal selling at fifty shillings a ton.”
“It isn’t that,” she said with an impulse of curiosity. “I do wish you’d tell me, Arthur. You’ve been so queer lately, so unlike yourself. Do tell me, dear, and perhaps I can help you.”
He turned to Hetty, a warmth penetrating through his bitterness. He had an impulse to tell her, unburden himself of the awful weight that pressed upon him and crushed his very soul. He said in a low voice:
“I can’t forget the disaster at the Neptune.”
She was staggered, but she concealed it. She said as she might have humoured a troubled child:
“In what way, Arthur dear?”
“I believe the disaster could have been prevented.”
She stared at his melancholy face, exasperated, feeling that she must get to the bottom of this irritating enigma.
“Something is really worrying you, Arthur dear. If you could only tell me?”
He looked at her. He said slowly:
“I believe the lives of all these men were thrown away, Hetty.” He broke off. What was the use? She would never understand.
Yet she had a vague glimpse of the morbid obsession that burned in his mind. She took his hand. She humoured him. She said gently:
“Even if it were so, Arthur, don’t you think the best way is to forget about it? It’s so long ago now. And only a hundred men. What’s that compared with the thousands and thousands of brave fellows who have been killed in the war? That’s what you’ve got to remember now, Arthur dear. There’s a war on now. A world war, and that’s a very different affair from the tiny disaster in the pit.”
“It is not different,” he said, pressing his hand against his brow. “It’s the same thing exactly. I can’t see it any other way. I can’t separate them in my mind. The men at the front are being killed just like the men in the pit, needlessly, horribly. The disaster and the war mean exactly the same thing to me. They’ve become united in one great mass murder.”