Seated at the supper table, outside the golden circle of the oil lamp, George was at his best. Each word he spoke was listened to, even in the gossip, chatter, and argument of the group. That night he talked to us of freedom — how, if we had the will (and that it would never have occurred to him to doubt), we could make our children’s lives the best there had ever been in the world. Not only by making a better society, in which they would stand a fair chance, but also by bringing them up free and happy. ‘The good in men is incomparably more important than the evil,’ said George. ‘Whatever happens, we’ve always got to remember that.’
The whole group was moved, for he had spoken from a great depth. That was his message, and it came from a man who struggled with himself. When Jack, the most impudent person there, twitted him and said the evil could be very delectable, George shouted: ‘I don’t call that evil. It’s half the trouble that for hundreds of years all the priests and parents and pundits have tried to make us miserable by a load of guilt.’
I had not said much that supper time, for my mind was absent, thinking of a recent supper at that table, when I came in wet, alight with a secret happiness. For a moment I shook off my preoccupation, my own load, and looked at George. For I knew that he, more than most of us, was burdened by a sense of guilt — and so he demanded that we should all be free.
After supper, we broke into twos and threes, and Marion and I began to talk out in the window bay. She had just returned from her Christmas holidays, and it was three weeks since we had met.
‘I need your help,’ she said at once.
‘What about?’
‘I’ve got a problem for you.’ Then she added: ‘What were you thinking about just now?’
‘What’s your problem, Marion?’ I said, wanting to evade the question.
‘Never mind for a minute. What were you thinking about? I’ve never seen you look so far away.’
‘I was thinking about George.’
‘Were you?’ she said doubtfully. ‘When you’re thinking of someone, you usually watch them — with those damned piercing eyes of yours, don’t you? You weren’t watching George. You weren’t watching any of us.’
I had had time to collect myself, and I told her that I had been thinking of George’s message of freedom compared with the doctrine of original sin. Often she would have been interested, for she tried to get me to talk about people; but just then she did not believe a word of it, she was angry at being put off. Impatiently, as though irrelevantly, she burst out ‘Why in heaven’s name don’t you learn to keep your tie straight? You’re a disgrace.’
It was really a bitter cry, because I would not confide. I felt ashamed of myself because I was fond of her — but also I felt the more wretched, the more strained, because she was pressing me. It was by an effort that I kept back a cold answer. Instead, I said, as though we were both joking about our untidiness: ‘I must say, that doesn’t come too well from you.’
Jack was close by, talking to another girl, with an ear cocked in our direction. He moved away, as though he had not overhead anything of meaning in our words.
Again I asked about her problem.
‘You won’t be very interested,’ said Marion.
‘Of course I’m interested,’ I said.
She hesitated about telling me; but she wanted to, she had it ready. She had been offered a job in her own town. It was a slightly better job, in a central school. If she were to make a career of teaching, it would be sensible to take it. She could live with her sister, and save a good deal of money.
She wanted me to say, without weighing any of her arguments, just: you’re not to go. Increasingly I felt myself constrained, the offender (increasingly I longed for the lightness that came over me as I talked to Sheila), because I could not. I was tongue-tied, and all I had to say came heavily. My spontaneity had deserted me quite. Yet I should miss her, miss her with an ache of affection, if she went. I knew that somehow I relied on her, even as I tried to speak fairly and she watched me with mutinous eyes and gave me curt, rude answers. I tried to think only of what was best for her — and for that she could not listen to me or forgive me.
George called out heartily: ‘Lewis, are you coming for a constitutional?’
This was a code invitation, devised to meet the need of his curious sense of etiquette in front of the young women: a ‘constitutional’ meant going down the road to the public house, sitting there for an hour or so, and then coming back, ready to talk until the next morning. That night I was glad to escape from the house; no one else stirred, and George and I went across the field together.
Suddenly, on an impulse that I could not drive down, I said: ‘George, I’m going to leave you for an hour. I’m going for a walk.’
At first George was puzzled. Then, with extreme quickness, with massive tact, he said ‘I quite understand, old chap. I quite understand.’ He gave a faint, sympathetic, contented chuckle. He proceeded to go through one of his elaborate wind-ups: ‘I take it you might prefer me to practise a little judicious prevarication? If we walk back from the pub together, there’s no compelling reason why our friends should realize that you’ve been engaged on — other activities.’
In fact, I had no thought of seeing Sheila. Alone in the dark, I made my way through the lanes, drawn as though by instinct towards her house. I could not have said why I was going except that each yard I covered gave me some surcease. I knew that I should not see her with the relic of reason and pride, I knew that it would have been disastrous to see her. Yet on the way, across the same fields that I had first seen in a downpour with so much joy, surrendered to the impulse that drew me across the fields, down the lanes, towards her house, I felt a peace, such as I had not known since Christmas Eve. It was a precarious peace, it might break at any moment; but I was closer to her, and my whole body melted into the mirage of well-being.
In the village, I drew up my coat collar. I could not bear the risk of being recognized, if one of the family happened to be out that night. I kept in the shadow, away from the lights of the cottage windows. From the bar parlour came loud and raucous singing. I went past the lych-gate: the spire was dark against the stars. I could see the serene lights of the vicarage. I stopped before the drive, huddled myself against a tree, hidden in case anyone should drive out: there I stood, without moving, without any thought or plan. The drawing room windows were lit up, and so was one on the next floor. I did not even know her room. Was that her room? — the real room, instead of that which, in the first rapture, I had pictured to myself. Was she there, away from anyone who pried, away from anyone who troubled her? Was she there at that moment, writing to me?
No shadow crossed the window. I did not feel the cold. I could not have said how many minutes passed, before I went back again, keeping to the dark side, down the village street.
Back in my room, I slept through broken nights and worked and gazed over the roofs, and all my longings had become one longing — just to be in touch again. The shock of Christmas Eve had been softened by now, and the pain dulled: pride alone was not much of a restraint to keep my hand from the pen, from the comfort of writing Dearest Sheila. Yet I did not write.