The germ and I and sun, we rise,
Fulfil our little lives, and die;
And to all question God replies:
‘Lie still! I cannot tell you why!’
Lie still! The Embankment was nearly empty of people and of traffic. She walked on, crossing the main lines of the traffic, and came to Kensington Gardens. There on the Round Pond were many small boats, and many children interested in their vagaries. A bright-haired little boy, something like Kit Mont, was guiding his boat with a stick to a fresh attempt to cross the pond. What blissful unconsciousness of all else! Was that the secret of happiness? To be lost in the moment – to be out of oneself, like a child! He said suddenly:
‘It’s going! Look!’
The sails filled, the little boat floated away. The small boy stood with arms akimbo, and, quickly looking up at her, said:
‘Ha! I must run!’
Dinny watched him stop now and again with a jerk to calculate the landing of his boat.
So one ran through life, watching each venture coming to shore, and at the end lay still! Like birds who uttered their songs, hunted for worms, preened their feathers, flew without seeming cause, unless for joy; mated, built nests and fed their young, and when all was over became little stiffened bundles of feathers, and passed into corruption, and dust.
She followed slowly round the pond, saw him again guiding the boat with his stick, and said: ‘What do you call your boat?’
‘A cutter. I had a schooner, but our dog ate the rigging.’
‘Yes,’ said Dinny, ‘dogs like rigging – very succulent.’
‘Very what?’
‘Like asparagus.’
‘I’m not allowed asparagus, it’s too expensive.’
‘But you’ve tasted it?’
‘Yes. See, the wind’s catching it again!’
Off went the boat, and off went the small bright-haired boy.
Adrian’s words came into her head. ‘I was thinking more of children.’
She walked into what in old days would have been called a glade. The ground was covered with crocuses, yellow, violet, white, and with daffodils; the trees had eagerness in every twig, stretching their buds upward to the sun’s warmth; the blackbirds were in song. And as she walked she thought: ‘Peace! There is no peace. There is life, and there is death!’
And those who saw her thought: ‘Nice-looking girl!’ ‘These little hats!’ ‘Where’s she goin’, I wonder, with her head in the air?’ or, again, just: ‘Coo!’ She crossed the road and came to the Hudson Memorial. It was supposed to be a home for birds; but beyond a sparrow or two and a fat pigeon, there were none; nor were more than three people looking at it. She, who had seen it with Wilfrid, glanced at it for a moment and walked on.
‘Poor Hudson! Poor Rima!’ he had said.
She went down to the Serpentine and walked along it; the sun was bright on the water, and beyond it the grass was springy and dry. The papers were already talking of drought! The sound currents from north and south and west joined in a mild continuous roaring. Where he was lying it would be silent; strange birds and little creatures would be the only visitors, and odd-shaped leaves would drop on his grave. There came into her mind the pastoral scenes in some film pictures of the Normandy home of Briand, that she had seen at Argelès. ‘A pity we have to leave all this!’ she had said.
An aeroplane droned its way over to the north, a high, silvery, small, noisy shape. He had hated them ever since the war. ‘Disturbers of whatever Gods there be!’
Brave new world! God no longer in His heaven!
She turned a little north to avoid the place where she used to meet him. The roofless tabernacle of oratory close to the Marble Arch was deserted. She left the Park and went towards Melton Mews. It was over! With a queer little smile on her lips she turned into the Mews and stopped at her sister’s door.
Chapter Twenty-six
SHE found Clare in. For the first few minutes they avoided each other’s troubles, then Dinny said: ‘Well?’
‘Not at all well. I’ve split with Tony – my nerves are in rags and his in tatters.’
‘But do you mean that he –?’
‘No. Only I’ve told him I can’t go on seeing him till this is over. We meet meaning not to talk about the thing; then it crops up, and we get all anyhow.’
‘He must be awfully unhappy.’
‘He is. But it’s only for another three or four weeks.’
‘And then?’
Clare laughed – no joyful sound.
‘But seriously, Clare?’
‘We shan’t win, and then nothing will matter. If Tony wants me I suppose I shall let him. He’ll be ruined, so I shall owe him that.’