Читать книгу The Window - Alice Grant Rosman - Страница 15
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Terry?
Christopher could not believe that he had heard aright. This tragic place was getting on his nerves, and the matter of that poor chap Robertson had been so much in his mind during the past few days that he must have imagined the Terry.
He said to Mrs. Willingdon in a voice that to his own ears sounded curiously unreal and far away:
"Did you tell me your son's name was George?"
"George Terence Willingdon, M.C., D.S.O." She added the honors with a little smile, half playful, half proud. "See, here it is." She drew a sheet of note paper from a book beside her and held it out to him, and he read, in a fine, wavering writing, what was evidently a rough draft of the proposed inscription for the Window.
"In ever loving memory of my darling son
Captain George Terence Willingdon, M.C., D.S.O.
Who gave his life in the Great War."
"My darling son" had been crossed out, however, and lower down several variations added,
"Only son of Colonel and Mrs. Willingdon
of Dorne Manor, in his 22nd year."
Christopher read no more. "God," he thought, "this is ghastly. It's incredible ... these poor creatures ruining themselves to put up a window to a fellow who never died at all," and at the look on his face, Mrs. Willingdon patted his hand, thanking him for his charming sympathy.
He could not deny it, of course; he couldn't answer. He only knew that once more he had an impulse to run, out of the house, out of Gloucestershire, away from a situation so ironic.
With an effort he pulled himself together. Perhaps he was all wrong and this was just one of those impossible coincidences that do happen in life. After all, what right had he ever had to suppose the letter to a chap called "Terry" had any bearing on the identity of Robertson himself? It might have been written to another man altogether and there were a hundred different reasons why Robertson might have eventually possessed and treasured it ... evil reasons of course among them ... revenge perhaps, or blackmail.
Recalling Hatherley's denunciation of Robertson, he considered this solution all too likely; if the right one, his own possession of the letter now was fortunate. He could destroy it and prevent its misuse in unscrupulous hands.
Although he argued with himself so speciously, Christopher was not really convinced and when Miss Duffield returned with the photograph he took it reluctantly. He didn't want to look at it. He didn't want to know.
But the two women were watching him eagerly, and there seemed no option. He carried it to the window where the light would fall full upon the young officer's face.
Not much likeness here to the fever-stricken, unshaven creature who had called himself Robertson.... And yet, those tilted eyes, that quick, appealing smile!
With a feeling almost of physical sickness Christopher heard himself saying:
"He has a charming face."
"Indeed he was charming, such a darling," said his mother proudly, "and the soul of honor, Mr. Royle, as well as a hero. And how he adored me. In all his life he only went against my wishes once and then when he found how ill it made me he gave in, in a moment. He was the dearest boy."
Her guest hardly heard her. Almost against his will his brain was trying to piece out this youngster's story. Did they really imagine he had been killed in action? But they must. Any other explanation, in view of the Window, was too cynical. It was unbelievable. Or was this perhaps yet another instance of how they had shielded her ... this woman they all adored? Remembering the old man's fine face Christopher could not believe it; for you might think as you liked about memorials ... that they were all rot, a sentimental gesture, or a tribute to the dead; but to raise one deliberately, not to perpetuate honor, but to hide dishonor, would be, however you looked at it, he thought, a dirty trick.
Yet if they did not know, how could it possibly have happened that they were so deceived?
He found himself saying to Mrs. Willingdon:
"He looks very young. I suppose you lost him early in the War?"
"No, no, right at the end ... the very last day," she said. "He was so reckless, always, my Terry." Tears filled her eyes, and Christopher turned his own away in intolerable pain. Yet were they only tears of self-pity after all? "I was all alone, Mr. Royle, in that horrible time. My John had gone out to the East for the War Office ... on a mission among those dreadful Bolsheviks, and it was months before he could even learn of my loss. But I had my darling Doris, and what a comfort!" She put up a hand and clasped the other woman's. "She never left me while the Colonel was away ... over twelve months, my pet, wasn't it?"
"Oh, lord," thought Christopher. "I can't stand another moment of this."
ii
He was out of the house at last. He hardly knew how he had got there or by what incoherent excuses he had persuaded them to let him go; and now, with the desolation of the gardens under his eyes again, he was faced with the problem of what he was going to do about it all.
He knew that he did not want to do anything, except to escape from this tragic tangle into which all unwittingly he had intruded; and yet, by the possession of the diamonds, he was involved in it. Their equivalent in hard cash might do so much for this broken house, yet how, if both parents believed young Willingdon had died in France, was the passing on of the money to be compassed?
With Mrs. Willingdon alone it would have been simple enough. Finance and all such practical things, he surmised, were without much meaning for her, and self-deception had become to her not so much a practised art as second nature. With a little persuasion she would even dream the money and accept its appearance without surprise; but the Colonel was different. What possible pretext could make the offer of money to such a man anything but an impertinence?
The old conviction that life is a pretty ghastly riddle returned to Christopher Royle. In the pleasure of his home-coming it had receded somewhat; he had grown optimistic and begun to think that after all the world might be a rather decent place. But what blind folly, he thought, what a tempting of the Fates; for here we are all mixed up in the riddle whether we like it or not, flung together by chance or temperament or the other diabolical devices of Destiny, and yet so far apart in any common understanding.
Absurd that because of the conventions which hedge us round he could not go to the Colonel frankly and say: "You need money for Dorne and here it is." Even an intimate friend like that nice chap, the rector, could hardly venture to do that, and yet what more fitting use could there possibly be for Terry Willingdon's diamonds than the regeneration of his home?
Christopher had momentarily forgotten the letter with its implication of a very different responsibility and now he recalled it with a fresh dismay. This was something more of which perhaps the Willingdons knew nothing, for their son, they said, had been engaged to Miss Duffield. But it was most certainly not to her that the girl, Pat, had paid her visit.
"What a mess," he said to himself, "and I seem to be in it up to the neck!"
He wondered how much the village knew about it, for the villages generally know everything and more, but though, as a casual stranger, he might have carefully sought this knowledge, his kindly reception by the Willingdons put that out of the question. He had no relish for the position of Peeping Tom.
Walking back towards the Inn he passed the village War Memorial, an old English cross in gray stone, which, in its simplicity, fitted, he thought, not only this lovely setting, but the idea for which it stood.
IN MEMORY OF
THE MEN OF DORNE
WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES IN THE
GREAT WAR 1914-1918
"THEY WILL NOT GROW OLD AS WE WHO ARE LEFT GROW OLD.
TIME SHALL NOT WITHER THEM NOR THE YEARS CONTEMN.
WITH THE GOING DOWN OF THE SUN AND IN THE MORNING
WE SHALL REMEMBER THEM."
Binyon's lines were new to Christopher, and he read them several times, moved at once by their beauty and their absence of parade.
Simple chaps these would be for the most part, aware of no bitterness and no great convictions, but with a boy's love to be in a fight and a man's instinct to defend their own.
He glanced down the names, saw young Willingdon's and below it those of Towner's lad and a dozen men of his regiment; and more than ever the Window seemed a mockery. For how better could any man ask to be remembered than like this, in the sunny heart of his own village, among the men who had served him in peace and followed him in war?
