Читать книгу Royal Regiment - Gilbert Frankau - Страница 11
Оглавление§ 1
Since her eldest son’s visit his mother had “invested”—one of her favourite words—in a new radio. This, he examined expertly, while Fanny made off with the teatray, before tuning in to various Continental stations, the last of which boomed through the atmospherics, “Il nemico continua retirarsi. I nostri truppi, con slancio formidabile ...”
His knowledge of Italian, though limited, allowed him to understand the gist of the war bulletin.
“So the Hawk’s right”, he thought. “This chap Badoglio has them on the run.”
The soldier in him could not restrain admiration. Abyssinia—even the rough maps in the newspapers served to explain—must be hellish fighting country. Transport problems alone were enough to drive a staff demented.
Dirty work, though, after inviting them to join the League!
He switched off Rome and on to Regional. The popular tune pleased him. His head nodded as he beat time to it with a hand more the artist’s than the soldier’s. “Wish I understood more about music”, he thought. Then, realising that he had forgotten to give his mother the Hawk’s message, he frowned.
Presently, with the volume control turned low, he picked up the book his mother had been reading. The sentimental opening twitched his lips to the semblance of a smile.
“Not quite the dragon she likes to pretend herself”, he thought next. But the telephone bell jerked him to his feet before he had skimmed more than a page or so; and, anticipating Geoffrey’s voice, he heard Mary’s:
“Can I speak to Major Rockingham, please?”
“Speaking”, he said; and the one word conveyed his surprise.
“You weren’t expecting me to ring up?” went on the slow tones at the other end of the wire.
“Well, no, I wasn’t. How did you know I was here?”
“I just guessed it. Tom, you’re not vexed with me?”
“Of course not. Why should I be?”
“I—I was afraid I might have hurt you. Your letter——”
She broke off. For a second, memories of their last meeting overwhelmed him. (“What’s the use, my dear?” she had said. “You’ve your profession, I’ve mine. And we’re more in love with them than we are with each other.”)
“I’m sorry if it offended you, Mary.”
“It didn’t. I’m not that sort of woman. We’ve never been on those sort of terms. Only—it sounded rather final.”
She broke off again. He had a quick vision of her at her writing table, one hand holding the instrument to her ear, the other resting on the type keys. Strong hands, Mary’s. Steady eyes. A tall, dark woman. Would have looked her best on a horse.
“What else could I have written?” he persisted. “You were fairly definite yourself, if you remember.”
“I don’t remember that I excluded”—she paused for the split of a second—“friendship.”
He was conscious of an impulse to be brutally direct; but his innate chivalry compromised.
“I’m afraid I was rather busy when I wrote. I didn’t mean——”
“Didn’t you?” she interrupted. “I wonder. Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps we had gone a little too far for ... Plato. But that was your fault. I’m quite human, you know. Even if I do prefer working in Fleet Street all day and writing novels in my spare time to ... the domesticities. By the way, are you doing anything particular this evening?”
“I’m afraid so. Mother’s giving a family dinner party.”
“All three Services in dutiful attendance.” Mary laughed. “How awful. Do you play the God Save on the gramophone? What about tomorrow? I shall be home the whole afternoon.”
“I’m afraid that’s a little bit awkward, too. You see——”
“My dear”—Mary’s laugh changed its note—“I see perfectly. That happens to be one of my troubles.”
And she hung up without another word.
§ 2
The telephone rang again while Rockingham was still considering the recent conversation.
“Hallo”, said the next voice. “Is that our gallant gunner? Good. Tell the old lady I can manage dinner all right. And if you can wheedle it out of Fanny, let’s have a bottle of the nineteen-six. I’ve been ten days on the East Coast. It’s simply frozen the guts out of me.”
His brother Geoffrey hung up after another sentence or so.
He went to the door. Fanny happened to be in the hall. He called down his order. She called back:
“There’s only three bottles left”.
“All the same, we’ll have one, Fanny.”
He returned to the drawing room. The radio was still playing. The book he had begun to read still lay open face downward where he had left it on the seat of his mother’s chair.
“No use dwelling on things”, he brooded.
Yet his mind would not quite dismiss the vision of Mary Hawkins—or the implication of her last words.
“You’ve never set yourself up as a Galahad”, his mind suggested. “She made it pretty obvious. And it isn’t as though she were a young girl.”
The suggestion displeased, but continued to nag. Why shouldn’t he call Mary back? A man must go to a woman. And he had offered to marry her.
Restless, and still undecided, he turned off the radio, closed the book. The clock chimed again.
“Only land me in a mess”, he brooded, as he made up the fire; set the cut-steel guard in front of it, and went upstairs to the one spare room.
§ 3
Fanny had unpacked. His dinner clothes lay on the narrow bed, still covered with the patchwork quilt which Rockingham could remember since his public-school days. The box stood on the bedside table. He unlocked it; took out Mary’s letter, and read:
“I can’t stand children. They always fidget me. Is there any other reason for committing matrimony? Besides, my novels don’t even earn what I believe used to be known as pin money. They’re too satirical. If I gave up my newspaper job, which I happen to like, I should be just a kept woman. And if there’s one place in which I should loathe to be kept, it’s cantonments, as I believe you call them”.
In this room, too, a coal fire was burning. Three steps—and he had stooped to it. Flames licked at the large, mannish handwriting on the thick white paper.
“No use ringing her up again”, he decided. “Let it die a natural death. Better that way.”
All the same, regret tinged the decision; and although he took the scale drawing of his shell from the box and spread it out over his dinner clothes, turning on the light by the bed so as to study it more closely, the mechanical side of his imagination refused to work.
Unless he were a Galahad—thought the eldest of the three brothers Rockingham—a man couldn’t live without a woman. Hence—if one believed in credal religion—marriage. But supposing one never encountered a woman one really wanted to marry? Supposing one’s imagination demanded—and always had demanded, ever since adolescence began to clarify one’s feelings—two supreme gifts, passion and companionship, from the imaginary wife?
Or was one now old enough to exclude passion? Hardly. Of the two, it would be easier to exclude the companionship. Other men could give one that.
The conclusion proved infinitely disturbing. All of a sudden, memory painted a long-ago scene.
In that scene, two young men, himself and another, rode side by side, where the last of a summer sunset gleamed over the Aldershot heather.
“My idea”, that other was saying, “is that a soldier ought not to marry. He oughtn’t to have anything to do with women at all.”
“Good lord, why?”
His own voice continued:
“I didn’t know you were as religious as all that, Cowley”.
The man who had been Cowley said:
“It isn’t a question of religion with me. It’s entirely a question of my efficiency as a soldier. After all, Rusty, fighting’s our job. Let’s say this war people are always talking about starts tomorrow. Do you imagine that the married men, or the engaged men, will want to fight? And one must want to fight. One can’t do anything really well unless one’s absolutely single-hearted. I’m not an R.C., but I do think the Romans are right about one thing, the celibacy of the clergy. What I feel is that a soldier should live like a priest”.
The scene vanished; but the memory remained.
Curious chap, Cowley. A bit mad on that one subject. He’d practised what he preached, though. Might have been at the top of the tree by now.
“Brigade major while I was still only acting captain”, mused Rockingham. “Pity that five-nine got him. Remember bringing him back to H.Q. in the mess cart. Remember how it rained while we were burying him.”
Then he remembered Mary’s comment when he had told her something of Cowley, “I’m glad you don’t think the same way about women. Or do you? I often wonder”.
“Only wish I could”, he decided. “Might simplify things.”
Pictures of Mary Hawkins, words she had used, continued to haunt him while he dressed. A pleasant companionship, theirs. But did he really want to ... spend tomorrow afternoon with her?
Could she give him ... the same gift as Gail?
