Читать книгу Both Your Houses - Philip Gibbs - Страница 13

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Two days passed before Pamela had to go through the hoop, as Nigel called it. Her mother, who was President of the local Women’s Institute, was very busy arranging a sale of work and was round at the village hall a good deal. At meal-times she refrained from any reference to Pamela’s private affairs.

The weather was wet and stormy but very mild, with a promise of spring. Birds were chirruping in the hedges. A squirrel searched for buried chestnuts among the fallen leaves of a tree on the front lawn. There were bright gleams of sunshine between the rainstorms. Putting on an old raincoat, Pamela faced the south-west gale in tramps over the heath and liked the feel of the rain on her face and was glad to be in England after so long an exile. Henriette declined to come with her, being hostile to pedestrian exercise and the English climate, but Pamela did not crave for her companionship, being busy with her own thoughts—thoughts about Julian and her coming marriage—the most tremendous adventure of a woman’s life. Julian would have to get a job when he was demobbed. It might not be easy for him. They would be poverty-stricken, she expected. A tiny flat somewhere, or a bed-sitting-room, would be all they could hope for until Julian made good. Perhaps her father would help them out a bit, but she wouldn’t sponge on him. He had enough to do with his dwindling capital.

She sat a good deal with Nigel while he was weaving and when Henriette was downstairs reading her detective novels, for which she made special journeys by bus to Ashleigh. It was restful sitting with Nigel while he was weaving. No conversation was necessary or even possible because of the click of the shuttle. But every now and then he would knock off for a few minutes to light his pipe or pass a few words. Now and then they talked together for half an hour or so about their different experiences during the War, about Germany, about that day’s news in the papers.... The Foreign Secretary had come out fairly and squarely for a Western Union.... Women journalists had heckled a Cabinet Minister over the clothing ration.... Their father’s speech in the House of Lords had been reported very fully in The Times. He seemed to have given the Labour Government pause.... France had devalued the franc.

“Nigel,” said Pamela, during one of these pauses between the click of the shuttle, “what’s the meaning of it all?”

“All what?” he asked, pressing down a new wad of tobacco into his pipe.

“Life,” she answered. “What’s happening in the world now? All this dark mystery.”

Nigel’s lips twisted to a smile and she noticed that he was getting more like their father, with the same mouth and the same actor look, though more delicately and finely cut.

“Rather difficult questions,” he remarked. “Do you think I know the answers?”

“How do you feel about it all? Have you any glimmerings of light?”

“Not the gleam of a half-inch of candle,” he answered. “Darkness gathers round us, old girl.”

He touched his weaving and disentangled some threads.

“The fact is, Pam,” he said, after a long pause, “our generation has lost its way and we have no leaders and no light. Ahead of us is the frightful menace of an atomic war. Behind us are the memories of the Second World War which was utterly ruthless on both sides, though we didn’t descend to the sadism of the enemy and kept our sense of decency fairly well. It was our heroic time as a people. I’m not underestimating that, but as one of the raiders over Germany I don’t look back with pride and pleasure to my bombing activities. It was just black murder, though I didn’t think so at the time.”

“We had to defeat the Germans,” said Pamela. “Now I’m sorry for them. One can’t blame the new-born babes or the young girls who were children when Hitler first showed his head. One can’t blame the poor old peasants who lost their sons in the First World War and their grandsons in the Second. They didn’t want it. But we had to destroy Hitler, didn’t we?”

“That’s all right,” said Nigel, “but as one of the destroying angels I think we overdid it in the bombing line. There was a night in Berlin when masses of refugees from East Prussia were crowded round the railway stations—women and children mostly, I dare say. We might have given them a respite. We didn’t, we carried out orders, of course. Nothing to be proud of. Mass murder. Sometimes I dream about it. Not pleasant dreams.”

“That’s war,” said Pamela.

“Yes,” said Nigel, “that’s war! That’s how people who call themselves civilized behave to each other—rather humorous, don’t you think? How these Christians love one another!”

He gave a harsh, mirthless laugh.

“And now?” asked Pamela. “This talk of another war, this terrible talk, Nigel! Is there any truth in it? If so I shan’t have any babies.”

Nigel stared at her with brooding eyes.

“We destroyed one dictatorship. Now another, more ruthless, more cunning, evil like the other, out for the same goal, has taken over and presses forward. They’re coming pretty close with their puppet states, I mean pretty close to us—easy ranges for atom bombs!”

“What can we do about it?” asked Pamela, with a kind of despair in her eyes.

“One of two things,” he answered. “Appeasement or resistance. The first didn’t work very well with Hitler. It won’t work very well with Messrs. Stalin and Molotov, I imagine. But resistance means war and all hell let loose.”

“Nigel,” said Pamela, “there’s something terrible in this talk of ours. I mean even in the talk itself. We’re both pretty young. I’m looking forward to marriage. You have Henriette. Is our hope of happiness just an illusion to be ended in dust and ashes?”

“Perhaps there’s something else,” said Nigel, cautiously.

“Something else?”

“The Afterwards,” said Nigel. “Survival after death. A better time for all. If there’s no hope in this world there may be some in the next—if there is a next. Perhaps that’s the origin of religion—man’s dissatisfaction with the conditions of life on earth. He had to find a God or many gods with promises of better things to come hereafter if he obeyed the tribal laws.”

“I want to be happy now,” said Pamela urgently. “I want to fulfil my love.”

“What kind of love?” asked Nigel with an ironical laugh. “Some forms of love are demoralizing. The very word ‘love’ has been debased. Those frightful crooners on the B.B.C.!”

He broke off suddenly and laughed again.

“Cripes! We’re becoming too serious. It’s a mistake to make a habit of it. Il faut cultiver notre jardin. I must get on with my weaving. I wish Henriette would show herself now and then.”

Pamela went downstairs and looked round for Henriette with the idea of having a talk with her. It was not much fun for that French girl in this old house and English village, especially as it was raining every day and now with south-westerly gales howling through the woods. There were not many young people in the neighbourhood and no gay company for a girl who was young enough to need it. It was a pity that the click of the shuttle in Nigel’s work-room was getting on her nerves.

Henriette was generally curled up on the sofa in the drawing-room with one of her detective novels, but she was not there when Pamela looked for her. There were voices in the study where Robin Melville worked as a rule. Pamela heard Henriette’s voice with its French intonation and with every syllable clear-cut.

“Why do you avoid me, Robin? Why are you afraid of me?”

Pamela heard Robin Melville’s answer.

“I am afraid of myself.”

Henriette laughed.

“You’re very timid. You are like a frightened little boy. Am I so very dangerous?”

“It’s all very dangerous,” said Melville.

Henriette laughed again.

“It is a cure for the cafard—what you call the boredom, and oh, I am so very bored! Enormement ennuyée cette pauvre Henriette. Talk to me, Robin. Tell me what is in your mind. Tell me what is in your heart.”

The study door was open. These two voices were perfectly audible. Pamela slipped away, not wishing to be an eavesdropper, and went upstairs again to her own room. What she had overheard was rather alarming.... Well, perhaps there was nothing in it really. Henriette was having a flirtation with Robin Melville and teasing him, scaring him a bit because he was so shy and so easily embarrassed.

“I wonder!” said Pamela to herself, very thoughtfully. “I hope she won’t hurt Nigel. He has been hurt enough already.”

It was really rather alarming.