XVI
They had halted in Bruges, and there their wounded had been taken into the Convent wards to rest.
Charlotte and Sutton were sitting out, alone together on the flagged terrace in the closed garden. The nuns had brought out the two chairs again, and set again the little table, covered with the white cloth. Again the silver mist was in the garden, but thinned now to the clearness of still water.
They had been silent after the nuns had left them. Sutton's sad, short-sighted eyes stared out at the garden without seeing it. He was lost in melancholy. Presently he came to himself with a long sigh—
"Charlotte, what are we going to do now? Do you know?"
"I know. I'm going into Mac's corps."
"So am I. That isn't what I meant."
For a moment she didn't stop to wonder what he did mean. She was too full of what she was going to do.
"Is that wise? I don't altogether trust old Mac. He'll use you till you drop. He'll wear you to the last shred of your nerves."
"I want to be used till I drop. I want to be worn. Besides, I know I'm safe with Mac."
His cold, hard indifference made her feel safe. She wasn't really safe with Billy. His goodness might disarm her any minute, his sadness might conceivably move her to a tender weakness. But for McClane she would never have any personal feeling, never any fiery affection, any exalted devotion. Neither need she be afraid of any profound betrayal. Small betrayals perhaps, superficial disasters to her vanity, while his egoism rode over it in triumph. He didn't want affection or anything fiery, anything that John had had. He would leave her in her hardness; he would never ask anything but hard, steel-cold loyalty and a willingness to share his risks.
"What else can I do? I should have come out if John hadn't. Of course I was glad we could go together, but you mustn't suppose I only went because of him."
"I don't. I only thought perhaps you wouldn't want to stay on now he's dead."
"More than ever now he's dead. Even if I didn't want to stay I should have to now. To make up."
"For what?"
"For what he did. All those awful things. And for what he didn't do. His dreams. I've got to do what he dreamed. But more than anything I must pay his debt to Belgium. To all those wounded men."
"You're not responsible for his debts, Charlotte."
"No? Sometimes I feel as if I were. As if he and I were tied up together. I could get away from him when he was alive. But now he's dead he's got me."
"It doesn't make him different."
"It makes me different. I tell you, I can't get away from him. And I want to. I want to cut myself loose; and this is the way."
"Isn't it the way to tie yourself tighter?"
"No. Not when it's done, Billy."
"I can see a much better way…. If you married me."
She turned to him, astonished and a little anxious, as though she thought something odd and dangerous had happened to him.
"Oh, Billy, I—I couldn't do that…. What made you think of it?"
"I've been thinking of it all the time."
"All the time?"
"Well, most of the time, anyhow. But I've loved you all the time. You know I loved you. That was why I stuck to Conway. I couldn't leave you to him. I wouldn't even leave you to McClane."
"I didn't know."
"I should have thought it was pretty, obvious."
"It wasn't. I'd have tried to stop it if I'd known."
"You couldn't have stopped it."
"I'm sorry."
"What about?"
"That. It isn't any good. It really isn't."
"Why isn't it? I know I'm rather a queer chap. And I've got an ugly face—"
"I love your face…."
She loved it, with its composure and its candour, its slightly flattened features, laid back; its little surprised moustache, its short-sighted eyes and its sadness.
"It's the dearest face. But—"
"I suppose," he said, "it sounds a bit startling and sudden. But if you'd been bottling it up as long as I have—Why, I loved you the first time I saw you. On the boat…. So you see, it's you. It isn't just anything you've done."
"If you knew what I have done, my dear. If you only knew. You wouldn't want to marry me."
She would have to tell him. That would put him off. That would stop him. If she had loved him she would have had to tell him, as she had told John.
"I'm going to tell you…."
* * * * *
She wondered whether he had really listened. A queer smile played about his mouth. He looked as if he had been thinking of something else all the time.
"What are you smiling at?"
"Your supposing that that would make any difference."
"Doesn't it?"
"Not a bit. Not a little bit…. Besides I knew it."
"Who—who told you?"
"The only other person who knew about it, I suppose—Conway."
"He betrayed me?"
"He betrayed you. Is there any vile thing he didn't do?"
And it was as it had been before. The nuns came out again, bringing the great cups of hot black coffee, coming and going gently. Only this time she couldn't drink.
"It's awful of us," she said, "to talk about him this way when he's dead."
"He isn't dead as long as he makes you feel like that. As long as he keeps you from me."
A long pause. And then, "Billy—he wasn't my lover."
"I know that," he said fiercely. "He took good care to tell me."
"I brought it all on myself. I ought to have given him up instead of hanging on to him that way. Platonic love—It's all wrong. People aren't really made like that. It was every bit as bad as going to Gibson Herbert…. Worse. That was honest. This was all lying. Lying about myself. Lying about him. Lying about—love."
"Then," he said, "you don't really know what it is."
"I know John's sort. And I know Gibson's sort. And I know there's a heavenly sort, Billy, in between. But I'm spoiled for it. I think I could have cared for you if it hadn't been for John…. I shan't ever get away from him."
"Yes. If you can see it—"
"Of course I see it. I can see everything now. All that war-romancing. I see how awful it was. When I think how we went out and got thrills. Fancy getting thrills out of this horror."
"Oh well—I think you earned your thrill."
"You can't earn anything in this war. At least I can't. It's paying, paying all the time. And I've got more things than John to pay for. There was little Effie."
"Effie?"
"Gibson's wife. I didn't want to hurt her…. Billy, are you sure it makes no difference? What I did."
"I've told you it doesn't…. You mustn't go on thinking about it."
"No. But I can't get over his betraying me. You see, that's the worst thing he did to me. The other things—well, he was mad with fright, and he was afraid of me, because I knew. I can't think why he did this."
"Same reason. You knew. He was degraded by your knowing, so you had to be degraded. At least I suppose that's how it was."
She shook her head. He was darker to her than ever and she was no nearer to her peace. She knew everything and she understood nothing. And that was worse than not knowing.
"If only I could understand. Then, I believe, I could bear it. I wouldn't care how bad it was as long as I understood."
"Ask McClane, then. He could explain it to you. It's beyond me."
"McClane?"
"He's a psychotherapist. He knows more about people's souls than I know about their bodies. He probably knows all about Conway's soul."
Silence drifted between them, dim and silvery like the garden mist.
"Charlotte—are we never to get away from him? Is he always to stick between us? That dead man."
"It isn't that."
"What is it, then?"
"All this…. I'd give anything to care for you, Billy dear, but I don't care. I can't. I can't care for anything but the war."
"The war won't last for ever. And afterwards?"
"I can't see any afterwards."
Sutton smiled.
"And yet," he said, "there will be one."