VI
And now it is ten years since the war ended; ten years all but a few weeks. These years have gone much more quickly than the years before them did. People always tell one that, that the years go faster and faster, as one grows older. Nothing happens now, and so much was happening before.
The children are growing up; even John is ten. He goes to school here; there is a good school, but I suppose he will have to go away when he is a little older. I don’t know what I shall do when John goes away. But I suppose when the time comes it will be like everything else. One thinks:
‘I cannot bear it, if that happens!’
And then it does happen, and one does bear it, and everything goes on, just the same as before.
I don’t know how I should have lived all these years without John. He is often very naughty, much naughtier than Eleanor or Rachel have ever been. I am not clever with my children as Cousin Delia was with hers. I often wish that he could have the childhood that I had, at Yearsly, with her, he would understand that, he understands a great many things. I read stories to John that Cousin Delia used to read to me, and poetry sometimes too. I think he will like poetry; not as Hugo did, not so much nor so young, but he sees the point of it even now as Eleanor and Rachel never did, and of all that kind of thing. It is a pleasure to me to read to John, and I think sometimes, of all the books we will read together when he is older, books that I read with Hugo in the hay, at Yearsly, in the long summers, and then sometimes I am afraid that I am building too much on his being what I want him to be, and that he will not be like that at all when he is older . . . but I shall always love John, whatever he grows into. . . . Mollie said that I should be thankful for John, and I am, I have been always.
Eleanor likes books that give her information. She likes facts and statistics, and she does very well at school, much better than John or Rachel. They say she is very clever, that she will get a scholarship. That will please Walter. He is proud of Eleanor, but I think he loves Rachel best. She is more alive; she is not so good as Eleanor, nor so naughty as John, not so fair as Eleanor, nor so dark as John. She does her lessons well, but she likes to play at games. I don’t think life will be hard for Rachel.
I think Walter is happy. His book came out last year. It was published by the University Press, and that was just as he wanted. Not many people bought it, but he said that did not matter, he had not expected that; it was praised in learned journals, very highly praised. Several German professors wrote to Walter about it. Two came to see him, with special dispensations from the Home Office, because they were Enemy Aliens still. They were very polite to Walter, and complimented me on my ‘so distinguished man’; they said he was ‘world-famous’ for his proto-Hittite script.
I am glad Walter is happy, or at least, happy for him. . . . I don’t think he could be happy, as Hugo or I would be. He is less cross now, and kinder. He likes his work in college, and he has time for work of his own as well. He has started another book that will last about ten years, and he goes for walks with his friends: those two friends of his both came back; one of them teaches Ancient History, and the other Philosophy, but it doesn’t make much difference; they like to talk to Walter, and he likes to talk to them.
Walter is not different, really from what he was when we were married; he is less fierce, perhaps, because he is more assured; he knows more where he is, and other people know. But he is not really different, though he said that he would change, and I said people didn’t, and yet I have myself . . . I have changed much more . . . that is funny, I think, how little people know.
Last Spring, when the blossom was out, I went down to New College, and looked at the cherry tree that we used to see from Hugo’s window. I suppose it is just the same now, as it always was, but I do not feel the same about it now. There are other young men in Hugo’s college rooms, three generations of young men have been in those rooms since we came here, and others, of course, before that. It is twenty years now since Hugo was there.
And now it is my birthday, and I am forty; and Hugo, if he were alive, would be forty-two and a half. That seems impossible; I cannot think of Hugo as not young.
And there are the leaves coming down. There are always leaves and trees . . . and always coming down . . . naturally . . . every year . . . why do I notice that?
And this is all that has happened. It does not seem very much. It does not seem worth writing about. I was happy when I was a child, and I married the wrong person, and some one I loved dearly was killed in the war . . . that is all. And all those things must be true of thousands of people.
Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London