XI
That Easter we went away for a week. Walter was so tired, I was anxious about him. He had extra work at the University, for several of the lecturers had gone to the War, the young unmarried ones, and he was working at his book on inscriptions as well, in the evenings chiefly. He would go straight upstairs to the study after dinner and work till late.
‘I may not have time to finish it,’ was all he said when I urged him not to. ‘I must work while I can.’
We went up to the Wall. The weather was bad, and Walter could not leave the War behind him; he seemed obsessed by it; he could talk of nothing else all the time.
I tried to cheer him up, to tease him a little, and make fun and play as we used to at first; he had liked me to before, but he did not care for it now. He smiled rather absently, and turned back to his book; when he spoke it was only of the advance in Gallipoli.
I felt that it was my fault that I could not cheer him up. I could not feel gay myself; I could not make spontaneous fun, and so it was no good, and I worried about my baby, left for the first time. I kept imagining disasters that were not probable at all. One night I woke up in a fright, and thought that the nurse might have left the tap of the gas fire half on, and the gas be escaping; and another time, I thought that a cat might have jumped into the cot, and the nurse not noticed it. I was jumpy and nervy, I knew it, and so no use to Walter. I thought about Hugo and Guy in France, and George in Gallipoli; and that made it worse.
We sat one day on the hill-side beyond the Wall, where we had often sat before, and looked out to the North. We could see the place when we had walked together, that first day when we had met at the camp and I had gone down with Walter, into the barbarians’ country. It seemed a long time ago. I remembered how exciting it had been, and how I had felt that I had begun to know Walter, and understand him. I knew him much better now, but did I understand him? I slipped my hand through his arm and laid my cheek against his.
‘Dear,’ I said, ‘what has happened to us both? Why are we so dull and sad?’
Walter looked round at me slowly.
‘We are tired, I think,’ he said. ‘That is all and we can’t rest; nobody can rest just now.’
I stroked his hand, I remember; I felt very sorry for Walter; I felt that, perhaps, I had not thought of him enough, in thinking of Eleanor so much. He looked so tired and unhappy now.
‘It would be easier for you if you could fight,’ I said.
He flushed and looked away.
‘I know,’ he said shortly, ‘it would, but I can’t.’
I was astonished at the sharpness of his tone.
I said:
‘Of course not, Walter, nobody thought of it.’
He said:
‘I have.’
And I felt a cold shiver run through me. I had not thought of it, and yet, somewhere at the back of my mind, this terror had been there. I held my breath and waited. I could hear the sheep cropping the rough grass a hundred yards away.
Then I said:
‘Yes? Do you really want to go?’
And Walter nodded his head.
‘I would give anything to go,’ he said intensely. ‘When Harland was coming home last week a girl gave him a white feather.’
I tried to laugh:
‘But that is absurd,’ I said. ‘Surely he didn’t mind?’
‘He did mind,’ said Walter.
He kept his eyes to the ground; he was tearing up the grass into little tufts and throwing it away.
‘I don’t suppose I should be any use even if I wasn’t married,’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose they would pass me at the Medical Board, but I hate to stay behind! It makes me ashamed of myself, and I am not used to feeling ashamed.’
I tried to think clearly and dispassionately, but I couldn’t. My impulse was to plead with him, to implore him not to leave me, not to go to the War, but I checked it. I felt that he would go, that it was inevitable, that I had known all the time that he would, and that I could do nothing.
‘You know,’ I said, ‘it seems to me almost braver not to go; just to go on doing dull essential work, that somebody must do. All the sentiment and enthusiasm goes to soldiers, but “they also serve”. . .?’ I felt sobs in my throat. I stopped short.
Walter said:
‘Yes, I know that too; I know I ought to stay; that my duty is with you, and my mother; I am not free to choose, but even my students are going, and those friends of yours have gone.’
I said:
‘That was different; they were not married,’ and then I thought of Cousin Delia, and Mollie.
‘Dear, I won’t keep you if you want to go,’ I said, and I suddenly cried.
He put his arms round me and kissed me, again and again.
‘I know you wouldn’t, my darling,’ he said, ‘but I can’t go.’
And I felt him nearer and more precious than before, and I thought he felt me so.
‘My poor, poor dear,’ he said, ‘if only the War would end soon.’
And I said:
‘It must end soon. I am sure it will.’