XXIII
In June Guy came home on leave. He was at Yearsly first, and then three days in London. He stayed with Grandmother in Campden Hill Square. I went to see him there and he came up to me. He wanted to dance, he said, it was so good to be at home. ‘Let us be jolly,’ he said, ‘I have only two days more.’
So I went with him to a club, somewhere near Bond Street it was. We had dinner first in Soho, and then we went and danced. I had no dancing clothes now, except very old ones, but Guy did not mind.
‘That is the dress you used to wear,’ he said, and he was pleased.
It was like being born again to dance with Guy. The years between, and the War, seemed to fall away; it was as though all that had happened was wiped away, and we were back again in 1912 before the War, before even I was married.
We danced till two o’clock; then Guy saw me home. We would do it again the next night, we said.
Walter was in the study working, when I got home.
He said:
‘You are very late, you will be tired to-morrow.’
I said:
‘I think that I shall not be tired any more. I have come alive again.’
And I laughed, and kissed him.
Rachel woke up at half-past five, but I did not mind.
I thought:
‘We shall dance again to-night.’
And we did. We went to the same restaurant, and the same club, and we danced till nearly three.
‘This has been good,’ Guy said. ‘Thank you, Helen.’
And I said:
‘Thank you, Guy.’
He went back the next day, at a quarter to twelve. Mollie was in Salonika now; he had not seen her; I was sorry about that.
Cousin John and Cousin Delia came up to see him off. I saw them at the station. Then I went back to Walter, and the house, and the children, but for a long time it was better after that.
I wished that Walter could dance; he had promised me once that he would learn.
I asked him now; it was foolish of me.
He said:
‘I have no time to dance, and I don’t want to. I don’t understand, Helen, how you can bear to dance at a time like this.’
I said:
‘If Guy can bear to⸺’
He said:
‘Oh, Guy!’ and stopped short.
‘I think it is abominable,’ he said.
Afterwards he was sorry. Walter was always sorry afterwards, when he had been cross, but I could not forget the things he said. He broke his glasses soon after this, the rimless ones that he had bought to please me. He would not buy any more. He went back to the old spectacles with the black steel frames. I could not bear him in those spectacles.