This almost impossible battle, the battle of the neurasthenic with his own soul, Peter Jameson entered on unaided—feeling himself lost to all honour, coward and traitor in sight of his own manhood. Yet at the outset he fought well; so well that, so long as he remained in hospital, not even Heron Baynet suspected his condition. . . .
At the end of his first month, came letters from Garton, from Sandiland and Purves. The Brigade had been moved northwards (“quite close to where we first went into action,” wrote the censor-wise Garton): “Mr. Henry” was riding Little Willie and had taken Jelks for groom: “Captain Lodden was home, ‘sick.’ ” It all seemed very far away from the bare echoing hospital, from the gossip of the ward. . . .
Passed another month of aimless existence, varied only by Patricia’s weekly visits, by a letter from his brother Arthur, by a box of cigars from Maurice Beresford, by a state-call of Sir Hubert and Lady Rawlings. . . .
His arm healed rapidly. They took away his sling, allowed him “down” to meals—where he learned the Fear of Eating in Public. He went for his first walk—and discovered the Fear of Traffic. Then, quite unexpectedly, he was summoned to a Medical Board: at which three kindly men examined his arm, tested his lungs, and asked him how he “felt in himself.”
“Quite all right,” said Peter, “but of course I’d like to go home for a bit.”
They gave him three months’ leave, and advised him to take care of himself. “One never knows with lungs, you know,” said the President. . . . And Peter, the Fear of Consumption eating out his last remnant of will power, took train to the home Patricia had planned for him.
PART TWENTY-SEVEN
THE NEW SCIENCE
§ 1
Into every marriage there come times of crisis, when man and woman gaze at each other dumbly across a great wall of misunderstanding. Peter’s homecoming from hospital provided that crisis in his life and Patricia’s.
Poor Patricia! she had looked forward so rapturously to having him at Sunflowers; worked so hard to make the place perfect. And now it seemed to her as though not only house and children but she herself must be distasteful to him; as though even palship were ended. Night after night, his placid kisses banished her to loneliness. Night after wakeful night, she watched the light in his dressing-room glimmer through the chinks of the door between them. Poor Patricia! unable to realize that this man who annoyed her by the very placidity of his demeanour, was struggling—every minute of the day, and every hour of the night—to prevent his hands from trembling, his voice from quivering, his every tone and every attitude from betraying the terrors which were eating away his self-respect.