“Never dull with you, little mother,” he said, bending to kiss her forehead. “But I like to see my friends at times. I’ll be back before you go to bed.”
But he stayed rather late with Janet, and wasn’t back until his mother had tired of waiting. She heard his step passing her door, and called out, “Good night, my dear!”
XXX
Janet Welford—“Janet Rockingham Welford” of fiction fame—was a source of comfort to Bertram at this time. She had a courage regarding life, a natural and unaffected buoyancy of character, whatever might happen in a world of tragedy, which shook him out of his morbid brooding while he was in her company. She carried over the audacity of her war-time spirit, when for a while she had driven an ambulance into the Belgian zone of fire, to that after-war period when most men and women felt drained of vitality, and suffered miserable reaction.
It was, perhaps, her daily service to the blinded men of St. Dunstan’s which kept her soul tuned to the old key of “carry on!” which had inspired masses of people during the years of conflict so that they forgot, or put on one side, their own griefs and cares, because of the great sufferings of others, and the common need of sacrifice.
That was her explanation.
“My blinded boys keep me healthy and vital and brave,” she smiled. “How the devil can I indulge in the megrims, sit down and sob over my woes of thwarted passion, gloom over the possible downfall of civilisation, or six shillings in the pound for income tax, when those blind boys have to be kept merry and bright to save them from despair and suicide? They just knock one’s egotism stone dead.”
“It’s splendid of you!” said Bertram.
Janet wouldn’t allow any kind of splendour to herself.
“Punk! It’s only another form of selfishness. They’re my soul-cure. If I didn’t laugh for their sakes, make up the most ridiculous and risky stories, to get a smile out of them, coerce myself to look on the bright side of life, so that I can reflect some sunshine into their sightless eyes, I should probably suffer from sex-complexes or other forms of beastliness. I serve them to save myself. That’s what I tell them, and they think it an excellent joke. ‘Have we done you good this morning, Miss?’ they ask, and I say, ‘You’re my Salvation Army, my lads!’ and that keeps us laughing round Regent’s Park.”