XX
Muriel opened the front door wearily and glanced at the brass tray on the hall table. Surely it must come soon, to-day, to-morrow he must write. He could not just go off like that into the silence of an unknown world after what had happened.
There were three letters on the tray for her, one from Janet Holmes, now nursing in Newcastle, one from the vicar's wife at Kepplethorpe about the egg collection, one from a Nursing Club member.
Muriel hated the letters, hated the brass tray, hated sullenly and fiercely the weariness of her ankles and her shoulders. She had been standing nearly all day in the Red Cross Depot, lifting bundles that were too heavy for her. She leaned forward with her hands on the cool marble of the hall table, resting for a moment before she climbed the stairs. The smooth blades of an aspidistra plant confronted her. She hated aspidistras too.
From the dining-room came the flat reiteration of her mother's voice, scolding, scolding with gentle but monotonous persistence. Then followed Connie's shrill defiance, and her father's deep-toned boom. They were quarrelling again, always quarrelling. Connie was too bad, always upsetting everybody like this. As though the war in itself were not enough, lying like a heavy weight upon your heart, day and night, numbing your feelings to all but the bitter things.
She could not bear it much longer. She would have to go away. Why should not she become a proper army nurse like Janet? She liked nursing, that kept her body active and would not let her think. She loved to look after people. It soothed the soreness of her heart. Her daily visits to the Depot, her hours of dusting round carefully disinfected convalescents at the local hospitals were only sops for the unquiet conscience of Marshington. Marshington wanted to feel that it was doing its bit, yet desired the merit without too great discomfort. Muriel was not like that. She had a terror of finding the War over and herself as usual out of it. She saw a triumphal procession marching through the city square of Kingsport, with braying trumpets and flying flags, and herself isolated, sad, standing up a back street because she had no part in the rejoicing. For those who were in it, the War brought suffering, and anxiety and blinding sorrow. But these were glorious. You could make a song of them and sing it through your tears. For those who were not in the War, it was a grinding hunger, an agony of isolation; and of these things you could not make a song. You felt no pride of loss, no glory of sacrifice. There were only shameful tears to shed, and the long ache of pain which had no remedy.
Why was her mother so angry now? Her mother had been splendid. Every one said so. The way in which she had emerged from her terrific experience at Scarborough, shaken but undaunted, to resume her patriotic duties here in Marshington, had been quite admirable. Mrs. Marshall Gurney's escape from Germany paled before her greater heroism. Mrs. Hammond had been rightly elected President of the Local War Services Association.
Why didn't Godfrey write?
The dining-room door opened, and Connie flounced out, hurling defiance over her shoulder as she came.
"Well, I'm jolly well going, so there!"