The Return of the Soldier

aret could not be brought from Wealdstone till the afternoon. It fell to me to fetch her. "At least," Kit

en fire in the undergrowth, and the valley shows sunlit between the tree-trunks, here the pond is

outer walls, and discontented with the grounds because everything but this wet, intractable spot bore the marks of Kitty's genius. After lunch there had been another attempt to settle down, but with a grim glare at a knot of late Christmas r

down to fetch Ma

ked me

s the greatest dear in the world, but she's not as you think of her. She's old, Chris. She isn't beautiful any longer. S

t matter?" He dipped his oar to a stroke that sent him awa

ailway arches, and factories spoil the skyline with red, angular chimneys, and in front of the shops stood little women with backs ridged by cheap stays, who tapped their upper lips with their forefingers and made other feeble, doubtful gest

an almond-tree. In the front garden, which seemed to be imperfectly reclaimed from the greasy field, yellow crocus and some sodden squills just winked, and the back, where a man was handling a spade without mastery, presented the austere appearance of an allotment. And not only did Margaret live in this pla

s ho

odd

inside and sla

ell?" sh

," I a

. She rubbed her hands

he girl's day out. If you

use I saw just what Margaret had seen that evening fifteen years ago when she had laid her cheek to the parlor window at Monkey Island. There was the enlarged photograph of Margaret's mother over the mantelpiece, on the walls were the views of Tintern Abbey framed in red plush, between the rickety legs of the china cupboard was the sewing-machine, and tucked into the corner between my chair and the fender were a pair of carpet slippers. All her life lon

hat though she had not moved, clasping her knees in a set

up. Her tear-stained immobility touched the

skin, her rough, bagging overall. "I'm hot. I've been baking. You can't get a girl nowadays that understands the baking." Her gaze became remote and tender, and she said in a manner that was at once argumentative and narrative, as though she were telling the whole story to a neighbor over the garden wall: "I suppose I ought to say that he

my voice to the pitch she had suddenly atta

suddenly to

e. I've often wondered if I did right in going. Even if Chris has fo

out of the corner of his eye, even when he's feeling at his

glowing, "she must h

ts and the prophets are depicted in the steel engravings in old Bibles; so they were standing, in flowing white robes on rocks against a pitch-black sky, a strong light beating on their eyes upturned in ecstasy and their hand outstretched to receive the spiritual blessing of which the fierce rays were an emanation. Into that rapt silence I desired to break, and I whispered irrelevantly, "Oh, nothing, nothing is too good for Chris!" while I said to myself, "If she really were li

y come in from his gard

a way which suggested that its production invo

id to him, but her voice was soft and comforting and occasionally girlish and interrupted by laughter, and I perceived from its

ate for supper, there's a dish of macaroni cheese you must put in the oven and a tin of tomatoes to eat with it. And there is a little rhubarb and shape." She told them off on her fingers, and then whisked him round and buckled the wagging straps at the back of his wai

me. I'll trot along after tea and

answ

ep me in lovely cabbages, just as you did last year, won't you, da

e finger-tips to touch any part of her apparel. And then I thought of Chris, to whom a second before I had hoped to bring a serene comforter. I perceived clearly that that ecstatic woman lifting her eyes and her hands to the benediction of

sa

t. But when she paused by the painted drainpipe in the hall and peered unde

rouble about

it walking home

r will brin

ou know, I know the way we're coming together is terrible, but I can't think of a mee

open for me she loo

" she asked. She evidently desired san

very nice,

" she went on, as if conscientiously counting her bl

laying my hand on the raised metal letter

smile of the inveterate romanticist. "

istmas roses, and all the deliberate delicacy of Kitty's car. She was afraid of the chauffeur, as the poor are always afraid of men-servants, and ducked her head when he got out to start the

ourteen. After Mrs. Arlington had been taken away by a swift and painful death the cheer of his Windsor hostelry had become intolerable to the man; he regarded the whole world as her grave, and the tipsy sergeants in scarlet, the carter crying for a pint of four-half, and even the mares dipping their mild noses to the trough in the courtyard seemed to be defiling it by their happy, simple appetites. So they went to Monkey Island, the utter difference of which was a healing, and settled down happily in its green sile

hysical pleasure, there was always reserve in his response to it. From his eyes, which, though gray, were somehow dark with speculation, one perceived that he was distracted by participation in some spiritual drama. To see him was to desire intimacy with him, so that one might intervene between this body, which was formed for happiness, and this soul, which cherished so deep a faith in tragedy. Well, she gave Chris ducks' eggs for tea. "No one ever had ducks' eggs like father did. It was his way of feeding them. It

eel envy or any base passion in the presence of this woman than I have eve

t him to, because I thought father might want the marriage soon and think any delay a slight on me, and I knew we would have to wait. Eh! I can remember saying to myself, 'P

s, his brows straight and black, and not a smile on him. I felt very bad. We picked him up in the dinghy and took him across, and still he didn't smile. He and I got on the island, and Bert, who saw there was something wrong, said, 'Well, I'll toddle off.' And there I was on the lawn with Chris, and he angry and somehow miles away. I remember him saying, 'Here am I coming to say good-by, because I must go away to-night, and I find you larking with that bounder.' And I said: 'O Chris, I've known Bert all my life through him coming to his unc

up his wife. All night he used to sit in the library looking over his papers and ledgers; often in the mornings the housemaids would find him asleep across his desk, very red, yet looking dead. The men he brought home to dinner treated him with a kindness and consideration which were not the tributes that that victorious and trumpeting personality was accustomed to exact, and in the course of conversation with them he dropped braggar

seeing me had made me perceive for the first time that he had never seen me at all save in the most cursory fashion. On the eye of his mind, I realized thenceforward, I had hardly impinged. That night he talked till late with his father, and

n to a publican, and, after exacting a promise from the new hostess that she would forward all letters that might come, embarked upon an increasingly unfortunate career as a mother's help. First she fell into the hands of a noble Irish family in reduced circumstances, whose conduct in running away and leaving her in a Brighton hotel with her wages and her bill unpaid still distressed and perplexed her. "Why did they do it?" she asked. "I liked them so. The baby was a darling, and Mrs. Murphy had such a nice way of speaking. But it

had the chance of revisiting Monkey Island. At first there was no money, and later there was the necessity of seeking the healthful breezes of Brighton or Bognor or Southend, which were the places in which Mr. Grey's chest oddly elected to thrive. And when these obstacles were removed, she was lethargic; also she had heard that the inn was not being ma

omes from the North. But Miss Taylor's much handsomer than I ever was; a really big woman she is, and such lovely golden hair. They were very kind when I told them who I was; gave us duck and green peas for lunch and I did think of dad. They were nothing like as good as his ducks, but then I expect they paid. And then Miss Taylor took William out to l

last I said, 'But Mrs. Hitchcock did say she'd send my letters on.' And he said, 'Mrs. Hitchcock hadn't been here three weeks before she bol

at was

y duty as a wife. But when I got that telegram saying he was wou

her head

amber grasses. Its use is purely philosophic; it proclaims that here we esteem only controlled beauty, that the wild will not have its way within our gates, that it must be made delicate and decorated into felicity. Surely, she must see that this was no place for beauty that had been not mellowed, but lacerated, by time, that no one accustomed to live here could help wincing at such external dinginess as hers. But instead she said:

ll around her. Beside the pure black of the bowl her rusty plumes looked horrible; beside that white nymph, eternally innocent of all but the contemplation of beauty, her opaque skin and her suffering were offensive; beside its air of being the coolly conceived and leisurely executed production of a hand and brain lifted by their rare quality to the service of the not absolutely necessary, her appearance of having only for the moment ceased to cope with a vexed and needy environment struck me as a cancerous blot on the fair world. Perhaps it was absurd to pay attention to this indictment of a noble woman by a potter's toy, but that toy happened to be also a little image of Chris's conception of women. Exquisite we were according to our equipment, unflushed by appetite or passion, even noble passion, our small heads bent intently on the white flowers of luxury floating on the black waters of life, he had known none other than us. With such a mental ha

t down my cup, "may I see Chris?" Sh

wing-room and opened on

the pond," I told her

aid. "He always looks

hint the possibility of a pa

ind he's

ied gl

shall k

nymph in her circle of black waters, the clear pink-and-white of Kitty's chintz, the limpid surface of the oak, the broken burning of all the gay reflected colors in the paneled walls. I said to myself, "If everything else goes, there is always this to fall back on," and I went on, pleased that I was wearing delicate stuffs and that I had a smooth skin, pleased that the walls of the corridor were so soft a twilight blue, pleased that through a far-off open door there came a stream of ligh

poor battered

into the garden that my

r, and had filled the sky with glaring gray clouds that dimmed the brilliance of the crocuses. It was to give gardens a point on days such as these, when the planned climax of this flower-bed and that stately tree goes for nothing, that the old gardeners rai

was not passionate, but rather the movement of one carrying a wounded man from under fire. But even when she had raised his head to the level of her lips, the central issue was not decided. I covered my eyes and said aloud, "In a minute he will see her face, her hands." But although it was a long time before I looked again, they were still clinging breast to breast. It was as though her embrace fed him, he looked so strong as he br