§ 19
the powers that were set over peter’s life played fast and loose with him in the matter of leave. they treated him at first as though he was a rare and precious hero—who had to be saved from his friends. they put him to mend at broadstairs, and while he was at broadstairs he had three visits from hetty, whose days were free, and only one hasty sunday glimpse of joan, who was much in demand at the ministry of munitions. and oswald could not come to see him because oswald himself was a casualty mending slowly at pelham ford. hetty and joan and returning health fired the mind of peter with great expectations of the leave 523that was to come. these expectations were, so to speak, painted in panels. forgetful of the plain fact that a joan who was not available at broadstairs would also not be available at pelham ford, the panels devoted to the latter place invariably included joan as a principal figure, they represented leave as a glorious escape from war to the space, the sunshine, the endlessness of such a summer vacation as only schoolboys know. he would be climbing trees with joan, “mucking about” in the boats with joan, lying on the lawn just on the edge of the cedar’s shadow with joan, nibbling stems of grass. the london scenes were narrower and more intense. he wanted the glitter and fun of lunching in the carlton grill-room or dining at the criterion, in the company of a tremendous hat and transparent lace, and there were scenes in hetty’s studio, quite a lot of fantastic and elemental scenes in hetty’s studio.
but the germans have wiped those days of limitless leisure out of the life of mankind. even our schoolboys stay up in their holidays now to make munitions. peter had scarcely clambered past the approval of a medical board before active service snatched him again. he was wanted urgently. peter was no good as a pilot any more, it was true; his right wrist was doomed to be stiff and weak henceforth, and there were queer little limitations upon the swing of his arm, but the powers had suddenly discovered other uses for him. there was more of peter still left than they had assumed at first. for one particular job, indeed, he was just the man they needed. they docked him a wing—it seemed in mockery of the state of his arm—and replaced the two wings that had adorned him by one attached to the letter o, and they marked him down to join “balloons” at the earliest possible moment, for just then they were developing kite balloons very fast for artillery observation, and were eager for any available men. peter was slung out into freedom for one-and-twenty days, and then told to report himself for special instruction in the new work at richmond park.
one-and-twenty days! he had never been so inordinately greedy for life, free to live and go as you please, in all his days before. something must happen, he was resolved, something bright and intense, on every one of those days. he 524snatched at both sides of life. he went down to pelham ford, but he had a little list of engagements in town in his pocket. joan was not down there, and never before had he realized how tremendously absent joan could be. and then at the week-end she couldn’t come. there were french and british g.h.q. bigwigs to take down to some experiments in sussex, but she couldn’t even explain that, she had to send a telegram at the eleventh hour: “week-end impossible.” to peter that seemed the most brutally offhand evasion in the world. peter was disappointed in pelham ford. it was altogether different from those hospital dreams; even the weather, to begin with, was chilly and unsettled. oswald had had a set-back with his knee, and had to keep his leg up on a deck chair; he could only limp about on crutches. he seemed older and more distant from peter than he had ever been before; peter was obsessed by the idea that he ought to be treated with solicitude, and a further gap was opened between them by peter’s subaltern habit of saying “sir” instead of the old familiar “nobby.” peter sat beside the deck chair through long and friendly, but very impatient hours; and he talked all the flying shop he could, and oswald talked of his africans, and they went over the war and newspapers again and again, and they reverted to africa and flying shop, and presently they sat through several silences, and at the end of one of them oswald inquired: “have you ever played chess, peter—or piquet?”
now chess and piquet are very good pastimes in their way, but not good enough for the precious afternoons of a very animated and greedy young man keenly aware that they are probably his last holiday afternoons on earth.
sentiment requires that peter should have gone to london and devoted himself to adorning the marginal freedom of joan’s days. he did do this once. he took her out to dinner to jules’, in jermyn street; he did her well there; but she was a very tired joan that day; she had driven a good hundred and fifty miles, and, truth to tell, in those days peter did not like joan and she did not like herself in london, and more especially in smart london restaurants. they sat a little aloof from one another, and about them all the young couples warmed to another and smiled. she 525jarred with this atmosphere of meretricious ease and indulgence. she had had no time to get back to hampstead and change; she was at a disadvantage in her uniform. it became a hair shirt, a nessus shirt as the evening proceeded. it emphasized the barrier of seriousness between them cruelly. she was a policeman, a prig, the harshest thing in life; all those pretty little cocottes and flirts, with their little soft brightnesses and adornments, must be glancing at her coarse, unrevealing garments and noting her for the fool she was. she felt ugly and ungainly; she was far too much tormented by love to handle herself well. she could get no swing and forgetfulness into the talk. and about peter, too, was a reproach for her. he talked of work and the war—as if in irony. and his eyes wandered. naturally, his eyes wandered.
“good-night, old peter,” she said when they parted.
she lay awake for two hours, exasperated, miserable beyond tears, because she had not said: “good night, old peter dear.” she had intended to say it. it was one of her prepared effects. but she was a weary and a frozen young woman. duty had robbed her of the energy for love. why had she let things come to this pass? peter was her business, and peter alone. she damned the woman’s legion, woman’s part in the war, and all the rest of it, with fluency and sincerity.
and while joan wasted the hours of sleep in this fashion peter was also awake thinking over certain schemes he had discussed with hetty that afternoon. they involved some careful and deliberate lying. the idea was that for the purposes of pelham ford he should terminate his leave on the fourteenth instead of the twenty-first, and so get a clear week free—for life in the vein of hetty.
he lay fretting, and the hot greed of youth persuaded him, and the clean honour of youth reproached him. and though he knew the way the decision would go, he tossed about and damned as heartily as joan.
he could not remember if at pelham ford he had set a positive date to his leave, but, anyhow, it would not be difficult to make out that there had been some sort of urgent call.... it could be done.... the alternative was piquet.
526peter returned to pelham ford and put his little fabric of lies upon oswald without much difficulty. then at the week-end came joan, rejoicing. she came into the house tumultuously; she had caught a train earlier than the one they had expected her to come by. “i’ve got all next week. seven days, petah! never mind how, but i’ve got it. i’ve got it!”
there was a suggestion as of some desperate battle away there in london from which joan had snatched these fruits of victory. she was so radiantly glad to have them that peter recoiled from an immediate reply.
“i didn’t seem to see you in london somehow,” said joan. “i don’t think you were really there. let’s have a look at you, old petah. tenshun!... lift the arm.... rotate the arm.... it isn’t so bad, petah, after all. is tennis possible?”
“i’d like to try.”
“boats certainly. no reason why we shouldn’t have two or three long walks. a week’s a long time nowadays.”
“but i have to go back on monday,” said peter.
joan stood stock still.
“pity, isn’t it?” said peter weakly.
“but why?” she asked at last in a little flat voice.
“i have to go back.”
“but your leave——?”
“ends on monday,” lied peter.
for some moments it looked as though joan meant to make that last week-end a black one. “that doesn’t give us much time together,” said joan, and her voice which had soared now crawled the earth.... “i’m sorry.”
just for a moment she hung, a dark and wounded joan, downcast and thoughtful; and then turned and put her arms akimbo, and looked at him and smiled awry. “well, old peter, then we’ve got to make the best use of our time. it’s your birf day, sort of; it’s your bank holiday, dear; it’s every blessed thing for you—such time as we have together. before they take you off again. i think they’re greedy, but it can’t be helped. can it, peter?”
“it can’t be helped,” said peter. “no.”
they paused.
527“what shall we do?” said joan. “the program’s got to be cut down. shall we still try tennis?”
“i want to. i don’t see why this wrist——” he held it out and rotated it.
“good old arm!” said joan, and ran a hand along it.
“i’ll go and change these breeches and things,” said joan. “and get myself female. gods, peter! the craving to get into clothes that are really flexible and translucent!”
she went to the staircase and then turned on peter.
“peter,” she said.
“yes.”
“go out and stand on the lawn and tighten up the net. now.”
“why?”
“then i can see you from my window while i’m changing. i don’t want to waste a bit of you.”
she went up four steps and stopped and looked at him over her shoulder.
“i want as much as i can get of you, petah,” she said.
“i wish i’d known about that week,” said peter stupidly.
“exactly!” said joan to herself, and flitted up the staircase.
