Death of a Hero (29 page)

“Well, if it's twins, doctor, you shall be godfather.”

To which the doctor replied with a laugh George thought rather ribald and heartless under the circumstances. Elizabeth rushed into the room exclaiming:

“It's all right, darling, a false alarm. I'm no more pregnant than you are.”

George, who was wool-gathering, might have remained indefinitely perplexed, if the doctor had not taken him aside and told him briefly the situation, adding that for a little time it would be well if Elizabeth refrained from sexual relations.

“How long do you advise?” asked George.

“Oh, let her follow the treatment prescribed for about a month, and then let me examine her again. I've no doubt whatever that she'll be perfectly all right again. As a matter of fact, she couldn't have a child without a slight operation. Only, in the future she must avoid chills. She ought not to spend the winter in England.”

George wrote out a cheque for three guineas (which Elizabeth insisted on repaying afterwards), and they celebrated the event with a dinner.

“Let us drink,” said George, “to this happy occasion when we have NOT committed the unforgivable sin of thrusting an unwanted existence upon one more unfortunate human being.”

But perhaps the most amazing circumstance in this peculiar episode was the speed with which Elizabeth once more evacuated the old familiar Hindenburg line, and reoccupied the most advanced positions of Sexual Freedom. But, of course, she did so with a difference. Though she wouldn't admit it even to herself, and though George tried not to see it, in her case the Triumphal Scheme had broken down badly under its first stern test. Directly that test had come, she had fallen back in panic on the old cut-and-dried solution; she hadn't had the courage to go through with it. In a way one could excuse her by saying that the interior trouble had temporarily deranged her brain, that she wasn't really responsible for her actions. But that's only a quibble – the fact remains that she did fly in a panic to social safety and the registrar. And then the legal tie introduced a subtle difference in their relation. You may say, of course, that it needn't; that since they continued to live in
exactly the same way and to profess exactly the same attitude towards each other and “freedom”, it made no difference whether they were legally married or not. But it did. And it does. You can see that perfectly well if you watch people. Somehow the mere fact of marriage introduces the sense of possession, and hence jealousy. Lovers, of course, may be and frequently are just as possessive and quite as jealous. But there is a difference. As a rule lovers are not first occupants, so to speak; and they are generally willing to grant each other more liberty and to “forgive”. But you will see married people who have become totally indifferent to each other rise in a fury of possessiveness and jealousy when they happen to find out that the wife or husband, as the case may be, is in love with some one else. This indeed may be only another aspect of that peculiar vindictiveness bred by marriage. And another curious modification of their relationship arose. When Elizabeth reoccupied the Sexual Freedom line, without knowing it she did so for herself alone, and not for George. If George liked to accept the subsequent Elizabeth-Reggie affair, in accordance with the provisions of the Triumphal Scheme, all well and good; that was his look-out. But when it came to Elizabeth's accepting the Fanny-George affair in the same spirit, that was a very different matter. Elizabeth now felt somehow responsible for George, and feeling responsible translated itself into keeping possession of…

However, three months after the false alarm Elizabeth seemed more “advanced” and full of “freedom” than ever. Her position as a married woman enabled her to talk with greater liberty on all sorts of topics which are now discussed in every nursery but at that time were considered highly improper and not to be named before Citizens of the Empire. She got hold of a book on the woes of the Uranians, and was deeply affected by it. She wanted to start a crusade on their behalf, and was greatly disappointed by the coolness with which George met her enthusiasm.

“It is ridiculous,” said Elizabeth, “that these unfortunate people should be persecuted by obsolete laws derived from the prejudices of the Jewish prophets and mediaeval ignorance.”

“Of course it is, but what can one do about it? Persecution-mania has always existed. It's a very curious coincidence that the vulgar English word for one sort of intermediate sexual type originally meant a heretic. But there's nothing to be done.”

“I think something ought to be done.”

“Well, I think it's too soon to do anything. You've got to allow time for knowledge to percolate into rock-like heads, and for ignorance and superstitions to be dispelled. Let's get the ordinary relations of men and women on to a decent basis first, and then it'll be time to think about the heretics in love.”

“But, George darling, these people are hunted and exiled and despised for something which is not their ‘fault' at all, some difference in their physiological or psychological structure. There probably isn't any such thing as a perfect ‘normal' sexual type. Simply because we're ‘normal', why should we hate and despise these people?”

“I know, I know. Theoretically, I agree with you absolutely. But it's no good my mind trying to defend what my instincts and feelings reject. Frankly, I don't like homosexuals. I respect their freedom, of course, but I don't like them. As a matter of fact, I don't know any, at least so far as I am aware. No doubt some of our friends are homosexual; but as I'm not personally interested in it, I never notice it.”

“Yes, but because you don't notice it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Don't be narrow-minded, George. There are probably tens of thousands of people living miserable lives…”

“Oh, I know all about that! But you can't break down the inherited prejudices of ages in five minutes. I personally don't object to such people doing as they want. There's no tort to person or property. But my advice to them would be to keep jolly quiet about it, and not try to make themselves martyrs, and flaunt themselves publicly.”

“Oh, oh!” Elizabeth laughed; “Grandpa George forgathering with the Victorians!”

“All right, but I'm not going to say what I don't feel. In this matter you must look upon me as a neutral.”

“Well, I think you ought to look into it more carefully and sympathetically, and get Bobbe to let you write some articles on it.”

“Thanks very much. You ask him to do it himself; it's far more likely to attract
him.
If I wrote such articles I should immediately be suspect. It's a damned dangerous thing to do in England; in most cases the suspicion is far too likely to be true !”

And they left it at that.

All this time the war was drawing steadily nearer. Probably it had become certain since 1911, though most people were taken quite unawares. Why did it happen? Who was responsible? Questions which
have been interminably debated already and will furnish exultant historians with controversial material for generations to come. Already one forsees the creation of Chairs in the History of the First World War, to be set up in whatever civilized countries remain in existence after the next one. But for us the debate is vain, as vain as the pathetic and reiterated enquiry,
“Where
did I catch this horrible cold?” If any body or bodies engineered this catastrophe they must have been gratified by its shattering success. Few lives indeed in the belligerent countries remained unaffected by it, and in most cases the effect was unpleasant. Adult lives were cut sharply into three sections – pre-war, war, and post-war. It is curious – perhaps not so curious – but many people will tell you that whole areas of their pre-war lives have become obliterated from their memories. Pre-war seems like pre-history. What did we do, how did we feel, what were we living for in those incredibly distant years? One feels as if the period 1900 – 14 has to be treated archaeologically, painfully recreated by experts from slight vestiges. Those who were still children at the Armistice, who were so to speak born into the war, can hardly understand the feeling of tranquil security which existed, the almost smug optimism of our lives. Especially in England, for the French retained uncomfortable memories of 1870; but still, even in France life seemed established and secure. Since Waterloo, England had engaged in no great war. There were frontier and colonial skirmishes, and the reputation of the country for military organization and efficiency was immensely strengthened in the world's eyes by the conduct of the Crimean and Boer Wars. But there had been nothing on a really big scale. The Franco-Prussian War was just one of those unfortunate occurrences one must expect from backward Continental nations, and the huge struggle of the War of Secession was observed through the wrong end of the telescope. In some quarters, indeed, that war had been considered as a peculiar mercy of God to His Chosen People, enabling the British Merchant Marine to re-establish an indisputable primacy at the expense of a regrettable upstart among nations.

Talleyrand used to say that those who had not known Europe before 1789 had never known the real pleasure of living. No one would dare to substitute 1914 for 1789 in that sentence. But such a wholesale shattering of values had certainly not occurred since 1789. God knows how many governments and rulers crashed down in the earthquake, and those which remain are agitatedly trying to preserve their
existence by the time-honoured methods of repression and persecution. And yet 1914 was greeted as a great release, a purgation from the vices supposed to be engendered by peace! My God! Three days of glory engender more vices and misery than all the alleged corrupters of humanity could achieve in a millennium.
Les jeunes
would be amazed if they read the nauseous poppycock which was written in 1914-15 in England and, doubtless in all the belligerent countries, except France, where practically nothing was printed at all. (However, the French have made up handsomely for the loss since then.) “Our splendid troops” were to come home – oh, very soon – purged and ennobled by slaughter and lice, and were to beget a race of even nobler fellows to go and do likewise. We were to have a great revival in religion, for people's thoughts were now turned from frivolities to great and serious themes. We were to have a new and greater literature – hence the alleged vogue for “war poets”, which resulted in the parents of the slain being asked to put up fifty pounds for the publication (which probably cost fifteen) of poor little verses which should never have passed the home circle. We were to have… but really I lack courage to continue. Let those who are curious in human imbecility consult the newspaper-files of those days…

But we are still lingering in the golden calm of the last few months preceding August 1914.

Fanny had followed Elizabeth's amazing evolutions with considerable surprise and that feeling of “something not displeasing” with which we contemplate the misfortunes of our best friends. She chiefly felt rather sorry for George…

“You have a vendetta of the dead against the living.” Yes, it is true, I have a vendetta, an unappeased longing for vengeance. Yes, a vendetta. Not a personal vendetta. What am I? O God, nothing, less than nothing, a husk, a leaving, a half-chewed morsel on the plate, a reject. But an impersonal vendetta, an unappeased conscience crying in the wilderness, a river of tears in the desert. What right have I to live? Is it five million, is it ten million, is it twenty million? What does the exact count matter? There they are, and we are responsible. Tortures of hell, we are responsible! When I meet an unmaimed man of my generation, I want to shout at him: “How did you escape? How did you dodge it? What dirty trick did you play? Why are you not dead, trickster?” It is dreadful to have outlived your life, to have shirked your fate, to have overspent
your welcome. There is nobody upon earth who cares whether I live or die, and I am glad of it, so glad of it. To be alone, icily alone. You, the war dead, I think you died in vain, I think you died for nothing, for a blast of wind, a blather, a humbug, a newspaper stunt, a politician's ramp. But at least you died. You did not reject the sharp, sweet shock of bullets, the sudden smash of the shell-burst, the insinuating agony of poison gas. You got rid of it all. You chose the better part. “They went down like a lot o' Charlie Chaplins,” said the little ginger-hair sergeant of the Durhams. Like a lot of Charlie Chaplins. Marvellous metaphor! Can't you see them staggering on splayed-out feet and waving ineffective hands as they went down before the accurate machine-gun fire of the Durhams sergeant? A splendid little hero – he got the Military Medal for it. Like a lot of Charlie Chaplins. Marvellous! But why weren't we one of them! What right have we to live? And the women? Oh, don't let's talk about the women. They were splendid, wonderful. Such devotion, such devotion! How they comforted the troops! Oh, wonderful, beyond all praise! They got the vote for it, you know. Oh, wonderful! Steel-true and blade-straight. Yes, indeed, wonderful, wonderful! What ever should we have done without them? White feathers, and all that, you know. Oh, the women were marvellous. You can always rely upon the women to come up to scratch, you know. Yes, indeed. What would the Country be without them! So splendid, such an example.

On Sundays the Union Jack flies over the cemetery at Etaples. It's not so big as it was in the old wooden-cross days, but it's still quite large. Acres and acres. Yes, acres and acres. And it's too late to get one's little lot in the acres. Too late, too late…

Yes, Fanny was sorry for George, and showed it with practical feminine sympathy. In the late spring Elizabeth “had” to go and spend a fortnight with her parents in the north. Mrs. Paston – who never failed in any of her duties, and took jolly good care to let you know it – was accustomed to write every week to Elizabeth. This weekly letter was supposed to be a nice, chatty, affectionate record of the little home circle and friends, something to keep Elizabeth in touch with their purer lives (of pure boredom) and preserve her from the decadents and degenerates she frequented in London. In fact the letter was almost invariably a perfidious and insinuating effort to make Elizabeth uncomfortable and to discourage her with her own life. Under
the endearing words of conventional family affection lurked a curious resentment and hatred. If Mrs. Paston could think of anything likely to worry Elizabeth she never failed to convey it, in the strain of “Isn't it a pity, dear!…” Sometimes Elizabeth answered these letters, sometimes she did not. Recently, they had been filled with discouraging hints about the state of Mr. Paston's health. “Your dear father” could not shake off his “bronchitis”
(i.e.
a cold in the head), he was very “languid”
(i.e.
bored, the golf links were under water), he “scarcely ever went out” (he hardly ever had done, except to play golf), he was “getting so frail and white-haired, poor darling daddy” (he'd been grey for fifteen years and still ate four hearty meals daily), he seemed to be failing fast” – a pure piece of mythology. Elizabeth was rather fond of her father, and began to get alarmed, although she was more or less aware of her mother's strategy. But it is the misfortune of youth never really to credit the aged with their full meed of perfidy and dislike. She felt she ought to go and see her father for herself – it would be awful if he suddenly died without her seeing him. She told George she was going.