In time we became less foolhardy and more weather-wise, and learnt to treat our mountains with respect — not as an enemy to be conquered, but as an ally to be won. We used to climb, Victor and I, from no desire for danger or because we wanted to add mountain peaks to our repertoire of achievement. We climbed from desire, because we loved the thing we won.
The moods of a mountain can be more varying, more swiftly-changing, than any woman's, bringing joy, and fear, and also great repose. The urge to climb will never be explained. In olden days, perhaps, it was a wish to reach the stars. Today, anyone so minded can buy a seat on a 'plane and feel himself master of the skies. Even so, he will no have rock under his feet, or air upon his face; nor will he know the silence that comes only on the hills.
The best hours of my life were spent, when I was young, upon the mountains. That urge to spill all energy, all thought, to be as nothing, blotted against the sky — we called it mountain fever, Victor and I. He used to recover from the experience more quickly than I did. He would look about him, methodical, careful, planning the descent, while I was lost in wonder, locked in a dream I could not understand. Endurance had been tested, the summit was ours, but something indefinable waited to be won. Always it was denied me, the experience I desired, and something seemed to tell me the fault was in myself But they were good days. The finest I have known…
One summer, shortly after I returned to London from a business trip to Canada, a letter arrived from Victor, written in tremendous spirits. He was engaged to be married. He was, in fact, to be married very soon. She was the loveliest girl he had ever seen, and would I be his best man? I wrote back, as one does on these occasions, expressing myself delighted and wishing him all the happiness in the world. A confirmed bachelor myself; I considered him yet another good friend lost, the best of all, bogged down in domesticity.
The bride-to-be was Welsh and lived just over the border from Victor's place in Shropshire. 'And would you believe it,' said Victor in a second letter, 'she has never as much as set foot on Snowdon! I am going to take her education in hand.' I could imagine nothing I should dislike more than trailing an inexperienced girl after me on any mountain.
A third letter announced Victor's arrival in London, and hers too, in all the bustle and preparation of the wedding. I invited both of them to luncheon. I don't know what I expected. Someone small, I think, and dark and stocky, with handsome eyes. Certainly not the beauty that came forward, putting out her hand to me and saying, 'I am Anna.'
In those days, before world war one, young women did not use make-up. Anna was free of lipstick, and her gold hair was rolled in great coils over her ears. I remember staring at her, at her incredible beauty, and Victor laughed, very pleased, and said, 'What did I tell you?' We sat down to lunch, and the three of us were soon at ease and chatting comfortably. A certain reserve was part of her charm, but because she knew I was Victor's greatest friend I felt myself accepted, and liked into the bargain.
Victor certainly was lucky, I said to myself, and any doubt I might have felt about the marriage went on sight of her. Inevitably, with Victor and myself the conversation turned to mountains, and to climbing, before lunch was halfway through.
'So you are going to marry a man whose hobby is climbing mountains,' I said to her, 'and you've never even gone up your own Snowdon.'
'No,' she said, 'no, I never have.'
Some hesitation in her voice made me wonder. A little frown had come between those two very perfect eyes.
'Why?' I asked. 'It's almost criminal to be Welsh, and know nothing of your highest mountain.'
Victor interrupted. 'Anna is scared,' he said. 'Every time I suggest an expedition she thinks out an excuse.'
She turned to him swiftly. 'No, Victor,' she said, 'it's not that. You just don't understand. I'm not afraid of climbing.'
'What is it, then?' he said. He put out his hand and held hers on the table. I could see how devoted he was to her, and how happy they were likely to become. She looked across at me, feeling me, as it were, with her eyes, and suddenly I knew instinctively what she was going to say.
'Mountains are very demanding,' she said. 'You have to give everything. It's wiser, for someone like myself, to keep away.'
I understood what she meant, at least I thought then that I did; but because Victor was in love with her, and she was in love with him, it seemed to me that nothing could be better than the fact that they might share the same hobby, once her initial awe was overcome.
'But that's splendid,' I said, 'you've got just the right approach to mountain climbing. Of course you have to give everything, but together you can achieve that. Victor won't let you attempt anything beyond you. He's more cautious than I am.'
Anna smiled, and then withdrew her hand from Victor's on the table.
'You are both very obstinate,' she said, 'and you neither of you understand. I was born in the hills. I know what I mean.'
And then some mutual friend of Victor's and my own came up to the table to be introduced, and there was no more talk of mountains.
They were married about six weeks later, and I have never seen a lovelier bride than Anna. Victor was pale with nerves, I remember well, and I thought what a responsibility lay on his shoulders, to make this girl happy for all time.
I saw much of her during the six weeks of their engagement, and, though Victor never realised it for one instant, came to love her as much as he did. It was not her natural charm, nor yet her beauty, but a strange blending of both, a kind of inner radiance, that drew me to her. My only fear for their future was that Victor might be a little too boisterous, too light-hearted and cheerful — his was a very open, simple nature — and that she might withdraw into herself because of it. Certainly they made a handsome pair as they drove off after the reception — given by an elderly aunt of Anna's, for her parents were dead — and I sentimentally looked forward to staying with them in Shropshire, and being godfather to the first child.
Business took me away shortly after the wedding, and it was not until the following December that I heard from Victor, asking me down for Christmas. I accepted gladly.
They had then been married about eight months. Victor looked fit and very happy, and Anna, it seemed to me, more beautiful than ever. It was hard to take my eyes off her. They gave me a great welcome, and I settled down to a peaceful week in Victor's fine old home, which I knew well from previous visits. The marriage was most definitely a success, that I could tell from the first. And if there appeared to be no heir on the way, there was plenty of time for that.
We walked about the estate, shot a little, read in the evenings, and were a most contented trio.
I noticed that Victor had adapted himself to Anna's quieter personality, though quiet, perhaps, is hardly the right definition for her gift of stillness. This stillness — for there is no other word for it — came from some depth within her and put a spell upon the whole house. It had always been a pleasant place in which to stay, with its lofty rambling rooms and mullioned windows; but now the peaceful atmosphere was somehow intensified and deepened, and it was as though every room had become impregnated with a strange brooding silence, to my mind quite remarkable, and much more than merely restful, as it had been before.
It is odd, but looking back to that Christmas week I can recollect nothing of the traditional festivity itself. I don't remember what we ate or drank, or whether we set foot inside the church, which surely we must have done, with Victor as the local squire. I can only remember the quite indescribable peace of the evenings, when the shutters had been fastened and we sat before the fire in the great hall. My business trip must have tired me more than I realised, for sitting there, in Victor and Anna's home, I had no desire to do anything but relax and give myself up to this blessed, healing silence.
The other change that had come upon the house, which I did not fully take in until I had been there a few days, was that it was much barer than it had been before. The multiple odds and ends, and the collection of furniture handed down from Victor's forebears, seemed to have disappeared. The big rooms were now sparse and the great hall, where we sat, had nothing in it but a long refectory table and the chairs before the open fire. It seemed very right that it should be so, yet, thinking about it, it was an odd change for a woman to make. The usual habit of a bride is to buy new curtains and carpets, to bring the feminine touch into a bachelor house. I ventured to remark upon it to Victor.
