Fallen Into the Pit

inside-out, that he wouldn’t ever bring himself to touch it, I’m absolutely sure.”

“He may talk that way,” said Cooke easily, “but that doesn’t necessarily prove anything.”

“He doesn’t talk that way. He acts that way. Well, look what happened when he came home! The British Legion wanted him to join, and he wouldn’t. He said he was only a soldier because he was conscripted, and it was time we forgot who’d been in uniform and who hadn’t, and stopped making differences between them, when they’d most of them had about as much choice as he had. And at school some of the fellows tried to get him to talk about all those things he’d done, and he wouldn’t, he only used to tell us there was nothing admirable in being more violent than the other fellow, and nothing grand about armies or uniforms, and the best occupation for anyone who’d had to fight a war was making sure nobody would ever have to fight another. He said fighting always represents a failure by both sides. He said that to me, the day I started a fight with Rabbit. He was always down on hero-worship, or military things—any fellows who tried to suck up to him because of his record, he was frightfully sarcastic with them at first, and then he got sort of grave and sad instead, because he isn’t usually sarky. But he always squashes those fellows if they try it on.”

“Some of those who value their own achievements most,” said George, with serious courtesy, and looking him steadily in the eye, “also resent being fawned upon publicly.”

“Yes, but I think not when it’s that kind of achievements, really, because the kind of man who loves being a hero, and getting decorated, and all that—well, don’t you think he has to be a bit stupid, too?—kind of blunt in the brain, so he doesn’t see through all the bunk? Mostly they love being fussed over, so they must be a bit thick. And old Wedderburn isn’t stupid, whatever he may be.”

George looked at his son, and felt his own heart enlarged and aching in him, because they grow up, because their intelligences begin to bud and branch, to be separate, to thrust up sturdily to the light on their own, away from the anxious hand that reaches out to prop them. Even before their voices break, the spiritual note has broken, odd little rumblings of maturity quake like thunder under the known and guarded treble. Little vibrations of pride and sadness answer somewhere in the paternal body, under the heart, in the seat of shocks and terrors and delights. My son is growing up! Bud and branch, he is forward, and resolute, and clear. It will be a splendid tree. This is the time for all good parents to try their mettle, because the most difficult thing in life to learn is that you can only retain people by letting them go. George looked at Dominic, and smiled a little, and elicited an anxious but confiding smile in return.

“That’s quite a point,” he said. “No, he isn’t stupid, and he doesn’t like adulation, I’m sure of that. D’you want to tell us about that row you had over the fight? It might explain more than a lot of argument.”

“I don’t mind. It was funny, really,” said Dominic with a sudden glimmering grin, “because it was about him, only he didn’t know it. He turned out such a mild sort of beak, you see, old Rabbit started throwing his weight about and saying he didn’t believe he’d done any of the things he was supposed to have done, and it was all a pack of lies about his adventures in the war, and all that. Well, I didn’t care whether old Wedderburn wanted to get any credit for all those things or not, but I didn’t see why Rabbit should be allowed to go about saying he was a liar. Because Wedderburn isn’t sham, anyhow, that’s the biggest thing about him. So we argued a bit about it, and then I hit Rabbit, and we didn’t have time to get any farther because old Wedderburn opened the window and called us in. He never jaws very much, just says what he means. He said what I told you, that fighting never settles anything, it’s only a way of admitting failure to cope with things, and the only thing it proves is who has the most brawn and the least brain. He said it was always wrong short of a life-and-death matter, and anyhow, he just wouldn’t stand for it. And then he said we’d say no more about it, if we’d both give him our word not to start the fight again.”

“And what did you say?” asked George, respectfully grave.

“Well, Rabbit said O.K. like a shot, of course he would! And I was a bit peeved, really, because you want time to think when you get something like that shot at you. So he sent Rabbit away; I thought that was a pretty good show. And I thought pretty hard, and I said I thought he was right, really, about fighting being a bad thing, but still he had fought. But he wasn’t mad, he just said yes, but not over nothing, like us. And he said I had to make up my mind, and promise not to start scrapping over it again, or else! He’d never licked anybody, not since he came, but he told me straight he would this time, so I had to think frightfully fast, and maybe it wasn’t such a bright effort. Only I couldn’t see why I shouldn’t be allowed to judge what was nothing and what wasn’t, and I still couldn’t see why Rabbit should call him a liar and a cheat, and get away with it. At least,” he said honestly, “I could see that I couldn’t exactly be allowed to judge, but I didn’t see why I shouldn’t do it, all the same. So I explained to him that I’d rather not make any promises, because I thought that I ought to decide for myself what was worth righting for, and what wasn’t.”

“And what did he say to that? Was he angry?”

“No, he— You know,” said Dominic doubtfully, “I think he was pleased! It sounds awfully daft, but honestly, he looked at me as if he was. Only I can’t think why, I expected him to be mad as the dickens, because it sounded fearful cheek, only it really wasn’t meant to be. But I honestly didn’t see how it could be right just to let somebody else make the rules for you, without making up your own mind at all.”

“Did he agree with you?”

“Well, he didn’t exactly say. He just said that when you’ve got to that stage of maturity, you have to go the next bit, whether you want to or not, and realize that in any society you have to be prepared to pay for the privilege of making up your own mind. I can’t remember all the right words, but you get what he meant. He didn’t seem a bit angry, but I knew he wouldn’t let me off, and he was giving me a chance to back out. But I wasn’t going to. So I said yes, all right, I would pay.”

“And then he licked you,” said George.

“Well, he had to, really, didn’t he?” said Dominic reasonably.

“Wasn’t that a bit illogical,” suggested Cooke, with his hearty, good-natured, insensitive laugh, “for a bloke who’d just been preaching nonviolence?”

Dominic replied, but punctiliously to his father’s look, not to Cooke who was in his black books: “No, I don’t think so, really, because he had to make up his mind, too. If you see what I mean!”

“Yes,” said George, “I see what you mean.”

“So you see, don’t you, that what Cooke was saying about him is just bunk? He didn’t get used to it, it sickened him, only there just wasn’t anything else then for him to do. And honestly, he’s the last man in the place who could have done a murder—even that murder. Dad, don’t make an awful mistake like that, will you?”

“I’ll try not to,” said George, softened and gentle with astonishment at seeing his son’s face all earnest anxiety on his account. “Don’t worry, Dom, I’ll remember all you’ve told us. It’s perfectly good evidence, and I won’t lose