The Well of Loneliness

longing to go, culminating in that hurried visit to Morton. Morton so changed and yet so changeless. Changed because of those blue-clad figures, the lame, the halt and the partially blinded who had sought its peace and its kindly protection. Changeless because that protection and peace belonged to the very spirit of Morton. Mrs. Williams a widow; her niece melancholic ever since the groom Jim had been wounded and missing⁠—they had married while he had been home on leave, and quite soon the poor soul was expecting a baby. Williams now dead of his third and last stroke, after having survived pneumonia. The swan called Peter no longer gliding across the lake on his white reflection, and in his stead an unmannerly offspring who struck out with his wings and tried to bite Stephen. The family vault where her father lay buried⁠—the vault was in urgent need of repair⁠—“No men left, Miss Stephen, we’re that short of stonemasons; her ladyship’s bin complainin’ already, but it don’t be no use complainin’ these times.” Raftery’s grave⁠—a slab of rough granite: “In memory of a gentle and courageous friend, whose name was Raftery, after the poet.” Moss on the granite half effacing the words; the thick hedge growing wild for the want of clipping. And her mother⁠—a woman with snow-white hair and a face that was worn almost down to the spirit; a woman of quiet but uncertain movements, with a new trick of twisting the rings on her fingers. “It was good of you to come.” “You sent for me, Mother.” Long silences filled with the realization that all they dared hope for was peace between them⁠—too late to go back⁠—they could not retrace their steps even though there was now peace between them. Then those last poignant moments in the study together⁠—memory, the old room was haunted by it⁠—a man dying with love in his eyes that was deathless⁠—a woman holding him in her arms, speaking words such as lovers will speak to each other. Memory⁠—they’re the one perfect thing about me. “Stephen, promise to write when you’re out in France, I shall want to hear from you.” “I promise, Mother.” The return to London; Puddle’s anxious voice: “Well, how was she?” “Very frail, you must go to Morton.” Puddle’s sudden and almost fierce rebellion: “I would rather not go, I’ve made my choice, Stephen.” “But I ask this for my sake, I’m worried about her⁠—even if I weren’t going away, I couldn’t go back now and live at Morton⁠—our living together would make us remember.” “I remember too, Stephen, and what I remember is hard to forgive. It’s hard to forgive an injury done to someone one loves.⁠ ⁠…” Puddle’s face, very white, very stern⁠—strange to hear such words as these on the kind lips of Puddle. “I know, I know, but she’s terribly alone, and I can’t forget that my father loved her.” A long silence, and then: “I’ve never yet failed you⁠—and you’re right⁠—I must go to Morton.”

Stephen’s thoughts stopped abruptly. Someone had come in and was stumping down the room in squeaky trench boots. It was Blakeney holding the time-sheet in her hand⁠—funny old monosyllabic Blakeney, with her curly white hair cropped as close as an Uhlan’s, and her face that suggested a sensitive monkey.

“Service, Gordon; wake the kid! Howard⁠—Thurloe⁠—ready?”

They got up and hustled into their trench coats, found their gas masks and finally put on their helmets.

Then Stephen shook Mary Llewellyn very gently: “It’s time.”

Mary opened her clear, grey eyes: “Who? What?” she stammered.

“It’s time. Get up, Mary.”

The girl staggered to her feet, still stupid with fatigue. Through the cracks in the shutters the dawn showed faintly.

II

The grey of a bitter, starved-looking morning. The town like a mortally wounded creature, torn by shells, gashed open by bombs. Dead streets⁠—streets of death⁠—death in streets and their houses; yet people still able to sleep and still sleeping.

“Stephen.”

“Yes, Mary?”

“How far is the Poste?”

“I think about thirty kilometres; why?”

“Oh, nothing⁠—I only wondered.”

The long stretch of an open country road. On either side of the road wire netting hung with pieces of crudely painted rag⁠—a camouflage this to represent leaves. A road bordered by rag leaves on tall wire hedges. Every few yards or so a deep shell-hole.

“Are they following, Mary? Is Howard all right?”

The girl glanced back: “Yes, it’s all right, she’s coming.”

They drove on in silence for a couple of miles. The morning was terribly cold; Mary shivered. “What’s that?” It was rather a foolish question for she knew what it was, knew only too well!

“They’re at it again,” Stephen muttered.

A shell burst in a paddock, uprooting some trees. “All right, Mary?”

“Yes⁠—look out! We’re coming to a crater!” They skimmed it by less than an inch and dashed on, Mary suddenly moving nearer to Stephen.

“Don’t joggle my arm, for the Lord’s sake, child!”

“Did I? I’m sorry.”

“Yes⁠—don’t do it again,” and once more they drove forward in silence.

Farther down the road they were blocked by a farm cart: “Militaires! Militaires! Militaires!” Stephen shouted.

Rather languidly the farmer got down and went to the heads of his thin, stumbling horses. “Il faut vivre,” he explained, as he pointed to the cart, which appeared to be full of potatoes.

In a field on the right worked three very old women; they were hoeing with a diligent and fatalistic patience. At any moment a stray shell might burst and then, presto! little left of the very old women. But what will you? There is war⁠—there has been war so long⁠—one must eat, even under the noses of the Germans; the bon Dieu knows this, He alone can protect⁠—so meanwhile one just goes on diligently hoeing. A blackbird was singing to himself in a tree, the tree was horribly maimed and blasted; all the same he had known it the previous spring and so now, in spite of its wounds, he had found it. Came a sudden lull when they heard him distinctly.

And Mary saw him: “Look,”