“How I thought of that and longed for that! …
“And so, you see, I didn’t go to the hospital. I kept hoping to get to England first. And I left it too long. …”
“Life’s come back to me with you!” said Letty. “Until just today I’ve believed you’d come back. And today—I doubted. … I thought it was all over—all the real life, love and the dear fun of things, and that there was nothing before me, nothing before me but just holding out—and keeping your memory. … Poor arm. Poor arm. And being kind to people. And pretending you were alive somewhere. … I’ll not care about the arm. In a little while. … I’m glad you’ve gone, but I’m gladder you’re back and can never go again. … And I will be your right hand, dear, and your left hand and all your hands. Both my hands for your dear lost left one. You shall have three hands instead of two. …”
§ 13
Letty stood by the window as close as she could to Teddy in a world that seemed wholly made up of unexpected things. She could not heed the others, it was only when Teddy spoke to the others, or when they spoke to Teddy, that they existed for her.
For instance, Teddy was presently talking to Mr. Direck.
They had spoken about the Canadians who had come up and relieved the Essex men after the fight in which Teddy had been captured. And then it was manifest that Mr. Direck was talking of his regiment. “I’m not the only American who has gone Canadian—for the duration of the war.”
He had got to his explanation at last.
“I’ve told a lie,” he said triumphantly. “I’ve shifted my birthplace six hundred miles.
“Mind you, I don’t admit a thing that Cissie has ever said about America—not one thing. You don’t understand the sort of proposition America is up against. America is the New World, where there are no races and nations any more; she is the Melting Pot, from which we will cast the better state. I’ve believed that always—in spite of a thousand little things I believe it now. I go back on nothing. I’m not fighting as an American either. I’m fighting simply as myself. … I’m not going fighting for England, mind you. Don’t you fancy that. I don’t know I’m so particularly in love with a lot of English ways as to do that. I don’t see how anyone can be very much in love with your Empire, with its dead-alive Court, its artful politicians, its lords and ladies and snobs, its way with the Irish and its way with India, and everybody shifting responsibility and telling lies about your common people. I’m not going fighting for England. I’m going fighting for Cissie—and justice and Belgium and all that—but more particularly for Cissie. And anyhow I can’t look Pa Britling in the face any more. … And I want to see those trenches—close. I reckon they’re a thing it will be interesting to talk about some day. … So I’m going,” said Mr. Direck. “But chiefly—it’s Cissie. See?”
Cissie had come and stood by the side of him.
She looked from poor broken Teddy to him and back again.
“Up to now,” she said, “I’ve wanted you to go. …”
Tears came into her eyes.
“I suppose I must let you go,” she said. “Oh! I’d hate you not to go. …”
§ 14
“Good God! how old the Master looks!” cried Teddy suddenly.
He was standing at the window, and as Mr. Direck came forward inquiringly he pointed to the figure of Mr. Britling passing along the road towards the Dower House.
“He does look old. I hadn’t noticed,” said Mr. Direck.
“Why, he’s gone grey!” cried Teddy, peering. “He wasn’t grey when I left.”
They watched the knickerbockered figure of Mr. Britling receding up the hill, atlas and papers in his hands behind his back.
“I must go out to him,” said Teddy, disengaging himself from Letty.
“No,” she said, arresting him with her hand.
“But he will be glad—”
She stood in her husband’s way. She had a vision of Mr. Britling suddenly called out of his dreams of God ruling the united states of the world, to rejoice at Teddy’s restoration. …
“No,” she said; “it will only make him think again of Hugh—and how he died. Don’t go out, Teddy. Not now. What does he care for you? … Let him rest from such things. … Leave him to dream over his atlas. … He isn’t so desolate—if you knew. … I will tell you, Teddy—when I can. …
“But just now—No, he will think of Hugh again. … Let him go. … He has God and his atlas there. … They’re more than you think.”
II
Mr. Britling Writes Until Sunrise
§ 1
It was some weeks later. It was now the middle of November, and Mr. Britling, very warmly wrapped in his thick dressing-gown and his thick llama wool pyjamas, was sitting at his night desk, and working ever and again at an essay, an essay of preposterous ambitions, for the title of it was “The Better Government of the World.”
Latterly he had had much sleepless misery. In the day life was tolerable, but in the night—unless he defended himself by working, the losses and cruelties of the war came and grimaced at him, insufferably. Now he would be haunted by long processions of refugees, now he would think of the dead lying stiff and twisted in a thousand dreadful attitudes. Then again he would be overwhelmed with anticipations of the frightful economic and social dissolution that might lie ahead. …
