Giant’s Bread · Book IV · I · Chapter 4 1 2

II

Nell and Vernon had rooms in a small prim house about a mile out of Wiltsbury. Vernon, looking well and brown, fell upon Joe and hugged her with enthusiasm.

They all went into a room full of antimacassars and lunched off boiled mutton and caper sauce.

“Vernon, you look splendid⁠—and almost good-looking, doesn’t he, Nell?”

“That’s the uniform,” said Nell demurely.

She had changed, Sebastian thought, looking at her. He had not seen her since her marriage, four months previously. To him she had always fallen into a class⁠—a certain type of charming young girl. Now he saw her as an individual⁠—the real Nell bursting out of her chrysalis.

There was a subdued radiance about her. She was quieter than she used to be, and yet she was more alive. They were happy together⁠—no one who looked at them could doubt it. They seldom looked at each other, but when they did you felt it. Something passed between them⁠—delicate, evanescent, but unmistakable.

It was a happy meal. They talked of old days⁠—of Abbots Puissants.

“And here we are, all four of us together again,” said Joe.

A warm feeling fastened round Nell’s heart. Joe had included her. All four of us, she had said. Nell remembered how once Vernon had said “We three,” and the words had hurt her. But that was over now. She was one of them. That was her reward⁠—one of her rewards. Life seemed full of rewards at the moment.

She was happy⁠—so terribly happy. And she might so easily not have been happy. She might have been actually married to George when the war broke out. How could she ever have been so incredibly foolish as to think that anything mattered except marrying Vernon? How extraordinarily happy they were and how right he had been to say poverty didn’t matter.

It wasn’t as though she were the only one. Lots of girls were doing it⁠—flinging up everything, marrying the man they cared for no matter how poor he was. After the war something would turn up. That was the attitude. And behind it lay that awful secret fear that you never took out and looked at properly. The nearest you ever got to it was saying defiantly, “And no matter what happens, we’ll have had something.”

She thought: “The world’s changing. Everything’s different now. It always will be. We’ll never go back.⁠ ⁠…”

She looked across the table at Joe. Joe looked different somehow⁠—very queer. What you would have called before the war⁠—well, “not quite.” What had Joe been doing with herself? That nasty man, La Marre⁠ ⁠… Oh, well, better not think about it. Nothing mattered nowadays.

Joe was so nice to her⁠—so different to what she used to be in the old days when Nell had always felt uncomfortably that Joe despised her. Perhaps she had cause. She had been a little coward.

The war was awful, of course, but it had simplified things. Her mother, for instance, had come round almost at once. She was disappointed naturally about George Chetwynd (poor George, he really was a dear and she’d been a beast to him), but Mrs. Vereker proceeded to make the best of things with admirable common sense.

“These war marriages!” She used that phrase with a tiny shrug of the shoulders. “Poor children⁠—you can’t blame them. Not wise, perhaps⁠—but what is wisdom at a time like this?” Mrs. Vereker needed all her skill and all her wit to deal with her creditors and she had come off pretty well. Some of them even felt sympathy for her.

If she and Vernon didn’t really like each other, they concealed the fact quite creditably, and as a matter of fact, had only met once since the marriage. It had all been so easy.

Perhaps, if you had courage, things were always easy. Perhaps that was the great secret of life.

Nell pondered, then waking from her reverie plunged once more into the conversation.

Sebastian was speaking.

“We’re going to look Jane up when we get back to town. I’ve not so much as heard of her for ages. Have you, Vernon?”

Vernon shook his head.

“No,” he said, “I haven’t.”

He tried to speak naturally but didn’t quite succeed.

“She’s very nice,” said Nell. “But⁠—well, rather difficult, isn’t she? I mean you never quite know what she’s thinking about.”

“She might be occasionally disconcerting,” Sebastian allowed.

“She’s an angel,” said Joe with vehemence.

Nell was watching Vernon. She thought, “I wish he’d say something⁠ ⁠… anything⁠ ⁠… I’m afraid of Jane. I always have been. She’s a devil.⁠ ⁠…”

“Probably,” said Sebastian, “she’s gone to Russia or Timbuktu or Mozambique. One would never be surprised with Jane.”

“How long is it since you’ve seen her?” asked Joe.

“Exactly? Oh, about three weeks.”

“Is that all? I thought you meant really ages.”

“It seems like it,” said Sebastian.

They began to talk of Joe’s hospital in Paris. Then they talked of Myra and Uncle Sydney. Myra was very well and making an incredible quantity of swabs and also did duty twice a week at a canteen. Uncle Sydney was well on the way to making a second fortune having started the manufacture of explosives.

“He’s got off the mark early,” said Sebastian appreciatively. “This war’s not going to be over for three years at least.”

They argued the point. The days of an “optimistic six months” were over, but three years were regarded as too gloomy a view. Sebastian talked about explosives, the state of Russia, the food question, and submarines. He was a little dictatorial, since he was perfectly sure that he was right.

At five o’clock Sebastian and Joe got into the car and drove back to London. Vernon and Nell stood in the road waving.

“Well,” said Nell, “that’s that.” She slipped her arm through Vernon’s. “I’m glad you were able to get off today. Joe would have been awfully disappointed not to see you.”

“Do you think she’s changed?”

“A little. Don’t you?”

They were strolling along the road and they turned off where a track led over the downs.

“Yes,” said Vernon, with a sigh. “I suppose it was inevitable.”

“I’m glad she’s married. I think it’s very fine of her. Don’t you?”

“Oh, yes. Joe was always warmhearted, bless her!”

He spoke abstractedly. Nell glanced up at him. She realized now that he had been rather silent all day. The others had done most of the talking.

“I’m glad they came,” she said again.

Vernon didn’t answer. She pressed her arm against his and felt him press it against his side. But his silence persisted.

It was getting dark and the air came sharp and cold, but they did not turn back, walked on and on without speaking. So they had often walked before⁠—silent and happy. But this silence was different. There was weight in it and menace.

Suddenly Nell knew.

“Vernon! It’s come! You’ve got to go.⁠ ⁠…”

He pressed her hand closer still but did not speak.

“Vernon⁠ ⁠… when?”

“Next Thursday.”

“Oh!” She stood still. Agony shot through her. It had come. She had known it was bound to come, but she hadn’t known⁠—quite⁠—what it was going to feel like.

“Nell, Nell.⁠ ⁠… Don’t mind so much. Please don’t mind so much.” The words came tumbling out now. “It’ll be all right. I know it’ll be all right. I’m not going to get killed. I couldn’t now that you love me⁠—now that we’re so happy. Some fellows feel their number’s up when they go out⁠—but I don’t. I’ve a kind of certainty that I’m going to come through. I want you to feel that too.”

She stood there frozen. This was what war was really. It took the heart out of your body, the blood out of your veins. She clung to him with a sob. He held her to him.

“It’s all right, Nell. We knew it was coming soon. And I’m really frightfully keen to go⁠—at least I would be if it wasn’t for leaving you. You wouldn’t like me to have spent the whole war guarding a bridge in England, would you? And there will be the leaves to look forward to⁠—we’ll have the most frightfully jolly leaves. There will be lots of money, and we’ll simply blow it. Oh! Nell darling, I just know that nothing can happen to me now that you care for me.”

She agreed with him.

“It can’t⁠—it can’t. God couldn’t be so cruel.”

But the thought came to her that God was letting a lot of cruel things happen.

She said valiantly, forcing back her tears: “It’ll be all right, darling. I know it too.”

“And even⁠—even if it isn’t, you must remember⁠—how perfect this has been.⁠ ⁠… Darling, you have been happy, haven’t you?”

She lifted her lips to his. They clung together, dumb, agonizing, the shadow of their first parting hanging over them.

How long they stood there they hardly knew.