English drama -- 20th century; English fiction -- 20th century; Short stories, English
Marjorie went on remorselessly. "When Uncle Roger told me just now, do
you know what I did? I said to myself, Do I really care? I couldn't
make out. I looked in the glass to see if I could tell from my face.
Then I suddenly thought I'd see whether I could laugh, and I did. And
that made me feel how detestable I was, and I started crying again.
Oh, I have been a beast, George, haven't I?"
She burst into a passion of tears and hid her face once more in the
friendly cushion. George couldn't bear it at all. He laid his hand on
her shoulder and bent forward, close to her, till his face almost
touched her hair. "Don't," he cried. "Don't, Marjorie. You mustn't
torment yourself like this. I know you loved Guy; we both loved him.
He would have wanted us to be happy and brave and to go on with
life--not make his death a source of hopeless despair." There was a
silence, broken only by the agonizing sound of sobbing. "Marjorie,
darling, you mustn't cry."
"There, I'm not," said Marjorie through her tears. "I'll try to stop.
Guy wouldn't have wanted us to cry for him. You're right; he would
have wanted us to live for him--worthily, in his splendid way."
"We who knew him and loved him must make our lives a memorial of him."
In ordinary circumstances George would have died rather than make a
remark like that. But in speaking of the dead, people forget
themselves and conform to the peculiar obituary convention of thought
and language. Spontaneously, unconsciously, George had conformed.
Marjorie wiped her eyes. "Thank you, George. You know so well what
darling Guy would have liked. You've made me feel stronger to bear it.
But, all the same, I do feel odious for what I thought about him
sometimes. I didn't love him enough. And now it's too late. I shall
never see him again." The spell of that "never" worked again: Marjorie
sobbed despairingly.
George's distress knew no bounds. He put his arm round Marjorie's
shoulders and kissed her hair. "Don't cry, Marjorie. Everybody feels
like that sometimes, even towards the people they love most. You
really mustn't make yourself miserable."
Once more she lifted her face and looked at him with a heart-breaking,
tearful smile. "You have been too sweet to me, George. I don't know
what I should have done without you."
"Poor darling!" said George. "I can't bear to see you unhappy." Their
faces were close to one another, and it seemed natural that at this
point their lips should meet in a long kiss. "We'll remember only the
splendid, glorious things about Guy," he went on--"what a wonderful
person he was, and how much we loved him." He kissed her again.
"Perhaps our darling Guy is with us here even now," said Marjorie,
with a look of ecstasy on her face.
"Perhaps he is," George echoed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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