They looked at each other, just another moment, then she took her hands
from his and stood back in the shadow of the milk-cans, rigid, following
him with her eyes till he was lost in the train.
Every carriage window was full of those brown figures and red-brown
faces, hands were waving vaguely, voices calling vaguely, here and
there one cheered; someone leaning far out started to sing: “If auld
acquaintance—” But Noel stood quite still in the shadow of the
milk-cans, her lips drawn in, her hands hard clenched in front of her;
and young Morland at his window gazed back at her.
2
How she came to be sitting in Trafalgar Square she did not know. Tears
had formed a mist between her and all that seething, summer-evening
crowd. Her eyes mechanically followed the wandering search-lights, those
new milky ways, quartering the heavens and leading nowhere. All was
wonderfully beautiful, the sky a deep dark blue, the moonlight
whitening the spire of St. Martin's, and everywhere endowing the great
blacked-out buildings with dream-life. Even the lions had come to life,
and stared out over this moonlit desert of little human figures too
small to be worth the stretching out of a paw. She sat there, aching
dreadfully, as if the longing of every bereaved heart in all the town
had settled in her. She felt it tonight a thousand times worse; for last
night she had been drugged on the new sensation of love triumphantly
fulfilled. Now she felt as if life had placed her in the corner of a
huge silent room, blown out the flame of joy, and locked the door.
A little dry sob came from her. The hay-fields and Cyril, with shirt
unbuttoned at the neck, pitching hay and gazing at her while she dabbled
her fork in the thin leavings. The bright river, and their boat grounded
on the shallows, and the swallows flitting over them. And that long
dance, with the feel of his hand between her shoulder-blades! Memories
so sweet and sharp that she almost cried out. She saw again their dark
grassy courtyard in the Abbey, and the white owl flying over them. The
white owl! Flying there again to-night, with no lovers on the grass
below! She could only picture Cyril now as a brown atom in that swirling
brown flood of men, flowing to a huge brown sea. Those cruel minutes on
the platform, when she had searched and searched the walking wood for
her, one tree, seemed to have burned themselves into her eyes. Cyril
was lost, she could not single him out, all blurred among those thousand
other shapes. And suddenly she thought: 'And I—I'm lost to him;
he's never seen me at home, never seen me in London; he won't be
able to imagine me. It's all in the past, only the past—for both of
us. Is there anybody so unhappy?' And the town's voices-wheels, and
passing feet, whistles, talk, laughter—seemed to answer callously:
'Not one.' She looked at her wrist-watch; like his, it had luminous
hands: 'Half-past ten' was greenishly imprinted there. She got up in
dismay.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account