London (England) -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
"I got back on leave two hours ago," said Mr. Morgan. "I have been
waiting here thirty-two minutes. I saw Kew every day last week, and I was
with him when he died, three hours before I came away yesterday."
Jay was silent. She opened the door, and in the sitting-room she
placed--very carefully--two chairs looking at each other across
the table.
"Jay," said William Morgan, "I am deadly afraid of doing this badly. Kew
and I talked a good deal before it happened, and there was a good deal he
wanted me to tell you. All the way back in the train and on the boat I
have been writing notes to remind me what I had to say to you. I hope you
don't mind. I hope you don't think it callous."
"No," said Jay.
"He was very anxious you should know the truth about it, because he said
he had never lied to you. He was always sure that if he were shot it
would be in the back while he was lacing his boots, or at some other
unromantic moment. And in that case he said he could lie to Anonyma and
your cousin vicariously through the War Office, which would write to
them about Glory, and Duty, and Thanks Due. But he wanted me to write to
you, and tell you how it happened, and tell you that death was just an
ordinary old thing, no more romantic than anything else, without a
capital letter, and that one died as one had lived--in a little ordinary
way--and that there was no such thing as Glory between people who didn't
lie to each other. I am telling you all this from my notes. I should
never have thought of any of it for myself, as you know. I hope you
don't mind."
"No," said Jay. She heard what he said, yet she was not listening. Her
mind was listening to things heard a very long time ago. She heard
herself and Kew in confidential chorus, saying those laboriously simple
prayers that Anonyma used to teach them. She heard again the swishing
that their feet used to make in the leaves of Kensington Gardens. Kew's
was the louder swish by right. She thought of him as an admirable big
brother of eight, with a round face and blunt feet and very hard hands.
She heard the comfortable roar of the nursery fire, and the comfortable
sound of autumn rain baffled by the window; she saw the early winter
breakfast by lamplight, and the red nursery carpet that had an oblong
track worn away round the table by the frequent game of "Little Men
Jumping." She heard the voice of Kew clamouring against the voice of Nana
because he would not eat his bacon-fat. On those days there was a horrid
resurrection at luncheon of the bacon-fat uneaten at breakfast.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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