Waiting for DaylightTomlinson, H. M. (Henry Major)
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Waiting for Daylight
Tomlinson, H. M. (Henry Major)
English essays; World War, 1914-1918
freedom, of their liberal opinions and the nonconformity of their
religious views. They are stout folk, kind and companionable, and they do
not love masters.
It was the summer following the end of the War, and we were back again in
Torhaven. The recollection of its ancient peace, of its stillness and
light, of the refuge it offered, had enticed us there. Its very name had
been the hope of escape. Where should we find people more likely to be
quick and responsive? They would be among the first to understand the
nature of the calamity which had overtaken us. They would know, long
before amorphous and alien London, what that new world should be like
which we owed to the young, a world in which might grow a garden for the
bruised souls of the disillusioned.
Its light was the same. It was not only untarnished by such knowledge as
we brought with us, it was radiant. Yet it was not without its memory of
the disaster. We went into the church, whose porch had been restored;
symbolical, perhaps, of our entry into a world from which, happily, the
old things had passed. The church was empty, for this was market day.
Through its gloom, as through the penumbra of antiquity, shone faintly
the pale forms of a few recumbent knights, and the permanent appeal of
their upturned hands and faces kept the roof aware of human contrition.
Above one of the figures was a new Union Jack, crowned with laurels. The
sun made too vivid a scarlet patch of one of its folds.
Just below the church was the theatre, now a cinema hall. This was market
day, and the house was full. A poster outside pictured a bridge blowing
up, and a motor-car falling into space. The midday sun was looking full
at Torhaven's High Street, which runs south and downhill steeply to the
quay; a schooner filled the bottom of the street that day. Anything a not
too unreasonable man could desire was offered in the shops of that
thoroughfare. This being a time of change, when our thoughts are all
unfixed and we have had rumours of the New Jerusalem, the side window of
a fashionable jeweller's was devoted to tiny jade pigs, minute dolls,
silver acorns, and other propitiators of luck which time and experience
have tested. Next door to the jeweller's was a studio supporting the
arts, with local pottery shaped as etiolated blue cats and yellow
puppies; and there one could get picture postcards of the London
favourites in revue, and some water-colour paintings of the local coast
which an advertisement affirmed were real.
That was not all. Opposite was the one bookshop of the town. Its famous
bay front and old diamond panes frankly presented the new day with
ladies' handbags, ludo and other games, fountain pens, mounted texts from
Ella Wilcox, local guide books, and apparently a complete series--as much
as the length of the window would hold, at least--of Hall Caine's works;
and in one corner prayer-books in a variety of bindings.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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