Thirty-two hours later Paul was with Heather on the beach of Kennebunkport, Maine. They sat side by side on the sand while the sun glittered off the sea. They watched long waves roll slowly in and break, sluice back and roll up again, each one making a hissing sweep across the hard sand.
“Now tell me about your book, Paul.”
He shook his head, still staring seaward. “There’s nothing to tell about it. It’s half finished. I may be able to complete it in spite of everything.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe not. I don’t know.”
The waves continued to ride up the beach in endless monotone.
“Mummy’s determined to hear Chamberlain when he speaks this morning,” she said at last. “They’re all sitting around the radio now, listening to anything that comes over. They say even the King is going to speak.”
Paul rose slowly, still staring out over the water; then he dropped his hand and helped her to her feet. “Exactly what is the matter with your mother?”
She let her eyes rest on him as he continued to stare out to sea. His face looked tired and set, older than it had a few months ago. His eyes were narrowed against the glare, his hands hung at his sides.
“The doctor won’t say anything definite.” Her voice was lifeless. Numbness in her nerve-ends, the skin of her face taut and dry, before her the sea, behind her the continent drugged with sun, in Europe the first bombers taking off…. “Oh Paul–I feel so helpless. Smaller than I know I am. And ashamed.”
“Never mind,” he said. He continued to stare out over the water. Then his voice, calm, factual, “Are you sorry you married me?”
She slipped her hand through his arm, her cheek brushed his sleeve, pressed against its harsh tweed. “Don’t!” she whispered. Then, more calmly, “When I saw her lying there I couldn’t leave her, Paul. I’d told myself my life was my own. That I was free. I’d sworn to myself I’d never let her hurt you. Then–” She stopped; added simply, “I was afraid she was dying.”
For a moment he did not answer. “Has she done this often before?” he said at last.
“She’s never been strong. Poor Mummy–she’s had such a wretched life. Paul–why don’t you curse me for being such a helpless little fool?”
“Has she honestly had a wretched life?”
Heather took his hand again. It closed strongly over her fingers. Her voice said, “She’s always tried to be something she never was.”
“Like many others.” Suddenly he faced her. “I want to speak to the doctor. Do you mind?”
“Of course not. He’s usually playing bridge at this hour of the morning. Today I suppose he’s listening to the radio with everyone else.”
He began walking. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s find him.”
The moment they entered the lounge they heard the radio. A commentator was talking about the evacuation of children from London. Heather still held Paul’s hand. “He’s that old man over there. I’ll get him.”
Paul stood aloof by the door as she crossed the lounge to speak to the doctor. The gayness of her light gingham dress only heightened the grimness of the mood in the lounge. The men and women sat listening with church faces to the radio, and when they spoke they used whispers. The few Americans present seemed ill at ease. Perhaps they felt what was happening in London as sharply as the Canadians did, they certainly hated Hitler as much, but it was not their war yet. Heather returned with the doctor. He came slowly forward with head bowed, bobbing slightly as he walked. His left hand clasped the lapel of his jacket and Paul saw a brown age-stain behind the knuckles, a tiny tuft of hair protruding from it. Heather introduced them.
“Would you mind if we talked on the veranda?” Paul said.
The doctor looked at him suspiciously, dropped his eyes. “If you wish.”
They walked to the far end of the veranda where they could not hear the radio. The salt air blew up to them with noise from the sea. Heather stood slightly apart and looked at the two men: Paul intense, his face pale and tired but his eyes very bright, balanced easily on the balls of his feet like an athlete on guard. In front of him the doctor stood with a grey face, clipped white moustache and silver hair; as neat as a bird. Yet his eyes looked somehow lost and baffled. Heather thought: how many wars has he seen begin? What was the colour of his hair when the first airplane flew?
Paul was speaking. “I want you to tell me frankly just what is the matter with Mrs. Methuen.”
The doctor’s Adam’s apple rose and fell. “She’s a pretty sick woman. She’s been in bed a fortnight now. I’ve been seeing her every day.” An attempt at a smile. “Miss Methuen’s been very good to her.”
Paul kept his eyes on the old face. “I understand she wants to get up to listen to the radio. Are you permitting her to come downstairs?”
It seemed to Heather that the doctor had become too old even to be tired. She sensed the suggestion of hostility; but vague, edgeless, like an object stirring behind fog. Old eyes on Paul’s strained face, old face vaguely on guard against it knew not what.
“Miss Methuen–” The doctor cleared his throat. “I intended to tell your mother she could come down whenever she wished. I forgot. Will you go and tell her?”
Heather looked from one to the other, then turned and disappeared.
The doctor shifted away from Paul’s steady gaze and began walking slowly back along the veranda, his eyes apparently counting the cracks in the boards. “I’ll tell you how it is, Mr. Tallard. These women like Mrs. Methuen–they excite very easily. There’s nothing anyone can do about it when they start. Now take yesterday–when she heard the war’d started, she felt a lot better.”
The doctor reached the door and stepped inside.
“Are you telling me there’s nothing the matter with her?” Paul said behind him.
The doctor turned slowly, his face weary and aloof, his remote eyes apparently looking over Paul’s shoulder to the glittering sea, a bird-like dignity enfolding him. “That’s right,” he said, “not a thing.” Without looking back he walked slowly into the lounge.
The radio was still describing the evacuation of the children, already disinfecting the reality of the war by concentrating on ordinary action and human interest in trivial details. Paul walked across to the desk and asked the number of Mrs. Methuen’s room. Then he went upstairs to find it. When he knocked on her door it was Heather who opened it. He saw them there: mother and daughter. Janet’s eyes black in a pale face, fierce, restless, old.
“You know Paul, Mummy?”
Janet’s nod was barely perceptible. “I’m on my way downstairs,” she said.
Heather faded back toward the window. She sat there frozen, her life in her eyes, watching her mother and Paul. She seemed to behold every action of their hands and flicker of their eye-lashes in slow motion. Janet was stiff and straight, her lips tightly pressed. She was wearing her black dress and stockings and her black beads. A wide-brimmed black hat was on her head. Her eyes were noting the details of Paul’s clothes as though she were pricing them. And Heather sat frozen on the window-ledge, bitterly ashamed not only for her mother but also for herself. At that instant she knew that nothing was the matter with her mother and that nothing ever had been. She knew intuitively that if there had not been a secret part of herself which had welcomed the force of her mother’s will she would have left her weeks ago, even when Janet was prone and apparently unconscious on her bed. She closed her eyes, remembered as if it were yesterday the touch of her mother’s hand on her forehead when she had been a child. In her flesh her mother held her. Flesh of her flesh.
She felt ashamed of the unworthiness of this scene. The war had started, nations and perhaps civilizations had slid forward for suicide. She and Paul and her mother were part of it. Her mother’s voice said, “You’ll excuse me, I trust. I must hear what Mr. Chamberlain has to say to us.”
Janet walked stiffly to the door, moving past Paul as if he were someone who had come to serve her. Heather opened her eyes, saw her mother’s straight back, looked away. Then she heard Paul’s voice. It was his usual voice, quiet the way it usually was. But because it was spoken in the presence of her mother it sounded different; shockingly unnatural, but wonderful. “I can tell you what Chamberlain will say, Mrs. Methuen. There’s no need to go downstairs to hear him. He’s going to say he’s sorry, and then he’s going to declare war.”
Heather saw her mother’s wide hat nod and wheel as she stared at Paul, her fingers tight on her black purse. The old posture, the old expression. Who said that truth will prevail, that mind conquers all things? Force of the turtle, strength of the ostrich, sureness in the right!
“If you’ll excuse me…” Janet’s voice crisp and British. “I wasn’t aware that my wishes were anyone’s business but my own.” She glanced around at Heather. “Come along. We’ve no time to waste.”
“No,” he said quietly. “Heather will stay here for the moment.” A pause. “I think you will, too, Mrs. Methuen.”
Janet lifted her hand to her cheek as if Paul had slapped it. Her mouth opened and closed, and Heather watched her in ashamed fascination. She had seen Yardley crumble before her mother’s nervousness, General Methuen break because of his pity for her, McQueen nod and smile at almost anything she said. Now she waited for her mother to strike, somehow out of her instinct to find where Paul was vulnerable.
But it was Paul who spoke. “If you feel as you do because we were married without your knowledge, I understand.” He paused as he watched her. “But I don’t think that’s why you feel as you do.”
Janet continued to stare at him, her fingers clasping and unclasping on her purse. Paul took a step backward, held out his hand to Heather and drew her beside him.
“Heather and I have been waiting all our lives. Now there’s hardly any time left for us. Tomorrow I’m going to enlist.” Janet opened her mouth but his eyes held her silent. “I don’t want to do it. Everything that’s in me cries out against the waste of the only talent I’ve ever had. But I’ve got to go. And when I’m gone, I’d like to know that you and Heather are together.”
Janet’s tongue moistened her lips and once again she opened her mouth to speak, but no words came. Paul and Heather moved past her to the door. “We’re going down to the lounge now,” Paul said. “Think over what I’ve said. Then I hope you’ll join us.”
They went out the door, Heather not daring to look at her mother again. They reached the lounge and found empty chairs in a corner away from the radio. She felt Paul’s hand close over her own. The crowd at the radio was bending forward, listening intently. Instead of Chamberlain, the slow, hesitant, sad voice of the King began to speak.
Before he had finished, Janet appeared and they saw her, coming carefully down to the foot of the stairs. She walked calmly toward their corner and joined them without a word. Paul rose and she took the place he had left. The King’s voice went on, they listened in silence, and after a while it ended. The lounge was so still they heard the laugh of a child a hundred yards away on the beach.