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‘I only know that I started to behave like a pig and thought better of it. Peter-it hasn’t upset the-the things you said before? It hasn’t spoilt anything?’

‘To know that I can trust you better than myself? What do you think?… But listen, dear-for God’s sake let’s take the word “possess” and put a brick round its neck and drown it. I will not use it or hear it used-not even in the crudest physical sense. It’s meaningless. We can’t possess one another. We can only give and hazard all we have-Shakespeare, as Kirk would say… I don’t know what’s the matter with me tonight. Something seems to have got off the chain. I’ve said things I didn’t think I could say if I lived to be a hundred-by which time most of them wouldn’t be worth saying.’

‘It seems to be that kind of day. I’ve said things too. I think I’ve said everything, except-’

‘That’s true. You never have said it. You’ve always found some other phrase for it. Un peu d’audace, que diable!… Well?’

‘I love you.’

‘Bravely said-though I had to screw it out of you like a cork out of a bottle. Why should that phrase be so difficult? I-personal pronoun, subjective case; L-O-V-E, love, verb, active, meaning-Well, on Mr Squeers’s principle, go to bed and work it out.’

The window was still open; for October, the air was strangely mild and still. From somewhere close at hand a cat-probably the ginger torn-lifted its voice in a long-drawn wail of unappeasable yearning. Peter’s right hand searched the sill, and closed upon the granite paperweight. But even in the act, he changed his mind, released his grip and with the other hand drew the casement to and fastened it

‘Who am I,’ said he aloud, ‘to cast stones at my fellow-mortal?’

Chapter XIX. Prickly Pear

This is the dead land

This is cactus land

Here the stone images

Are raised, here they receive

The supplication of a dead man’s hand

Under the twinkle of a fading star…

Between the idea

And the reality

Between the motion

And the act

Falls the Shadow.

– T. S. Eliot: The Hollow Men.

‘Peter, what were you dreaming about early this morning? It sounded pretty awful’

He looked vexed. ‘Oh, my God, have I started that again? I thought I’d learnt to keep my dreams to myself. Did I say things? Tell me the worst.’

‘I couldn’t make out what you said. But it sounded as though-to put it mildly-you had something on your mind.’

‘What an agreeable companion I must be,’ he said, bitterly. ‘I know. I’ve been told about it before. The perfect bedfellow-so long as I keep awake. I’d no business to risk it; but one always hopes one’s going to come right again some time. In future I’ll remove myself.’

‘Don’t be an idiot, Peter. You stopped dreaming as soon as I got hold of you.’

‘So I did. It comes back to me now… Fifteen of us, marching across a prickly desert, and we were all chained together. There was something I had forgotten-to do or tell somebody-but I couldn’t stop, because of the chain… Our mouths were full of sand, and there were flies and things… We were in dark blue uniforms, and we had to go on…’

He broke off. ‘I don’t know why blue uniforms-it’s usually something to do with the War. And telling one’s dreams is the last word in egotism.’

‘I want to hear it; it sounds pretty foul.’

‘Well, it was, in a way… Our boots were broken with the march… When I looked down, I saw the bones of my own feet, and they were black, because we’d been hanged in chains a long time ago and were beginning to come to pieces.’

‘Mais priez dieu que tous nous veuille absoudre.’

‘Yes, that’s it. Very like the Ballade des Pendus. Only it was hot, with a sky like brass-and we knew that the end of the journey would be worse than the beginning. And it was all my fault, because I’d forgotten-whatever it was.’

‘What was the end of it?’

‘It didn’t end. It changed when you touched me-something about rain and a bunch of chrysanthemums… Oh, it was only the old responsibility-dream, and a mild one at that. The funny thing is that I know there is something I’ve forgotten. I woke up with it on the tip of my tongue-but it’s gone.’

‘It’ll come back if you don’t worry it.’

‘I wish it would; and then I shouldn’t feel so guilty about it… Hullo, Bunter, what’s that? The post? Heaven above, man, what have you got there?’

‘Our silk hat, my lord.’

‘Silk hat? Don’t be ridiculous, Bunter. We don’t want that in the country.’

‘The funeral is this morning, my lord. I thought it possible your lordship might desire to attend it. The prayer-books are in the other parcel with the black suit.’

‘But surely to goodness I can go to a village funeral without a mourning suit and a top-hat!’

‘The conventional marks of esteem are highly appreciated in rural communities, my lord. But it is as your lordship wishes. Two vans have arrived to take the furniture, my lord, and Superintendent Kirk is below with Mr MacBride and Mr Solomons. With your lordship’s permission, I will suggest that I should take the car over to Broxford and order a few temporary necessities-such as a couple of camp-beds and a kettle.’

‘Peter,’ said Harriet, looking up from her correspondence, ‘there’s a letter from your mother. She says she is going down to the Dower House this morning. The shooting-party at the Hall has broken up, and Gerald and Helen are going for the weekend to Lord Attenbury’s. She wonders whether we should like to join her for a day or two. She thinks we may need rest and change-not from one another, she is careful to explain, but from what she calls housekeeping.’

‘My mother is a very remarkable woman. Her faculty for hitting the right nail on the head is almost miraculous, especially as all her blows have the air of being delivered at random. Housekeeping! The house is about all we’re likely to keep, by the looks of it.’

‘What do you think of her idea?’

‘It’s rather for you to say. We’ve got to go somewhere or other, unless you really prefer the kettle and the camp-bedstead to which Bunter so feelingly alludes. But it is said to be unwise to introduce the mother-in-law complication too early on.’

‘There are mothers-in-law and mothers-in-law.’

‘True; and you wouldn’t be bothered with the others-in-law, which makes a difference. We once talked about seeing the old place when we could do it on our own.’

‘I’d like to go, Peter.’

‘Very well, then, you shall. Bunter, send Her Grace a wire to say we’re coming down tonight.’

‘Very good, my lord.’

‘Heartfelt satisfaction,’ said Peter, as Bunter left them. ‘He will be sorry to abandon the investigation, but the camp-beds and the kettle would break even Bunter’s spirit. In a way I feel rather thankful to Mr Solomons for precipitating matters. We haven’t run away; we’ve received the order to retreat and can march out with all the honours of war.’

‘You really feel that?’

‘I think so. Yes, I do.’

Harriet looked at him and felt depressed, as one frequently does when one gets what one fancied one wanted. ‘You’ll never want to come back to this house again.’

He shifted uneasily. ‘Oh, I don’t know. I could be bounded in a nutshell… were it not that I have bad dreams.’

But he would always have bad dreams in that house while the shadow of failure lay on it… He pushed the subject aside by asking: ‘Any other news from the Mater?’