G. B. Stern

“ And then Richard came.
At once life lost its sullen taste; and was sharp with the savour of brine. Something to do—and that not too easy. Something to be won—and that not for herself, but for Richard. Something to sacrifice—and that was contemplation of the future; fatal to brood upon a future inhabited principally by Phillipses. Something here which demanded subtle manipulation, probably histrionics ... but this was Deb’s talent. She set out to re-conquer Samson Phillips in a spirit which was brewed in equal parts of roguery and swagger and trepidation. ”

“ And when you are an old white-haired man, my darling, I want you to be able to say, 'God helping me, I have never wronged a woman that I did not strive to put it right.' How are you to speak those words when the poor frightened child who loved you only too well, is left to fight her battles alone? There is only one way of righting that wrong, Gareth; and the way lies through a golden wedding-ring."
Gareth could not suppress a faint stirring of amusement at the fancy portrait of Kathleen's timorous anguish. ”

“ A fish leapt shining from the water, and plunged again into a circle of ripples. From round the next bend still drifted snatches of the ‘Ragtime Goblin Man’; evidently John had not yet spoken. Some distance over the land, yet not so far but that they should distinctly have heard the throb and clangour, a train passed in a linked blur of lights; passed noiselessly, like a phantom train. Peter, watching it, wished passionately that she might hear it whistle, as reassurance that she herself was real, and not a pictured castaway upon a badly drawn bit of wreckage. ”

“ Nobody would bother to verify the discrepancy in time; the loss of an hour....
So—straight to Jermyn Street ... just for the fun of it! Just for the fun of huddling herself in a disguising cloak, and once again creeping with awed feet along that silent, mysterious avenue where “men of the world” abode ... for the fun of gazing wistfully up at the imperturbable stone frontage behind which playtime lay forgotten ... for the fun of being once more in mischief, dreading discovery, thrilling at her own daring ... for the fun of flouting the Phillips’ Illusion! ”

“ And you’ll forget that Letty’s throat was white as foam, and curved like the curve of a wave,—because Letty will be yours, throat and all, whenever you want her. You’ll never know fun, hard perilous fun, because you’ll never seek peril; you’ll say that you have too many responsibilities, as a husband and a citizen and a philanthropist, to expose yourself unnecessarily. You’ll never be splendidly weary with battle, nor yet know the leanness of spirit which comes from desire unfulfilled, nor will you grow breathless with the exhilaration of a race against your own luck. ”

“ Oh, my dear, my dear, I know how it is with you; you are growing into a man with a man's ideas. Your companions have been telling you that chivalry is 'played out,' food only for old women and romantic girls and molly-coddles. Believe me, dear, it isn't so. Chivalry and honour are not weaknesses to be ashamed of. They are what in the olden days made a knight strongest: strong in battle, strong in love. Oh, Gareth, there are so many in the world to help a woman's tears to flow; don't join their ranks. ”

“ Weaklings! short-sighted weaklings, with their foolish chatter of “liberty for the young.” Was this the way to bring up one’s children, with authority trailing like a slack rope along the floor? What was to become of the old, if the young were allowed to live for their own pleasure? Where would he be now, he, Hermann Marcus, crippled with rheumatism, financially insolvent, approaching his eightieth birthday, if Ferdinand and Stella had not been trained, very carefully trained, to unquestioning obedience and duty? ”

“ With wild hurrahs, a tangle of long legs and flying skirts whizzed down the banisters and landed in a heap at the foot.
Something delightful and sturdy, with dark red hair and blown-out cheeks, was marching to and fro on the polished drawing-room floor, waving flags and shouting....
Thus Merle drew from the Land of Corners, shadowy corners of the old house, dim unswept corners in her brain, dog-eared corners of forgotten picture-books, a whole host of children; ordinary, healthy, grubby youngsters, who would reduce the silent beautiful rooms to their proper state of scrum and chaos. ”

“ An hysterical fatalism brooded over her passion for Napier Kirby. She knew that if she hesitated once, paused to debate or analyse, looked beyond the actual moment of flight, or looked back to responsibility, habit, sentiment, then the sequence of events which had rushed to ten-thirty, Charing Cross, Friday evening, would pass by that single pin-point moment of action, never to touch it again. And she would be left. Forty-three cannot shatter and re-form her life, lose opportunities and find others, toss love aside and gather up love, as eighteen might do, as twenty-seven had done. ”

“ Stuart awoke her by hammering blows upon her door. She went again to the window before she opened [207] to him. A bright blue sky now; trim red roof of boathouse and ferryhouse and bungalow, warm in the clear sunshine; screaming, cackling, chattering chorus of waterfowl; a sail, left hoisted overnight, flung its broken dance upon the water, sparkling and rioting between its clumps of emerald-green reeds. The world washed clean of mystery and evil alike. Peter slid open her door a few inches. ”

“ I'm glad you feel that you want to give yourself up to the war, Pat. Every man and every woman and every child in the kingdom ought to be feeling the same. No matter if war is right or wrong; no matter if this is the war that ends war, or else another of those beastly life-spilling limb-lopping campaigns that signify nothing in the end—still, any great upheaval is welcome when it means all eyes to the right-about, all eyes fixed steadily upon the same vision—instead of glancing askew ”

“ Deb—I know a man and a girl who consented to humour the State and get married for no better reason than because they had saved up the price of a divorce, to put in the bank—a sort of emergency exit. And they asked me to admire their hideous sanity. ‘We’ll take each other for better,’ the man sniggered—‘but why insist that two human beings should take each other for worse?’ smug fool—as though his beastly Marriage on a Reasonable Basis were worth while, anticipating dreariness and weariness and satiety. ”

“ Stuart was a genius of life—he might not go back to Peter. He had lashed Peter to be a genius of life—she might not call to him. They could both see their vision of love dimmed by time—so they might not pursue it to the dimming. And meanwhile the two in the shadow-side of the hulk lay lip to lip, bodies crushed together, believing their little moment immortal. “They sold Diego Valdez....”
And here the stuntorian, up till now silent, gave a sudden leap, and flung out a hand to pull Stuart from the mire: “Just go back to her. Get above your own theory, and kick it out of the way. ”

“ For Patricia O'Neill was proud of her twenty-one years, and the glorious vigour of her limbs, and the resilient stretch of her brain; and of her power to shape her life obedient to those empyreal flashes of inspiration that burst upon her out of the angry clouds. Too proud to yield up one jot of longing to a man who was oblivious of her. ”

“ And with belief came power—oh, what strange new power in her deep look ... young Nell knew everything now—all about feelings and life and colour ... she knew what feelings were when Timothy’s hand lay on her bare arm; and life was—Oh, but she mustn’t tell ... not yet ... you wouldn’t understand, because it’s all got to do with Timothy. And colour was what happened to Timothy if near to him she stirred or brushed his khaki sleeve....
She lay on her back among the buttercups; staring into the sky, and thinking. ”

“ Theatricality is only a species of fat. If you strip yourself because it gives opportunity for your dramatic faculties, you’re feeding hard, all the time; feeding on the astounded faces of your friends, on your own ringing accents, on the picturesque contrast of your life as it was yesterday to what it will be to-morrow. You mustn’t be picturesque, Levi, your tawny locks are against you as it is. Your forty bob a week will ensure you a pleasantly mediocre existence in a furnished bed-sitting-room.”
Sebastian looked worried; he wished Stuart would not exhibit so many mental acrobatics. ”

“ With the tremulous daring of a man who has caught a glimpse of a woman's face once, swiftly, by night, and has feared to see it the morning after, in case it should prove less lovely—yet longed to gaze upon it and gaze upon it, that each subtle curve, each fleck of colour, might at last grow familiar to him as the sunshine, so Gareth set out, the morning after arrival at Rapparee House, to explore minutely that harbour which Heaven had dumped for his delight beneath his attic window. ”

“ And suddenly Ferdie was dead—and she saw that loop with the dangling ends, and it struck her painfully that she would never again see it round Ferdie’s neck, plum and blue stem to that genial rubicund face with the kind eyes ... Dad was dead ... everybody dies....
Whether she had been vouchsafed a swift keyhole peep at an inevitable future, or if the vision were merely a childish drench of sentiment—whichever it was, it sent Deb straight past grandfather’s sarcastic smile and Aunt Stella’s antagonism, to her knees beside Ferdie’s chair—snuggled up against him—Thank God, he was not dead yet! ”

“ The white skimming sail would have been here a strange anomaly, and the supple curve of pleasure boat. With grimness tempered to mystery by their flying streamers of smoke, the black trading-vessels alone ruffled the even slant of the water, flowing, rippling, landwards to the Haven.
Here then, Stuart passed the days following his renunciation of Peter. He was disappointed that the detached exultation of spirit was absent, that should have rewarded the man with will strong enough to perpetrate a theory. ”

“ And suddenly Richard stood still and began to laugh. And what chance of defence had a man standing beside a bursting bomb thrown by an unseen hand from fifty yards away? Little silly, fretful rules—with death and destruction and decay streaming wide over one country after another; whirring in the very air above God’s churches; throbbing in the sea under the millionaire’s pleasure-ship; each individual helplessly involved with their bodies or with their goods or with their hearts. Then, what the devil is the use of some abstract gabble about the conventions of a game? ”

“ Then was Pat O'Neill himself Robert Nugent, the hero of the novel; the man so magnetic, so clear of brain, so full of ordinary human exasperating faults, of unexpected laughter, that his swift death in the last chapter caused a shock of rising tears to Gareth as he read of it. The theme now lay proven: that who lives his life as a conscious experience, must equally in this spirit accept death—more than accept it—go voluntarily to meet it ... even if he has from the very beginning carried deeply the panic of death in his soul. ”

“ Peter was seeing it now: “You will begin to take me for granted, and not strain to please me. And I—I might possibly become exacting——”
“That phase would pass as well. We should grow older, more comfortable, wonder what the uneasiness had all been about, and the sense of loss. Impulse would slip away and topsy-turvydom and conceit”—Stuart waxed pathetic at the contemplated loss of his insufferable bumptiousness,—“and, sane together, we will wonder we could ever have been mad together. If I must age to sanity, damn it! I’ll face the process alone.” ”

“ That where Gareth's own shrinking delicacy guessed instinctively how she could be hurt, and spared her whenever possible, insulting her doubly by his forbearance, Napier remained sublimely unaware of such matters as the approach of winter, and bathroom taps, and the strain of glamouring where glamour was no more, and the terror of forty-three next birthday, and a temper that had been chafed by daily intimacy with incompetence till it was harsh as the taste of blood in the mouth. ”

“ Home-life did not exist for the Kochs; every evening, when no set form of entertainment was offered, Felix and Marianna, Deb and Richard, sat in the big restaurant in Lindenstrasse; sat there for two or three hours, drinking coffee or syrups, eating sweet cloying cakes; while the men roared their politics or slammed the domino-cubes on the table, and slowly obliterated their womenfolk in clouds of foul smoke. The group about the Kochs was always a large one, and included the younger brothers who had been hastily sent for from neighbouring towns on rumour of Deb’s enormous dowry. ”

“ Oh, Lord! would he grow, or rather dwindle, thus, if he went into his father’s business and accepted chunks of his father’s income? Was he started on that way, the night he had prattled so absurdly of his happiness to Stuart?... Damn Stuart! always the point swung back to that imperturbable gentleman. And how could a fellow explain to Levi, of The Stores, High Holborn, the bewildering and topsy-turvy morality of the shears? Sebastian plunged—fatally:
“It’s just because of myself, father. It isn’t that I feel in the least that I oughtn’t to be enjoying my income because other people have less. ”