Джеймс Хилтон - Morning Journey

“And you WOULD help him then?”

“If he were in a mood to take what he could get I’d certainly put in a word.”

“That’s reasonable, Austen,” she said again. “Very reasonable.”

But the word ‘reasonable’ was so dubious to her that she could hardly speak it without catching an ironic sound in her own voice. Suddenly she noticed that his face was pale and that he was taking, unusually for him at that time of day, an extra drink.

They did not discuss Paul again at dinner, nor during the days that followed, and the longer he was not mentioned the harder it became for her to broach the subject, though she often wanted to. For there were many things she was anxious to know—whether, for instance, Paul had followed up his meeting with Austen by making any direct request for help. And there was the disquieting possibility that he might have written to her, or telephoned, or even called at the house again, and that on Austen’s instructions some message had been intercepted. More than once she decided to take up with Austen this matter of the orders he had given to the servants, but each time when the chance came she said nothing, unwilling to start an argument that might make them both unhappy.

She was conscious, since the meeting with Paul, that some strain was on her life with Austen—probably nothing serious or lasting, just a faint shadow on the happiness she had so long enjoyed.

Then they had news of Norris that took all other things out of their minds.

Norris, having driven an ambulance for four years and in two continents without serious mishap, drove a jeep into the Rhine on a dark night six months after the war in Europe was over. He was nearly drowned and had injuries besides. At first these were thought to be severe, but just when Austen was arranging to fly to a hospital at Coblenz, wires he had already pulled began to operate and Norris was flown across the Atlantic. He arrived at LaGuardia on a December morning, Carey and his father meeting him. To their relief he could walk, the damage being mainly to one arm, and within a week (again thanks to Austen’s intervention which he never discovered) he was mustered out and convalescing at the farm.

But he failed to recover quickly to normal, whatever normal was, and it was also clear that either the accident or the cumulative experience of war had (to use another of the clichés) ‘done something’ to him. WHAT was the problem.

There was certainly a development from the boy to the man, yet also from the boy who had been precocious for his age to a man who, in a way that was rarely but acutely discernible, seemed to have held on to some delicate boyishness as healing aid to a troubled spirit. The doctors talked of long-deferred fatigue which the car smash and the half-drowning had unloosed; as a short-range diagnosis it doubtless fitted the symptoms, which were an excitability alternating with long periods of lethargy during which he did not seem interested in either events or people. But perhaps he was, in some way of his own. He read a good deal, and Carey was surprised to notice that many of the books were solid stuff—history, anthropology, religion, mysticism. Fortunately he had the desire for rest, which was what he most needed, and his old hostility to his father was less evident, as if it were part of an energy he no longer possessed. To Austen this dubious change brought great joy. He spent hours with Norris, talking, reading, listening to the radio, often merely sitting silently in an opposite armchair while Norris dozed; and when business took him to New York he urged Carey not to leave the boy alone too much, though she herself did not think Norris minded being alone. It was certainly quiet at the farm while Austen was away, sometimes for several days during mid-week. Mrs. Grainger, whom Carey liked, did the cooking, and there was no fuss or commotion—none of the well-oiled superfluousness of the routine when Austen brought the other servants along. Carey helped Mrs. Grainger with the house-work, and Norris, using his uninjured arm, seemed to like doing small chores on his own. If he did not speak for hours on end, Carey did not bother him, but if he felt inclined for chatter, or nonsense, or even serious conversation, she was always ready. Once she found him reading Thoreau, about whom he commented: “I don’t think I’d have liked this fellow personally, but I admire his pose. Nobody ever did it better.”

“You mean the simple life—Walden Pond? Don’t you think he was sincere?”

“Up to a point. But to enjoy the simple life you really ought to be simple, whereas to write so well about it you have to be complicated. I’ve a feeling Thoreau enjoyed it chiefly because he liked to write about it.”

“Why don’t you work up that idea into a critical article?”

“Trying to find me some occupational therapy? That’s what they call it in the hospitals.”

“Of course not. I just thought it sounded an interesting idea. For the Atlantic or Harper’s, if it turned out well enough.”

“I doubt if it would… If I had any talent, I think I’d rather paint than write.”

“How do you know you haven’t any?”

“That’s the come-on for all the racket schools.”

“I know, but if you could get any fun out of it, why not try?”

She bought him paints, easel, canvases, and a book of technical instruction, and to her pleasure he found an interest that at times almost amounted to enthusiasm. If there were sun she would carry his equipment to some sheltered spot outdoors, and on bad-weather days he did still-lifes in one room or another. He had talent, but not much, as he soon became ruefully aware. Sometimes, and also for nothing but fun, Carey painted with him, the same scene or model, and her effort was usually better than his, but still not in any way remarkable.

“A couple of amateurs,” he commented. “How you’d despise anyone on our level in the theatre!”

“Probably. One’s always intolerant of the non-professional in one’s own profession.”

“You still feel acting is that—to you?”

“I expect I always shall.”

“Any new play in prospect?”

“Not at present.”

“Looking for one?”

“Not particularly. I think I need a rest almost as much as you do.”

“Father never really liked you being in plays, did he?”

“I wouldn’t say he was keen on it, but during the war he didn’t seem to mind.”

“Maybe he counted it a sort of war work.”

“Maybe. Or perhaps he thought the war was an excuse for anything.”

“Well, it just about was.”

They went on putting finishing touches to their canvases. They had chosen a grouping of fruit and bottles on a tray beside a window, but the lighting and reflections were beyond their skill and the result was only middling. They knew that, yet they kept on, as if impelled by a desire more tolerable because the whole thing so clearly did not matter.

“We’re pretty hopeless,” she said seriously, studying her own attempt and assuming his was as bad.

“But it’s quite as sensible,” he answered, between brush-strokes, “as playing bridge.”

“I hope so, because I do that badly too, and your father’s so good. I always envy him at parties.”

“But he doesn’t dance and you dance beautifully.”

“So do you.”

“I’ll dance with you when my arm’s better.”

“Good.”

And after a pause: “By the way… did they ever give any details about the accident?”

“YOUR accident? THEY?”

“Anybody.”

“No—at least I never heard.”

“Well, it’s not much of a story. I was driving a girl home after a dance. She was killed.”

“Oh, Norris… I didn’t have any idea of that.” She put down her brushes and he did also, neither of them giving another look to model or canvas. She began to tidy up, then. “That’s dreadful… Were you… were you very fond of her?”