Echoes of the War by Sir James Matthew Barrie (hardest books to read txt) 📖

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MRS. TORRANCE. 'John!'

Emma cuffs her father playfully.

MR. TORRANCE. 'All very well, Emma, but it's past your bedtime.'

EMMA, indignantly, 'You can't expect me to sleep on a night like this.'

MR. TORRANCE. 'You can try.'

MRS. TORRANCE. '2nd Lieutenant! 2nd Lieutenant!'

MR. TORRANCE, alarmed, 'Ellen, don't break down. You promised.'

MRS. TORRANCE. 'I am not going to break down; but--but there is a photograph of Rogie when he was very small--'

MR. TORRANCE. 'Go to bed!'

MRS. TORRANCE. 'I happen--to have it in my pocket--'

ROGER. 'Don't bring it out, mater.'

MRS. TORRANCE. 'If I break down, John, it won't be owing to the picture itself so much as because of what is written on the back.'

She produces it dolefully.

MR. TORRANCE. 'Then don't look at the back.'

He takes it from her.

MRS. TORRANCE, not very hopeful of herself, 'But I know what is written on the back, "Roger John Torrance, aged two years four months, and thirty-three pounds."'

MR. TORRANCE. 'Correct.' She weeps softly. 'There, there, woman.' He signs imploringly to Emma.

EMMA, kissing him, 'I'm going to by-by. 'Night, mammy. 'Night, Rog.' She is about to offer him her cheek, then salutes instead, and rushes off, with Roger in pursuit.

MRS. TORRANCE. 'I shall leave you together, John.'

MR. TORRANCE, half liking it, but nervous, 'Do you think it's wise?' With a groan, 'You know what I am.'

MRS. TORRANCE. 'Do be nice to him, dear.' Roger's return finds her very artful indeed, 'I wonder where I put my glasses?'

ROGER. 'I'll look for them.'

MRS. TORRANCE. 'No, I remember now. They are upstairs in such a funny place that I must go myself. Do you remember, Rogie, that I hoped they would reject you on account of your eyes?'

ROGER. 'I suppose you couldn't help it.'

MRS. TORRANCE, beaming on her husband, 'Did you believe I really meant it, John?'

MR. TORRANCE, curious, 'Did _you_, Roger?'

ROGER. 'Of course. Didn't you, father?'

MR. TORRANCE. 'No! I knew the old lady better.'

He takes her hand.

MRS. TORRANCE, sweetly, 'I shouldn't have liked it, Rogie dear. I'll tell you something. You know your brother Harry died when he was seven. To you, I suppose, it is as if he had never been. You were barely five.

ROGER. 'I don't remember him, mater.'

MRS. TORRANCE. 'No--no. But I do, Rogie. He would be twenty-one now; but though you and Emma grew up I have always gone on seeing him as just seven. Always till the war broke out. And now I see him a man of twenty-one, dressed in khaki, fighting for his country, same as you. I wouldn't have had one of you stay at home, though I had had a dozen. That is, if it is the noble war they all say it is. I'm not clever, Rogie, I have to take it on trust. Surely they wouldn't deceive mothers. I'll get my glasses.'

She goes away, leaving the father and son somewhat moved. It is Mr. Torrance who speaks first, gruffly.

'Like to change your mother, Roger?'

The answer is also gruff. 'What do _you_ think?'

Then silence falls. These two are very conscious of being together, without so much as the tick of a clock to help them. The father clings to his cigar, sticks his knife into it, studies the leaf, tries crossing his legs another way. The son examines the pictures on the walls as if he had never seen them before, and is all the time edging toward the door.

Mr. Torrance wets his lips; it must be now or never, 'Not going, Roger?'

Roger counts the chairs. 'Yes, I thought--'

'Won't you--sit down and--have a chat?'

Roger is bowled over. 'A what? You and me!'

'Why not?' rather truculently.

'Oh--oh, all right,' sitting uncomfortably.

The cigar gets several more stabs.

'I suppose you catch an early train to-morrow?'

'The 5.20. I have flag-signalling at half-past six.'

'Phew! Hours before I shall be up.'

'I suppose so.'

'Well, you needn't dwell on it, Roger.'

Indignantly. 'I didn't.' He starts up. 'Good-night, father.'

'Good-night. Damn. Come back. My fault. Didn't I say I wanted to have a chat with you?'

'I thought we had had it.'

Gloomingly, 'No such luck.'

There is another pause. A frightened ember in the fire makes an appeal to some one to say something. Mr. Torrance rises. It is now he who is casting eyes at the door. He sits again, ashamed of himself.

'I like your uniform, Roger,' he says pleasantly.

Roger wriggles. 'Haven't you made fun of me enough?'

Sharply, 'I'm not making fun of you. Don't you see I'm trying to tell you that I'm proud of you?'

Roger is at last aware of it, with a sinking. He appeals, 'Good lord, father, _you_ are not going to begin now.'

The father restrains himself.

'Do you remember, Roger, my saying that I didn't want you to smoke till you were twenty?'

'Oh, it's that, is it?' Shutting his mouth tight, 'I never promised.'

Almost with a shout, 'It's not that.' Then kindly, 'Have a cigar, my boy?'

'Me?'

A rather shaky hand, passes him a cigar case. Roger selects from it and lights up nervously. He is now prepared for the worst.

'Have you ever wondered, Roger, what sort of a fellow I am?'

Guardedly, 'Often.'

Mr. Torrance casts all sense of decency to the winds; such is one of the effects of war.

'I have often wondered what sort of fellow you are, Roger. We have both been at it on the sly. I suppose that is what makes a father and son so uncomfortable in each other's presence.'

Roger is not yet prepared to meet him half-way, but he casts a line.

'Do you feel the creeps when you are left alone with me?'

'Mortally, Roger. My first instinct is to slip away.'

'So is mine,' with deep feeling.

'You don't say so!' with such surprise that the father undoubtedly goes up a step in the son's estimation. 'I always seem to know what you are thinking, Roger.'

'Do you? Same here.'

'As a consequence it is better, it is right, it is only decent that you and I should be very chary of confidences with each other.'

Roger is relieved. 'I'm dashed glad you see it in that way.'

'Oh, quite. And yet, Roger, if you had to answer this question on oath, "Whom do you think you are most like in this world?" I don't mean superficially, but deep down in your vitals, what would you say? Your mother, your uncle, one of your friends on the golf links?'

'No.'

'Who?'

Darkly, 'You.'

'Just how I feel.'

There is such true sympathy in the manly avowal that Roger cannot but be brought closer to his father.

'It's pretty ghastly, father.'

'It is. I don't know which it is worse for.'

They consider each other without bitterness.

'You are a bit of a wag at times, Roger.'

'You soon shut me up.'

'I have heard that you sparkle more freely in my absence.'

'They say the same about you.'

'And now that you mention it, I believe it is true; and yet, isn't it a bigger satisfaction to you to catch me relishing your jokes than any other person?'

Roger's eyes open wide. 'How did you know that?'

'Because I am so bucked if I see you relishing mine.'

'_Are_ you?' Roger's hold on the certain things in life are slipping. 'You don't show it.'

'That is because of our awkward relationship.'

Roger lapses into gloom. 'We have got to go through with it.'

His father kicks the coals. 'There's no way out.'

'No.'

'We have, as it were, signed a compact, Roger, never to let on that we care for each other. As gentlemen we must stick to it.'

'Yes. What are you getting at, father?'

'There is a war on, Roger.'

'That needn't make any difference.'

'Yes, it does. Roger, be ready; I hate to hit you without warning. I'm going to cast a grenade into the middle of you. It's this, I'm fond of you, my boy.'

Roger squirms. 'Father, if any one were to hear you!'

'They won't. The door is shut, Amy is gone to bed, and all is quiet in our street. Won't you--won't you say something civil to me in return, Roger?'

Roger looks at him and away from him. 'I sometimes--bragged about you at school.'

Mr. Torrance is absurdly pleased. 'Did you? What sort of things, Roger?'

'I--I forget.'

'Come on, Roger.'

'Is this fair, father?'

'No, I suppose it isn't.' Mr. Torrance attacks the coals again. 'You and your mother have lots of confidences, haven't you?'

'I tell her a good deal. Somehow--'

'Yes, somehow one can.' With the artfulness that comes of years, 'I'm glad you tell her everything.'

Roger looks down his cigar. 'Not everything, father. There are things--about oneself--'

'Aren't there, Roger!'

'Best not to tell her.'

'Yes--yes. If there are any of them you would care to tell me instead--just if you want to, mind--just if you are in a hole or anything?'

'No thanks,' very stiffly.

'Any little debts, for instance?'

'That's all right now. Mother--'

'She did?'

Roger is ready to jump at him. 'I was willing to speak to you about them, but--'

'She said, "Not worth while bothering father."'

'How did you know?'

'Oh, I have met your mother before, you see. Nothing else?'

'No.'

'Haven't been an ass about a girl or anything of that sort?''

'Good lord, father!'

'I shouldn't have said it. In my young days we sometimes--It's all different now.'

'I don't know, I could tell you things that would surprise you.'

'No! Not about yourself?'

'No. At least--'

'Just as you like, Roger.'

'It blew over long ago.'

'Then there's no need?'

'No--oh no. It was just--you know--the old, old story.'

He eyes his father suspiciously, but not a muscle in Mr. Torrance's countenance is out of place.

'I see. It hasn't--left you bitter about the sex, Roger, I hope?'

'Not now. She--you know what women are.'

'Yes, yes.'

'You needn't mention it to mother.'

'I won't.' Mr. Torrance is elated to share a secret with Roger about which mother is not to know. 'Think your mother and I are an aged pair, Roger?'

'I never--of course you are not young.'

'How long have you known that? I mean, it's true--but I didn't know it till quite lately.'

'That you're old?'

'Hang it, Roger, not so bad as that--elderly. This will stagger you; but I assure you that until the other day I jogged along thinking of myself as on the whole still one of the juveniles.' He makes a wry face. 'I crossed the bridge, Roger, without knowing it.'

'What made you know?'

'What makes us know all the new things, Roger?--the war. I'll tell you a secret. When we realised in August of 1914 that myriads of us were to be needed, my first thought wasn't that I had a son, but that I must get fit myself.'