The Rise of Henry Morcar (52 page)

He wondered what went on within the two fair heads below. The girls were looking up at him; Fan wore a sardonic defiant grin, Jenny a fine quiet smile. Through his own mind now raced pictures of his life; things he had not thought of, people he had not seen, for years, came up before him fresh and vivid as when they were real, but with the added significance lent to them by later events.

“Scenes from the life of Henry Morcar,” he thought sardonically. “Well! I hope this is not the last of the series.”

In silence they waited for the bomb to fall.

The impact was terrific, so that Morcar shut his eyes and crouched. The floor waved sickeningly, plaster flaked thickly from the ceiling and rained down on their shoulders, glass crashed and tinkled and went on crashing and tinkling, outside there was the long rumbling groan of collapsing buildings, a stifling brown dust rose about them, something heavy flew across the room and struck the wall within an inch of Jenny's head. It was the lock of the door, Morcar discovered, cautiously opening his eyes; he had stupidly forgotten to stand the door ajar, and the blast had cut the lock as neatly out as if the heavy panelled wood were made of butter. Five long nails securing the lock had buried themselves in the wall.

Slowly the noise subsided; the floor settled into the horizontal plane; everything was suddenly very still except the glass, which went on tinkling and crashing, and the brown dust in the air, which circled upwards in slow sinister curls. The all-clear sounded. Morcar drew a long breath.

“Well!” he said.

Fan sprang up and began to shake herself and Jenny free of plaster. Morcar gave Jenny his hand and helped her to her feet.

“We're alive, it seems,” he said, astonished.

“Seems so!” said Fan, perky as ever though trembling slightly.

All of a sudden they began to laugh and talk at the top of their voices. Look at the lock! Look at those nails! Look at the plaster! Look at the dust! “Oh, Uncle Harry!” cried Fan, running in and out: “Look at your bottles!” He went towards
the sitting-room. For some reason he seemed to be limping uncomfortably; he glanced down and found that the blast had removed the sole from his left shoe. His decanters and bottles had leaped from the sideboard; some had accomplished the leap safely, more had perished. The windows were now open spaces surrounded by jagged spikes; the mirrors were all cracked, pictures were awry. There did not, however, appear to be any structural damage to the walls. Fan, with little fluttering exclamations, began to tidy, to repair such damage as was not beyond her skill, to restore cushions, to straighten pictures.

“If I had a broom,” she said, “and a dustpan, I could do wonders with that glass.”

The hall porter came in with a rather mottled countenance, to see if anyone were hurt. The bomb had struck a building at the back of Morcar's flat, about fifty yards distant, on the side away from the Park.

“Fifty yards!” marvelled Morcar. “If it's like that at fifty, what is it like at ten?”

“Don't, Uncle Harry!” Fan begged him, pretending to shudder. “Porter, could I have a broom?”

“You'd best not touch anything, miss, unless you wear thick gloves,” recommended the man. “And don't sit down, sir.” He indicated to Morcar a cretonne-covered armchair of which every inch was penetrated with pointed slivers of glass.

“I think I'll take these young ladies home. Perhaps you can clear up a little meanwhile?” said Morcar.

Jenny had picked her way to the glassless window and was looking out. The other two now joined her. The brown dust was settling, and the space where it had previously formed a house could be seen. “That's dust to dust indeed,” thought Morcar. Rescue workers were already on the job, searching the débris for casualties. The other dwellers in the street, with that gay courage which Morcar could not sufficiently admire, were already out in the roadway shaking their carpets to remove the glass, making jokes to each other about their experiences during the falling of the bomb.

“I shan't have to do my washing-up, anyway, 'cos there ain't no china left to wash,” cackled a Cockney voice.

“I thought the cat was blasted in the bath, but it was only a bottle of red nail-polish,” floated up in very Oxfordian tones.

“A great people,” thought Morcar, smiling, reminded somehow of his grandfather's deathbed. “Well, girls; I think we'd better go while the going's good.”

He went into his bedroom to change his shoes. The telephone rang. Morcar picked it up impatiently.

“Harry Morcar.”

“Oh, Harry, is it you? Oh, Harry! Are you safe? Is Jenny there? Is she safe?”

“We're all quite safe, Christina,” said Morcar soothingly.

“Wasn't that one near you, then?”

“Yes, it was rather,” said Morcar. “Just at the back of our street. The flat's knocked about a bit, but nothing much really.” Because while they waited for the doodle-bug to fall he had been thinking of all the long course of his association with Christina, he was off his guard and his voice was particularly loving. He looked up to find Jenny standing in the doorway gazing at him. Startled, he went on hastily: “Jenny's here—would you like to speak to her? I'm bringing her home at once.”

“Yes, oh yes. Be sure to come in, Harry,” said Christina in her soft graceful tones. “I was so worried about you. Bring Jenny now—Edward is troubled about her being out.”

“She must come up north with me tomorrow,” said Morcar firmly.

“Yes, I quite agree. Edward quite agrees. Is that you, Jenny my darling?”

When Jenny had spoken a few reassuring words the three left at once, and reached the nearest Underground station without hearing another siren. On their way Fan saw a half-empty bus which she said would take her all the way home, but Morcar suggested grimly that if the bus were empty it was empty for a very good reason; Fan must travel cosily under ground or cease to consider herself his daughter-in-law elect. Fan pouted but smiled, and obediently descended into the safe earth. She went north, Morcar and Jenny west towards Notens Square.

“Oh, what a bore!” exclaimed Jenny as they emerged at the Kensington station, pointing. The
Alert
board was displayed, and indeed another flying-bomb could be heard approaching through the air. “How many is this since dinner?”

“Eight, I think.”

“I counted seventeen in bed last night,” said Jenny. “Seventeen loud ones, I mean; I don't count them if they're a long way off.”

“Jenny, you must give up your job and come north,” said Morcar firmly. “You owe it to David's child, you know.”

“I begin to think perhaps I must,” said Jenny thoughtfully.

They were interrupted by the noise of the bomb, which came flying directly overhead. The summer dusk was beginning to fall, and the red glare in the tail could be seen distinctly. The doodle-bug, emitting its hideous steady roar, whizzed in a business-like manner diagonally across the street just above housetop level, curved around to the left, and dived. One
minute its graceful form, tilted at a steep angle, could be seen silhouetted against the greenish sky; the next there came the loud explosion, the rumbling groan of falling buildings, the crash and tinkle of falling glass, the swirling brown dust, the nauseating heave of the pavement beneath their feet.

“I should get tired of these if I lived in London,” said Morcar in a peevish tone. “Come along, Jenny—we'd better hurry before the next one comes along. Yes—there goes the all-clear.”

He took her arm and urged her forward, but to his surprise she hung on him heavily and did not move.

“Anything wrong?” he asked quickly.

Jenny's face was white. She looked very steadily in the direction where the bomb had fallen.

“My God!” cried Morcar. “You don't think—”

On a common impulse they started forward. “I don't think it was anywhere near Notens Square,” said Morcar.

“No, nor do I,” said Jenny. “Still, one wants to know—”

“Of course,” said Morcar. “Naturally. One wants to know. Just to be sure. One gets these frights and afterwards of course laughs at them. I don't think it was anywhere near.”

His voice grew more and more uneasy as they drew nearer, till at last it was thick with anguish, for he saw all the familiar apparatus of rescue preceding them along the streets. They hurried, panting; their feet felt leaden, as in a nightmare, they seemed to walk for hours and find themselves still in the same dreary place.

“Some people say we get so many bombs in this district because Montgomery has his headquarters somewhere near,” panted Jenny. “But I don't know if it's true.”

“I don't think they can be steered much,” said Morcar. “These doodle-bugs, I mean.”

“No. I expect not.”

“We're nearly there now, love,” said Morcar soothingly. “And then we shall see.”

They turned into the Square. Pushing past Civil Defence men, heavy rescue men, ambulance, police, they at last turned the corner whence they could see the Haringtons' house.

But there was no house there.

Morcar gave Jenny into the care of neighbours, and flinging off his coat, went to work with the rescue men who were lifting beams and dragging away stones. He worked with frantic haste and energy; sweat poured down his face, he tore his hands and strained his muscles; he used his strength to its full force, as he had never really used it before.

Darkness fell; powerful arc lights were fixed in the street.
A crane was brought and rigged, and at last came into action. The men worked on and Morcar worked with them.

In the early hours of the morning they drew the crushed bodies of Edward and Christina Harington from the ruins.

Never on earth again

Shall I before her stand

Touch lip or hand
.

Never on earth again …

IT WAS touching, thought Morcar, to see how the shops in Annotsfield had all contrived with the limited means at their command to make some display of red white and blue. Those which owned flags of course hung them out proudly, but bunting and paper were in short supply in the England of 1945, and all of these commodities on view were relics of a more abundant age. But the dress shops had dresses of red white blue, hat shops had raked out the oddest looking old millinery of the right colours to show their delight in the nation's victory; shoe shops sported red bedroom slippers, old white ballroom sandals, blue wooden shoes of wartime manufacture; even fishmongers had secured flowers of the proper shades and arranged them on their marble slabs. All had left their blinds undrawn so that their rejoicing might be visible. In the streets, the girls wore red white and blue snoods round their hair, the children were dazzling in bows and coloured handkerchiefs; even the men, though rather shamefaced about it in the British fashion, sported neat rosettes in their buttonholes. The radiators of cars and buses were decked with ribbons and small flags.

Morcar made his way to the Annotsfield Town Hall, for it had been stated in the
Annotsfield Recorder
that two hours after the official announcement of victory the Mayor would conduct a brief expression of the general thanksgiving there. A roaring happy crowd was waiting for the Mayor to appear on the balcony, and listening to the bells of the churches, which were ringing in changes and peals. Just as he arrived a squad of cheerful-looking soldiers, even the sergeant mildly beaming, marched up and arranged themselves in a square in front of the Town Hall, which was festooned with flags and fairy lights. The soldiers began to play military marches; the drummer in his leopard-skin banging away with great gusto. Policemen, smiling all over their faces, wrestled amicably with the crowd and answered innumerable questions. Babies crowed and wept, the shrill voices of children made an incessant treble vibration, everyone laughed and chattered at the top of their voice. “Let the little 'uns through!” cried a woman in the front row suddenly, turning. On a common impulse the crowd obeyed her; a narrow lane was made down which the children were pushed, and soon a deep fringe of small boys and girls, laughing, tossing their heads, restlessly jumping and pointing in joyous excitement, was formed
in front, where the view of the proceedings would be uninterrupted. Press photographers climbed the buttresses of the Town Hall and snapped the scene from various angles.

The mace-bearer came out on the balcony; the Mayor in robes and chain, the Town Clerk in wig and gown, the Mayor's chaplain in his best black, followed him. The crowd fell silent and gazed up intently. In a Yorkshire voice uneven with emotion the Mayor read out a simple speech, to which the crowd—though many of them could not hear, for the loud-speakers crackled—listened respectfully. The Mayor called for three cheers, and a shy ragged sound began which presently became rolling and deep-throated. The chaplain now stepped forward and conducted a brief service. The people sang the doxology (which they did not know very well, observed Morcar; he himself had to fish it out of his boyhood's memories) and repeated the Lord's Prayer in a mumble. Then a couple of soldiers wearing white bandoliers raised trumpets to their lips.

The strange high notes of the
Cease Fire
, so melancholy even in triumph, rang out over the crowd, who were suddenly very silent. Their faces, very still and sober, revealed that their thoughts were with those whom they had lost during the war. Morcar thought of Christina. He missed her bitterly, painfully, continually. He was achingly lonely without her. He thought now of her beauty, her lovely compassion, her gentleness, her eager wish to make everyone happy.

Always as then she was
,

Loveliest, brightest, best
,

Blessing and blest
.

Always as then she was
…

“If I caused you suffering by my selfish passion, my darling,” thought Morcar: “I beg your forgiveness. You were the true and only joy of my life.”