High Street, she caught a glimpse of her Uncle Jeremy letting himself into his front door. He looked, Lynn thought, very much older just in these last three weeks.
She quickened her pace. She wanted to get out of Warmsley Vale, up on to the hills and open spaces. Setting out at a brisk pace she soon felt better. She would go for a good tramp of six or seven miles - and really think things out. Always, all her life, she had been a resolute clearheaded person. She had known what she wanted and what she didn't want. Never, until now, had she been content just to drift along...
Yes, that was just what it was! Drifting along! An aimless, formless method of living. Ever since she had come out of the Service. A wave of nostalgia swept over her for those war days. Days when duties were clearly defined, when life was planned and orderly - when the weight of individual decisions had been lifted from her. But even as she formulated the idea, she was horrified at herself. Was that really and truly what people were secretly feeling elsewhere? Was that what, ultimately, war did to you? It was not the physical dangers - the mines at sea, the bombs from the air, the crisp ping of a rifle bullet as you drove over a desert track. No, it was the spiritual danger of learning how much easier life was if you ceased to think... She, Lynn Marchmont, was no longer the clearheaded resolute intelligent girl who had joined up. Her intelligence had been specialised, directed in well-defined channels. Now mistress of herself and her life once more, she was appalled at the disinclination of her mind to seize and grapple with her own personal problems.
With a sudden wry smile, Lynn thought to herself: Odd if it's really that newspaper character “the housewife” who has come into her own through war conditions. The women who, hindered by innumerable “shall nots,” were not helped by any definite “shalls.” Women who had to plan and think and improvise, who had to use every inch of the ingenuity they had been given, and to develop an ingenuity that they didn't know they had got! They alone, thought Lynn now, could stand upright without a crutch, responsible for themselves and others.
And she, Lynn Marchmont, well educated, clever, having done a job that needed brains and close application, was now rudderless, devoid of resolution - yes, hateful word: drifting...
The people who had stayed at home, Rowley, for instance.
But at once Lynn's mind dropped from vague generalities to the immediate personal.
Herself and Rowley. That was the problem, the real problem - the only problem.
Did she really want to marry Rowley?
Slowly the shadows lengthened to twilight and dusk. Lynn sat motionless, her chin cupped in her hands on the outskirts of a small copse on the hillside, looking down over the valley. She had lost count of time, but she knew that she was strangely reluctant to go home to the White House.
Below her, away to the left, was Long Willows. Long Willows, her home if she married Rowley.
If! It came back to that - if - if - if!
A bird flew out of the wood with a startled cry like the cry of an angry child.
A billow of smoke from a train went eddying up in the sky forming as it did so a giant question mark:
Shall I marry Rowley? Do I want to marry Rowley? Did I ever want to marry Rowley? Could I bear not to marry Rowley?
The train puffed away up the valley, the smoke quivered and dispersed. But the question mark did not fade from Lynn's mind.
She had loved Rowley before she went away. “But I've come home changed,” she thought. “I'm not the same Lynn.” A line of poetry flared into her mind. “Life and the world and mine own self are changed...”
And Rowley? Rowley hadn't changed.
Yes, that was it. Rowley hadn't changed. Rowley was where she had left him four years ago.
Did she want to marry Rowley? If not, what did she want?
Twigs cracked in the copse behind her and a man's voice cursed as he pushed his way through.
She
She quickened her pace. She wanted to get out of Warmsley Vale, up on to the hills and open spaces. Setting out at a brisk pace she soon felt better. She would go for a good tramp of six or seven miles - and really think things out. Always, all her life, she had been a resolute clearheaded person. She had known what she wanted and what she didn't want. Never, until now, had she been content just to drift along...
Yes, that was just what it was! Drifting along! An aimless, formless method of living. Ever since she had come out of the Service. A wave of nostalgia swept over her for those war days. Days when duties were clearly defined, when life was planned and orderly - when the weight of individual decisions had been lifted from her. But even as she formulated the idea, she was horrified at herself. Was that really and truly what people were secretly feeling elsewhere? Was that what, ultimately, war did to you? It was not the physical dangers - the mines at sea, the bombs from the air, the crisp ping of a rifle bullet as you drove over a desert track. No, it was the spiritual danger of learning how much easier life was if you ceased to think... She, Lynn Marchmont, was no longer the clearheaded resolute intelligent girl who had joined up. Her intelligence had been specialised, directed in well-defined channels. Now mistress of herself and her life once more, she was appalled at the disinclination of her mind to seize and grapple with her own personal problems.
With a sudden wry smile, Lynn thought to herself: Odd if it's really that newspaper character “the housewife” who has come into her own through war conditions. The women who, hindered by innumerable “shall nots,” were not helped by any definite “shalls.” Women who had to plan and think and improvise, who had to use every inch of the ingenuity they had been given, and to develop an ingenuity that they didn't know they had got! They alone, thought Lynn now, could stand upright without a crutch, responsible for themselves and others.
And she, Lynn Marchmont, well educated, clever, having done a job that needed brains and close application, was now rudderless, devoid of resolution - yes, hateful word: drifting...
The people who had stayed at home, Rowley, for instance.
But at once Lynn's mind dropped from vague generalities to the immediate personal.
Herself and Rowley. That was the problem, the real problem - the only problem.
Did she really want to marry Rowley?
Slowly the shadows lengthened to twilight and dusk. Lynn sat motionless, her chin cupped in her hands on the outskirts of a small copse on the hillside, looking down over the valley. She had lost count of time, but she knew that she was strangely reluctant to go home to the White House.
Below her, away to the left, was Long Willows. Long Willows, her home if she married Rowley.
If! It came back to that - if - if - if!
A bird flew out of the wood with a startled cry like the cry of an angry child.
A billow of smoke from a train went eddying up in the sky forming as it did so a giant question mark:
Shall I marry Rowley? Do I want to marry Rowley? Did I ever want to marry Rowley? Could I bear not to marry Rowley?
The train puffed away up the valley, the smoke quivered and dispersed. But the question mark did not fade from Lynn's mind.
She had loved Rowley before she went away. “But I've come home changed,” she thought. “I'm not the same Lynn.” A line of poetry flared into her mind. “Life and the world and mine own self are changed...”
And Rowley? Rowley hadn't changed.
Yes, that was it. Rowley hadn't changed. Rowley was where she had left him four years ago.
Did she want to marry Rowley? If not, what did she want?
Twigs cracked in the copse behind her and a man's voice cursed as he pushed his way through.
She
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