 Chapter 26 of A Sun At The Front. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Claire Wild. A Sun At The Front by Edith Wharton. Chapter 26. From the room where he sat at the foot of George's glossy white bed, Captain, through the open door, could watch the November sun slanting down a white ward where, in the lane between other white beds, pots of chrysanthemums stood on white covered tables. Through the window his eyes rested incredulously on a court enclosed in monastic arches of grey stone with squares of turf bordered by box hedges and a fountain playing. Beyond the court sloped the faded foliage of a park not yet entirely stripped by channel gales and, on days without wind, instead of the boom of the guns, the roar of the sea came faintly over into veining heights and hollows. Captain's ears were even more incredulous than his eyes. He was gradually coming to believe in George's white room, the ward beyond, the flowers between the beds, the fountain in the court. But the sound of the sea still came to him, intolerably but unescapably, as the crash of guns. When the impression was too overwhelming, he would turn away from the window and cast his glance on the bed, but only to find that the smooth young face on the pillow had suddenly changed into that of the haggard, bearded stranger on the wooden pallet at Dulong. And Captain would have to get up, lean over and catch the twinkle in George's eyes before the evil spell was broken. Few words passed between them. George, after all these days, was still too weak for much talk and silence had always been Captain's escape from feeling. He never had the need to speak in times of inward stress, unless it would event his anger, as in that hateful scene at Dulong between himself and Mr. Brandt. But he was sure that George always knew what was passing through his mind, that when the sea boomed, their thoughts flew back together to that other scene, but a few miles and a few days distant, yet already as far off, as much an affair they were both rid of, as a nightmare to awaken sleeper, and that for a moment the same vision clutched them both, knocking their attempts at indifference. Not that the sound, to Captain at any rate, suggested any abstract conception of war. Looking back, afterward, at this phase of his life, he perceived that at no time had he thought so little of the war. The noise of the sea was, to him, simply the voice of the engine which had so nearly destroyed his son. That association, deeply embedded in his half-dazed consciousness, left no room for others. The general impression of unreality was enhanced by his not having yet been able to learn the details of George's wounding. After a week, during which the boy had hung near death, the great surgeon, returning to Dulong just as Captain had finally ceased to hope for him, had announced that, though George's state was still grave, he might be moved to a hospital at the rear. So, one day, miraculously, the perilous transfer had been made in one of Mrs Brandt's own motor ambulances, and for a week now, George had lain in his white bed, hung over by white gown sisters in an atmosphere of sweetness and order, which almost made it seem as if he were a child recovering from illness in his own nursery, or a red-haired baby sparring with dimpled fists at a new world. In truth, Captain found his son as hard to get at as a baby. He looked at his father with eyes as void of experience, or at least of any means of conveying it. Captain, at first, could only marvel and wait, and the isolation in which the two were enclosed by George's weakness, and by his father's inability to learn from others what the boy was not yet able to tell him, gave a strange remoteness to everything but the things which count in an infant's world, food, warmth, sleep. Captain's nearest approach to reality was his daily scrutiny of the temperature chart. He studied it, as he used to study the communiqué, which he now no longer even thought of. Sometimes, when George was asleep, Captain would sit, pondering on the days at Doulomb. There was an exquisite joy in silently building up on that foundation of darkness and anguish, the walls of peace that now surrounded him, a structure so transparent that one could peer through it at the rooted furies, yet so impenetrable that he sat there in a kind of god-like aloofness. For one thing, he was especially thankful. That was the conclusion of his unseemly wrangle with Mr. Brandt. Thankful that almost at once, he had hurried after the banker, caught up with him, and stammered out, clutching his hand, I know, I know how you feel. Mr. Brandt's reactions were never rapid, and the events of the preceding days had called upon faculties that were almost atrophied. He had merely looked at Campton in mute distress, returned his pressure, and silently remounted the hospital stairs with him. Campton hated himself for his ill temper, but was glad, even at the time, that no interested motive had prompted his apology. He should have hated himself even more if he had asked the banker's pardon because of Mr. Brandt's poem and the uses to which it might be put, or even if he had associated his excuses with any past motives of gratitude, such as the fact that, but for Mr. Brandt, he might never have reached George's side. Instead of that, he simply felt that once more his senseless violence had got the better of him, and he was sorry that he had behaved like a brute to a man who loved George and was suffering almost as much as he was at the thought that George might die. After that episode, and Campton's apology, the relations of the two men became so easy that each gradually came to take the other for granted, and Mr. Brandt, relieved of a perpetual hostile scrutiny, was free to exercise his ingenuity in planning and managing. It was owing to him, Campton no longer minded admitting it, that the famous surgeon had hastened his return to Doulomb, that George's translation to the sweet monastic building near the sea had been so rapidly affected, and that the great man, appearing there soon afterward, had extracted the bullet with his own hand. But for Mr. Brandt's persistence, even the leave to bring one of Mrs. Brandt's motor ambulances to Doulomb would never have been given, and it might have been fatal to George to make the journey in a slow and jolting military train. But for Mr. Brandt, again, he would have been sent to a crowded military hospital instead of being brought to this white haven of rest. And all that just because I overtook him in time to prevent his jumping into his motor and going back to Paris in order to get out of my way. Campton at the thought lowered his spirit into new depths of contrition. George, who had been asleep, opened his eyes and looked at his father. Where's Uncle Andy? Gone to Paris to get your mother. Yes, of course, he told me. George smiled and withdrew once more into his secret world. But Campton's state of mind was less happy. As the time of Julia's arrival approached, he began to ask himself with increasing apprehension how she would fit into the situation. Mr. Brandt had fitted into it perfectly. Campton had actually begun to feel a secret dependence on him, a fidgety uneasiness since he had left for Paris, sweet though it was to be alone with George. But Julia, what might she not do and say to unsettle things, break the spell, agitate and unnerve them all? Campton did not question her love for her son, but he was not sure what form it would take in conditions to which she was so unsuited. How could she ever penetrate into the mystery of peace which enclosed him and his boy? And if she felt them thus mysteriously shut off, would she not dimly resent her exclusion? If only Adele Anthony had been coming too. Campton had urged Mr. Brandt to bring her, but the banker had failed to obtain a permit for anyone but the boy's mother. He had even found it difficult to get his own leave renewed. It was only after a first trip to Paris, and repeated efforts at the war office, that he had been allowed to go to Paris and fetch his wife, who was just arriving from Birris. Well, for the moment at any rate, Campton had the boy to himself. As he sat there, trying to picture the gradual resurrection of George's pre-war face out of the delicately penciled white mask on the pillow. He noted the curious change of planes produced by suffering and emaciation, and the altered relation of lights and shadows. Materially speaking, the new George looked like the old one seen in the bowl of a spoon, and through blue spectacles, peaked, narrow, livid, with elongated nose and sunken eye sockets. But these altered proportions were not what had really changed him. There was something in the curve of the mouth that fever and emaciation could not account for. In that new line, and in the look of his eyes, the look travelling slowly outward through a long blue tunnel, like some mysterious creature rising from the depths of the sea. That was where the new George looked, the George to be watched and lain in wait for patiently and slowly puzzled out. He reopened his eyes. Adele too. Campton had learned to bridge over the spaces between the questions. No, not this time. We tried, but it couldn't be managed a little later, I hope. She's alright? Rather, blooming. And Boylston? Blooming too. George's lids closed contentedly, like doors shutting him away from the world. It was the first time since his operation that he had asked about any of his friends, or had appeared to think they might come to see him. But his mind, like his stomach, could receive very little nutriment at a time. He liked to have one mouthful given to him, and then to lie, ruminating it in the lengthening intervals between his attacks of pain. Each time he asked for news of anyone, his father wondered what name would next come to his lips. Even during his delirium, he had mentioned no one but his parents, Mr Brandt, Adele Anthony, and Boylston. Yet, it was not possible, Campton thought, that these formed the circumference of his life. That some contracted fold of memory did not hold a nearer image, a more secret name. The father's heart beat faster, half from curiosity, half from a kind of shy delicacy, at the thought that at any moment that name might wake in George and utter itself. Campton's thoughts again turned to his wife. With Julia, there was never any knowing. Ten to one, she would send the boy's temperature up. He was thankful that, owing to the difficulty of getting the news to her, and then of bringing her back from a frontier department, so many days had had to elapse. But when she arrived, nothing, after all, happened as he had expected. She had put on her nurse's dress for the journey. He thought it rather theatrical of her, till he remembered how much easier it was to get about in any sort of uniform. But there was not a trace of chiquetry in her appearance. As a frame for her haggard, unpowdered face, the white quaff looked harsh and unbecoming. She reminded him, as she got out of the motor, of some mortified Janssenist nun from one of Philippe de Champagne's canvases. Campton led her to George's door, but left her there. She did not appear to notice whether or not he was following her. He whispered, careful about his temperature, he's very weak. And she bent her profile silently as she went in. End of Chapter 26. Chapter 27 of A Sun at the Front by Edith Wharton. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. George that evening seemed rather better, and his temperature had not gone up. Campton had to repress a movement of jealousy at Julius having done her son no harm. Her experience as a nurse, disciplining a vague gift for the sick room, had developed in her the faculty of self-command. Before the war, if George had met with a dangerous accident, she would have been more encumbering than helpful. Campton had to admit the change, but it did not draw them any nearer. Her manner of loving their son was too different. Nowadays when he and Anderson Brandt were together, he felt that they were thinking of the same thing in the same way. But Julius' face, even age and humanized by grief, was still a mere mask to him. He could never tell what form her thoughts about George might be taking. Mr. Brandt on his wife's arrival had judged it discreet to a face himself. Campton hunted for him in vain in the park and under the cloister. He remained invisible till they met at the early dinner which they shared with the staff. But the meal did not last long and when it was over and nurses and doctors scattered, Mr. Brandt again slipped away leaving his wife and Campton alone. Campton glanced after him, surprised. Why does he go? Mrs. Brandt pursed her lips evidently as much surprised by his question as he by her husband's withdrawal. I suppose he's going to bed to be ready for his early start tomorrow. A start? She stared. He's going back to Paris. Campton was genuinely astonished. Is he? I'm sorry. Oh, she seemed unprepared for this. After all, you must see, we can't very well, all three of us, especially with these nuns. Oh, if it's only that. She did not take this up and one of their usual silences followed. Campton was thinking that it was all nonsense about the nuns and meditating on the advisability of going in pursuit of Mr. Brandt to tell him so. He dreaded the prospect of a long succession of days alone between George and George's mother. Mrs. Brandt spoke again. I was sorry to find that the sisters have been kept on here. Are they much with George? The sisters? I don't know. The upper nurses are Red Cross as you saw. But of course the others are about a good deal. What's wrong? They seem to be perfect. She hesitated and colored a little. I don't want them to find out about the extreme unction, she finally said. Campton repeated her words blankly. He began to think that anxiety and fatigue had confused her mind. She colored more deeply. Oh, I forgot. You don't know. I couldn't think of anything but George at first and the whole thing is so painful to me. Where's my bag? She groped for her reticule, found it in the folds of the cloak she had kept about her shoulders and fumbled in it with wrinkled jeweled fingers. Interesting hasn't spoken to you then. Spoken about Mrs. Talcott? She asked suddenly. About Mrs. Talcott? Why should he? What on earth has happened? Oh, I wouldn't see her myself. I couldn't. So he had to. She had to be thanked, of course. But it seems to me so dreadful, so very dreadful. Our boy. That woman. Campton did not press her further. He sat dumbfounded, tried to take in what she was so obviously trying to communicate and yet instinctively resisting the approach of the revelation he foresaw. George? Mrs. Talcott? He forced himself to couple the two names unnatural as their union seemed. I suppose you knew. Isn't it dreadful? A woman old enough. She drew a letter from her bag. He interrupted her. Is that letter what you want to show me? Yes. She insisted on Anderson's keeping it for you. She said it belonged to us, I believe. It seems there was a promise made the night before he was mobilized that if anything happened he would get a word to her. No thought of us. Campton reached out for the letter. Mrs. Talcott. Madge Talcott and George, that was where the boy had gone then, that last night when his father, left alone at the Creole, had been so hurt by his desertion. That was the name which, in his hours of vigil in the little white room, Campton had watched for on his son's lips. The name which, one day, sooner or later, he would have to hear them pronounce. How little he had thought as he sat studying the mysterious beauty of George's face what a commonplace secret it concealed. The writing was not George's but that of an unlettered French soldier. Campton glancing at the signature recalled it as out of his son's orderly, who had been slightly wounded in the same attack as George and sent for 24 hours to the same hospital at Doulomb. He had been at George's side when he fell and with a simple directness, often natural to his class in France, he told the tale of his left-tenant's wounding in circumstances which appeared to have given George great glory in the eyes of his men. They thought the wound mortal, but the orderly in a stretcher-bearer had managed to get the young man into the shelter of a little wood. The stretcher-bearer, it turned out, was a priest. He had at once applied the consecrated oil and George, still conscious, had received it with a beautiful smile. Then the orderly, thinking all was over, had hurried back to the fighting and been wounded. The next day he too had been carried to Doulomb and there, after many inquiries, he had found his left-tenant in the same hospital, alive but too ill to see him. He had contrived, however, to see the nurse and had learned from her that the doctors had not given up hope. With that he had to be content, but before returning to his base he had hastened to fulfill his left-tenant's instructions, given many months earlier, to tell his lady that he was severely wounded but still alive, which is a good deal in itself, the orderly, hopefully ended, not to mention his receiving the Legion of Honor. Campton laid the letter down. There was too much to be taken in all at once, and as usual in moments of deep disturbance he wanted to be alone, above all wanted to be away from Julia. But Julia held him with insistent eyes. Do you want this? he asked, finally, pushing the letter toward her. She recoiled. Want it? A letter written to that woman? No. I should have returned it at once, but Anderson wouldn't let me. Think of her forcing herself upon me as she did, and making you paint her portrait. I see it all now. How do you any idea this was going on? Campton shook his head and perceived by her look of relief that what she had resented above all was the thought of his being in a secret of Georgia's from which she herself was excluded. Adele didn't know either, she said, with evident satisfaction. Campton remembered that he had been struck by Miss Anthony's look of sincerity when he had asked her if she had any idea where George had spent his last evening, and she had answered negatively. This recollection made him understand Mrs. Brandt's feeling of relief. Perhaps after all it's only a flirtation. A mere sentimental friendship he has her did. A flirtation? Mrs. Brandt's motto-deleurosa face suddenly sharpened to worldly astuteness. A sentimental friendship? Have you ever heard George mention her name, or make any sort of allusion to such a friendship? Campton considered. No, I don't remember who's ever speaking of her. Well then. Her eyes had the irritated look he had seen on the far-off day when he had thrown both sides' dinner invitation into the fire. Once more, they seemed to say, she had taken the measure of his worldly wisdom. George's silence, his care not even to mention that the talcots were so much as known to him, certainly made it look as though the matter went deep with him. Campton, recalling the tone of the talcot drawing room and its familiars, had an even stronger recoil of indignation than Julia's. But he was silenced by a dread of tampering with his son's privacy, a sense of the sacredness of everything pertaining to that still mysterious figure in the white bed upstairs. Mrs. Brand's face had clouded again. It's also dreadful, and this extreme unction too. What is it exactly? Do you know? A sort of baptism? Will the Roman Church try to get hold of him on the strength of it? Campton remembered with a faint inward amusement that in spite of her foreign bringing up and all her continental affinities, Julia had remained as implacably and incuriously Protestant as if all her life she had heard the scarlet woman denounce from Presbyterian pulpits. And another time it would have amused him to ponder on this one streak in her of the ancestral iron. But now he wanted only to console her. Oh no, it was just the accident of the priests being there. One of our chaplains would have done the same thing. She looked at him mistrustfully. The same kind of thing? It's never the same with them. Whatever they do reaches ahead. I've seen such advantage taken of the wounded when they were too weak to resist. They didn't know what they were saying or doing. Her eyes filled with tears. A priest and a woman, I feel as if I'd lost my boy. The words went through Campton like a sword and he sprang to his feet. Oh, for God's sake, be quiet. Don't say it. What does anything matter but that he's alive? Of course, of course. I didn't mean, but that he should only think of her and none of us. That he should have deceived us about everything, everything. Oh, don't say that either. Don't tempt Providence. If he deceived us, as you call it, we've known but ourselves to blame, you and I, and, well, and Brandt. Didn't we all do our best to make him deceive us with our intriguing and our wire-pulling and our cowardice? How he despised us for it. Yes, thank God, how he despised us from the first. He didn't hide the truth from Boylston or Adele because they were the only two on a level with him. And they knew why he deceived us. They understood him, they abetted him from the first. He stopped, checked by Mrs. Brandt's pale, bewildered face and the eyes imploringly lifted as if to ward off unintelligible words. Ah, well, all this is no use, he said. We've got him safe and it's more than we deserve. He laid his hand on her shoulder. Go to bed, you're deadbeat. Only don't say things, things that might wake up the furies. He pocketed the letter and went out in search of Mr. Brandt, followed by her gaze of perplexity. The latter was smoking a last cigar as he paced up and down the cloister with upturned coat collar. Silence lay on the carefully darkened building, crouching low under an ICC fog. At intervals, through the hush, the waves continued to mimic the booming of guns. Campton drew out the orderly's letter. I hear you're leaving tomorrow early and I suppose I'd better give this back, he said. Mr. Brandt had evidently expected him. Oh, thanks. But Mrs. Talcott says she has no right to it. No right to it, that's a queer thing to say. So I thought, I suppose she meant till you'd seen it. She was dreadfully upset till she saw me. She had supposed he was dead. Campton shivered. She sent this to your house? Yes, the moment she got it. It was waiting there when Julia arrived. And you went to thank her? Yes, Mr. Brandt hesitated. Julia disliked to keep the letter and I thought it only proper to take it back myself. Certainly, and what was your impression? Mr. Brandt hesitated again. He had already, Campton felt, reached the utmost limit of his power of communicativeness. It was against all his habits to commit himself. Finally he said in an unsteady voice, it was impossible not to feel sorry for her. Did she say anything special? Anything about herself? No, not a word. She was well all broken up, as they say. Poor thing, Campton murmured. Yes, oh yes. Mr. Brandt held the letter, turning it thoughtfully about. It's a great thing he began abruptly as if the words were beyond his control. To have such a beautiful account of the affair. George himself, of course, would never. No, never, Campton considered. You must take it back to her naturally. But I should like to have a copy first. Mr. Brandt put a hand in his pocket. I supposed you would, and I took the liberty of making two. Oh, privately, of course. I hope you'll find my writing fairly legible. He drew two folded sheets from his note case and offered one to Campton. Oh, thank you. The two men grasped hands through the fog. Mr. Brandt turned to continue his round, and Campton went up to the whitewash cell in which he was lodged. Screening his candle to keep the least light from leaking through the shutters, he reread the story of George's wounding, copied out in the cramped, tremulous writing of a man who never took pen in hand but to sign a daily batch of typed letters. The handmade copy of a letter by Mr. Brandt represented something like the pious toll expended by a monkish scribe on the page of a missile. And Campton was moved by the little man's devotion. As for the letter, Campton had no sooner began to reread it than he entirely forgot that it was a message of love, addressed at George's request to Mrs. Talcott, and saw in it only the record of his son's bravery. And for the first time he understood that from the moment of George's wounding until now he had never really thought of him in relation to the war, never thought of his judgment on the war, of all the unknown emotions, resolves, and actions which had drawn him so many months ago from his safe shelter in the Argel. These things, Campton unconsciously, had put out of his mind or rather had lost out of his mind from the moment when he had heard of George's wounding. By and by he knew the sense of them and of the questions they raised would come back and possess him. But meanwhile, emptied of all else, he brimmed with the mere fact of George's bodily presence. With the physical signs of him, his weakness, his temperature, the pain in his arm, the oppression on his lung, and the really insistent details involved in coaxing him slowly back to life. The father could bear no more. He put the letter away as a man might put away something of which his heart was too full to measure. Later, yes. Now, all he knew was that his son was alive. But the hour of Campton's entering into glory came when, two or three days later, George asked with a sudden smile, when I exchanged regiments, I did what you'd always hoped I would, eh, dad? It was the first illusion on the part of either to the mystery of George's transit from the Ergon to the front. At Doulan, he had been too weak to be questioned and as he grew stronger and entered upon the successive stages of his convalescence, he gave the impression of having traveled far beyond such matters and of living his real life in some unconceivable region, from which, with that new smile of his, he continued to look down, unseenly, on his parents. It's exactly as if he were dead, the father thought. If he were, he might go on watching us with just such a smile, and then, one morning as they were taking a few steps on a sunny terrace, Campton had felt the pressure of the boy's sound arm and caught the old George in his look. I, good lord, at any rate, I'm glad you felt sure of me, Campton could only stammer and reply. George laughed. Well, rather. There was a long silence full of sea murmurs, too drowsy and indolent for once to simulate the horror of the guns. I, I only wish you'd felt you could trust me about it from the first, as you did Adele and Boylston, the father continued. But, my dear fellow, I did feel it. I swear I did. Only you see there was mother. I thought it all over and decided it would be easier for you both if I said nothing. And after all, I'm glad now that I didn't. That is, if you really do understand. Yes, I understand. That's jolly. George's eyes turned from his and rested with a joyful gravity on the little round-faced sister who hurried up to say that he'd been out long enough. Campton often caught him fixing this look of serene benevolence on the people who were gradually re-peopling his world, a look which seemed to say that they were new to him, yet dimly familiar. He was like a traveler returning after incommunicable adventures to the place where he lived as a child. And, as this happens with such wanderers, the trivial and insignificant things the things newcomer would not have noticed seemed often to interest him most of all. He said nothing more about himself, but with a look of recovered humanness which made him more lovable if less remotely beautiful, began to question his father. Boylston wrote that you'd begun to paint again. I'm glad. Oh, I only took it up for a while last spring. Portraits? A few, but I chucked it. I couldn't stand the atmosphere. What atmosphere? Of people who could want to be painted at such a time, people who wanted to secure a Campton. Oh, and then the dealer's God. George seemed unimpressed. After all, life's got to go on. Yes, that's what they say, and the only result is to make me doubt if theirs has. His son laughed and then threw off. You did, Mrs. Talcott? Yes, Campton snapped, off his guard. She's a pretty creature, said George, and at that moment she cried, resting again on the little nurse who was waiting in his door with a cup of cocoa, lit up with celestial gratitude. The Come Unique's good today, she cried, and he smiled at her boyishly. The war was beginning to interest him again. Campton was sure that every moment he could spare from that unimaginable region which his blue eyes guarded like a sword was spent among his comrades at the front. As the day approached for the return Campton began to penetrate more deeply into the meaning of George's remoteness. He himself, he discovered, had been all unaware in a far country, a country guarded by a winged sentry as the old him had it, the region of silent, incessant communion with his son. Just they too, everything else have faced, not discarded, destroyed nor disregarded even, but blotted out by a soft silver haze as the brown slopes and distances were from the windows of the seaward gazing hospital. It was not that Campton had been unconscious of the presence of other suffering about them. As George grew stronger and took his first steps in the wards he and his father were inevitably brought into contact with the life of the hospital. George had even found a few friends and two or three regimental comrades among the officers perpetually coming and going or enduring the long weeks of agony which led up to the end. But that was only towards the close of their sojourn when George was about to yield his place to others and be taken to Paris for the re-education of his shattered arm. And by that time the weeks of solitary communion had left such an imprint on Campton that once the hospital was behind him and no more than a phase of memory it became to him as one of its own seamists in which he and his son might have been peacefully shed away together from all the rest of the world. End of Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Of A Sun At The Front This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Jeff Preparedness cried Boylston in an exultant crow His round brown face with its curly crest half blind eyes beamed at Campton in the old way across the desk of the Palais Royale office and from the corner where she had sunk down on one of the broken springed divans Adele Anthony echoed Preparedness It was the first time that Campton had heard the word but the sense of it had been in the air ever since he and George had got back to Paris He remembered on the very day of their arrival they were being different in both Boylston and Miss Anthony and the change had shown itself in the same way both seemed more vivid yet more remote It had struck Campton in the moment of first meeting them in the Paris hospital near the Bois de Bologna fortunately clues his old nursing home transformed into a house of reeducation to which George had been taken in the little cell crowded with flowers almost too many flowers his father thought for the patient's aching head and tired eyes Campton, watching the entrance of the two visitors the first to be admitted after Julia and Mr. Brandt had instantly remarked the air they had of sharing something so secret and important that their joy at seeing George seemed only the overflow of another deeper joy Their look had just such a vividness as George's own glances crossed Campton saw the same light in the eyes of all three and now a few weeks later the clue to it came to him in Boylston's new word preparedness America, it appeared had caught it up from east to west in that sudden incalculable way she had of flinging herself on a new idea from the little group of discerning spirits the contagion had spread like a prairie fire taking away all the other catchwords of the hour devouring them in one great blaze of wrath and enthusiasm America meant to be prepared first had come the creation of the training camp in Platsburg for which after long delays and much difficulty permission had been wrung from a reluctant government then as candidates flocked to it as the whole young manhood of the eastern states rose to the call rapidly planned were springing up at Fort Oglethorpe in Georgia at Fort Sheridan in Illinois at the Presidio in California for the idea was spreading through the west and the torch kindled beside the Atlantic Seaboard already flashed its light on the Pacific for hours at a time Campton heard Boylston talking about these training camps with the young Americans who helped him in his work or dropped in to seek his counsel more than ever now he was an authority and an oracle to these stray youths who were expending their enthusiasm for France in the humblest of philanthropic drudgery students of the Beaux-Arts or the university or young men of leisure discouraged by the indifference of their country and the delatoriousness of their government and fired by the desire to take part in a struggle in which they had instantly felt their own government to be involved in spite of geographical distance none of these young men had heard Benny Upsher's imperious call to be in it from the first no matter how or at what cost they were of the kind to wait for a lead and now Boylston was giving it to them with his passionate variations on the great theme of preparedness George meanwhile lay there in his bed and smiled and now and then Boylston brought one or two of the more privileged candidates to see him one day, Captain found young Louis Destre there worn and haggard after a bad wound and preparing to leave for America as instructor in one of the new camps that seemed to bring the movement closer than ever to bring it into their very lives the thought flashed through Captain when George is up, we'll get him sent out too and once again a delicious sense of security crept through him as yet, was only sitting up for a few hours a day the wound in the lung was slow and healing and his fractured arm in recovering its flexibility but in another fortnight he was to leave the hospital and complete his convalescence at his mother's the thought was bitter to Captain he had heard all kinds of wild plans of taking George the Crayon or hiring an apartment for him or even camping with him at the studio but George had smiled all this away he meant to retune to the Avenue Marigny where he always stayed when he came to Paris and where it was natural that his mother should want him now Adele Anthony pointed out to Captain how natural it was one day as he and she left the Palais Royale together they were going to lunch at a nearby restaurant as they often did on leaving the office and Captain had begun to speak of George's future arrangements he would be well enough to leave the hospital in another week and then no doubt a staff job could be a tame for him in Paris with Brant's pull, you know Captain concluded hardly aware that he had uttered the detested phrase without even a tinge of irony but Adele was aware as he saw by the faint pucker of her thin lips he shrugged her smile away indifferently oh well, hang it, yes everything's changed now, isn't it? after what the boy's been through I consider that we're more than justified in using Brant's pull in his favor or anybody else's Miss Anthony nodded and unfolded her napkin well then, Captain continued his argument as he's likely to be in Paris now till the war is over which means some time next year they all say why shouldn't I take a jolly apartment somewhere for the two of us those pictures I did last spring brought me in a lot of money and there's no reason his face lit up servants you say why, my poor Mariette may be back from Lille anytime now they tell me they're sure to be a big push in the spring they're saving up for that all along the line ask Dastray, ask you'd better let George go to his mother said Miss Anthony concisely why? because it's natural it's human you're not always, you know she added with another pucker not human I don't mean that you're inhuman but you see things differently I don't want to see anything but one and that's my own son how should I ever see George if he's at the avenue Mariette he'll come to you yes, when he's not at Mrs. Tauquette's Miss Anthony frowned the subject had been touched upon between them soon after Captain's return Miss Anthony had little light to throw on it George had been as mute with her as with everyone else and she knew Mrs. Tauquette but slightly and seldom saw her yet Captain perceived that she could not hear the young woman named without an involuntary contraction of her brows I wish I liked her she murmured, Mrs. Tauquette yes I should think better of myself if I did but I can't I can't Captain said within himself oh women for his own resentment had died out long ago he could think of the affair now as one of hundreds such as happened to young men he was even conscious of regarding it in some unlit secret fold of himself as a probable guarantee of George's wanting to remain in Paris another subterranean way of keeping him such should be needed perhaps that was what Miss Anthony meant by saying that her liking Mrs. Tauquette might be useful why shouldn't he be with me the father persisted he and I were going off together when the war began I was defrauded of that why shouldn't I have him now Miss Anthony smiled well for one thing because of that very pull you were speaking of oh the branch the branch Captain glanced impatiently at the bill of fare grumbled yes I might have known it he belongs to them from the minute we got back and I saw them at the station with their motor waiting everything arranged as only money can arrange it I knew I'd lost my boy again he stared moodily before him and yet if the war hadn't come I should have got him back I almost had his companion still smiled a little wistfully she leaned over and laid her hand on his under cover of the bill of fare you did get him back John forever and always the day he exchanged into the infantry isn't that enough Captain answered her smile you gallant old chap you he said and then began to lunge George was able to be up now able to drive out and to see more people and Captain was not surprised on approaching his door a day or two later to hear several voices in animated argument the voices and this did surprise him were all men's in one he recognized Boylston's deep round notes but the answering voice flat, toneless and yet eager puzzled him with a sense of something familiar but forgotten he opened the door and saw at the tea tray between George and Boylston the smoothly brushed figure of Roger Tauquette Captain had not seen Mrs. Tauquette's husband for months and in the interval so much had happened that the young man always somewhat faintly drawn had become as dim as a daguerreotype and was called at the wrong angle the painter hung back slightly embarrassed but Mr. Tauquette did not seem in the least disturbed by his appearance or by the fact of himself being where he was it was evident that on whatever terms George might be with his wife Mr. Tauquette was determined to shed on him the same impartial beam as on all her other visitors his eyeglasses glinted no idea say I am subversive he began going on with what he had been saying but in a tone intended to include the newcomer I don't say I'm not we are a subversive lot at home all of us you must have noticed that haven't you Mr. Captain Boylston emitted a faint growl what's that got to do with it he asked Mr. Tauquette's glasses slanted in his direction why everything resistance to the herd instinct my wife's expressions is really innate in me and the idea of giving in now of sacrificing my convictions just because of all this deafening noise about America's danger and America's duties well no said Mr. Tauquette straightening his glasses Philistinism won't go down with me in whatever form it tries to disguise itself instinctively he stretched a neat hand toward the teacups as if he had been rearranging the furniture at one of his wife's parties but but Boylston stuttered red with rage George burst into a laugh he seemed to take a boyish amusement in the dispute T father he suggested reaching across the tray for a cigarette Tauquette jerked himself to his feet take my chair now do Mr. Captain you'll be more comfortable here let me shake up this cushion for you cushion Boylston interjected scornfully a light George now don't move I don't say of course old chap Tauquette continued as he held the match differentially to George's cigarette that this sort of talk would be safe or advisable just now in public subversive talk never is but when two or three of the elect are gathered together well your father sees my point I know the hero he nodded at George has his job and the artist with the slant a captain his in Germany for instance as we're beginning to find out the creative minds the intelligentsia to use another of my wife's expressions have been carefully protected from the beginning given jobs vitally important jobs of course but where their lives were not exposed the country needs them too much in other ways they would probably be wretched fighters and they're of colossal service in their own line whereas in France and England he suddenly seemed to see his chance well look here Mr. Captain I appeal to you I appeal to the great creative artist in any country but France and England would a fellow of George's brains have been allowed even at this stage of the war to chuck an important staff job requiring intellect, tech and severe and try to get himself killed like any unbaked boy like your poor cousin Benny Upsher for instance would he? Yes in America shouted Boylston and Mr. Tuckett's tallowy cheeks turned pink George knows how I feel about these things he stammered George still laughed in his remote impartial way and Boylston asked with a grin why don't you get yourself naturalized a neutral Mr. Tuckett's pinkedness opened I have lived too much among artists he began and George interrupted gaily there's a lot to be said on Tuckett's side too going Roger well I should be able to look in on you now in a few days remember me to Maj goodbye Boylston rose also and Captain remained alone with his son remember me to Maj that was the way in which the modern young man spoke of his beloved to his beloved's proprietor there had not been a shadow of constraint in George's tone and now glancing at the door which had closed on Mr. Tuckett he merely said as if apostrophizing the letters neat back poor devil he's torn to pieces with it with what asked Captain, startled why with Boylston's preparedness wanting to do the proper thing and never before having had to decide between anything more vital than straight turned down collars is playing the very deuce with him his eyes grew thoughtful was he going to pronounce Mrs. Tuckett's name at last but no he wanted back to her husband poor little lass of course he'll decide against he shrugged his shoulders and Boylston's just as badly torn in the other direction Boylston, yes knowing that he wouldn't be taken himself on account of his bad heart and his blind eyes and wondering if, in spite of his disabilities he's got the right to preach to all these young chaps here who hang on his words like the gospel one of them taunted him with it the other day the cur, yes and ever since of course Boylston's been twice as fierce and overworking himself to calm his frenzy the men who can't go are all like that when they know it's their proper work it isn't everyone's billet out there I've learned that since I've had a look at it but it would be Boylston's if he had the health and he knows it and that's what drives him wild George looked at his father with a smile you don't know how I thank my stars that there weren't any problems for me but just a plain job that picked me up by the collar and dropped me down where I belonged he reached for another cigarette that was coming presently do you suppose we could rake up some fresh tea he asked end of chapter 28 Chapter 29 of A Sun at the Front this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Mary Lou in New York City A Sun at the Front by Edith Wharton Chapter 29 coming out of the unlit rainy March night it was agreeable but almost startling to Campton to enter Mrs. Talcott's drawing room in the softness of shaded lamp light against curtains closely drawn young women dressed with extravagant elegance chatted with much decorated officers in the new horizon uniform with here and there among them an elderly civilian head such as Harvey Mayhew's Silvery Thatch and the square rapacious skull of the newly knighted patriot Secyrel Jorgenshtien Campton had gone to Mrs. Talcott's that afternoon because she had lent her apartment to the friends of French art who were giving a concert with Mrs. Anthony and Manuel de Ville with Madame de Dolmets's pianist as their leading performer it would have been ungracious to deprive the indefatigable group of the lustre they fancied Campton's presence would confer and he was not altogether sorry to be there he knew that George had promised Mrs. Anthony to come and he wanted to see his son with Mrs. Talcott a careless throng of people so obviously assembled for their own pleasure the women to show their clothes the men to admire them from the worn preoccupied audiences of the first war charity entertainments the war still raged wild hopes had given way to dogged resignation each day added to the sum of public anguish and private woe but the strain had been too long the idol and the useless had reached their emotional limit and once more they dressed and painted, smiled gossiped, flirted as though the long agony were over Anna Sofa stacked with orange velvet cushions Madame de Dolmets reclined in a sort of serpent coil of flexible grey-green hung with strange amulets her eyes in which fabulous islands seemed to dream were fixed on the bushy-haired young man at the piano close by, upright and tight-waisted sat the Marquis de Tronlé her morning veil thrown back from a helmet-like hat she had planted herself in a Louis-Philippe armchair as if appealing to its sturdy frame to protect her from the anarchy of Mrs. Talcott's furniture and beside her was the daughter of the sake she had doubtless come a frowning beauty who, in spite of her dowdy dress and ugly boots somehow declared herself as having already broken away from the maternal tradition Madame de Tronlé's presence in that drawing room was characteristic enough it meant, how often one heard it nowadays that mothers had to take their daughters wherever there was a chance of their meeting young man and that such chances were found only in the few foreign houses where discreetly almost clandestinely entertaining had been resumed you had to take them there Madame de Tronlé's look seemed to say because they had to be married the sooner the better in these wild times with all the old barriers down and because the young men were growing so tragically few and the competition was so fierce and because in such emergencies a French mother whose first thought is always for her children must learn to accept even to seek propinquities from which her inmost soul and all the ancestral souls within her would normally recoil Campton remembered her gallant attitude on the day when under her fresh crepe she had rebuked Mrs. Brandt's despondency but how she hates it here how she must loathe sitting next to that woman he thought and just then he saw her turn toward Madame de Dolmets with a stiff bend from the waist and heard her say in her most conciliatory tone your great friend the rich American, sheer Madame the benefactor of France we should so like to thank him Claire and I for all he is doing for our country Beckoned too by Madame de Dolmets Mr. Mayhew all pink and silver and prominent pearl scarf pin bowed before the Trinley ladies while the Marquise deeply murmured we are grateful we shall not forget and Madame de Trinley holding him with her rich gaze added in fluent English Mama hopes you'll come to tea on Sunday with no one but my uncle the Duke de Monterie so that we may thank you better than we can here great women great women, Captain Mused he was still watching Madame de Trinley's dauntless mask when her glance deserted the gratified Mayhew to seize on a younger figure it was that of George who had just entered Madame de Trinley with a quick turn caught Captain's eye greeted him with her trenchant cordiality and asked in a voice like the pounce of talons the young officer who has the legion of honour the one you just nodded to with reddish hair and his left arm in a sling French I suppose from his uniform and yet, yes the one talking to Mrs. Talcott can you tell me my son said Captain with satisfaction the effect was instantaneous though Madame de Trinley kept her radiant steadiness how charming charming but Claire, my child we've not yet spoken to Mrs. Brandt whom I see over there and she steered her daughter swiftly toward Julia Captain's eyes returned to his son George was still with Mrs. Talcott but they had only had time for a word or two before she was called away to seat an important dowager in that moment however the father noted many things George as usual nowadays kept his air of guarded kindliness though the blue of his eyes grew deeper but Mrs. Talcott seemed bathed in light it was such a self-revelation that Captain's curiosity was lost in the artist's abstract joy if I could have painted her like that he thought reminded of having caught Madame de Dolmetsch transfigured by fear for her lover but an instant later he remembered for a little thing he murmured Mrs. Talcott turned her head as if his thought had reached her oh yes, oh yes come and let me tell you all about it her eyes entreated him but Mayhew and Sir Cyril Jorgenshtien were between them George, Mrs. Brandt called and across the intervening groups Captain saw his son bowing to the Marquise de Trenley Madame de Dolmetsch jumped up her bracelets jangling like a prompter's call silence, she cried the ladies squeezed into their seats the men resigned themselves to doorposts and window embrasures and the pianist attacked Stravinsky Dancing? Captain heard his hostess answering someone no, not quite yet I think though in London already oh, just for the officers on leave of course, poor darlings why shouldn't they? you see, it's for a charity her smile appealed to her hearer to acknowledge the distinction the music was over and scanning the groups at the tea tables Captain saw Adèle and Mlle. de Vril squeezed away in the remotest corner of the room he took a chair at their table and Boylston presently blinked his way to them through the crowd they seemed all four more like unauthorized intruders on the brilliant scene than its laborious organisers the entertainment escaping from their control had speedily reverted to its true purpose of feeding and amusing a crowd of bored and restless people and the little group recognized the fact and joked over it in their different ways but Mlle. de Vril was happy at the sale of tickets which must have been immense to judge from the crowd spying about the entrance she had seen furious fine ladies turn away ticketless and Adèle Anthony was exhilarated by the nearness of people she did not know or wish to know but with whose names and private histories she was minutely and passionately familiar that's the old Duchesse de Meuron with Mrs. Talke there she's put her at the bossit's table well of all places but you're all too young to know about bossit's early history and now of course it makes no earthly difference to anybody but there must be times when Madame Bossit remembers and grins now that she's begun to rouge again she looks 20 years younger than the Duchess ah, she broke off abruptly signing to Campton he followed her gaze to a table at which Julia Brandt was seating herself with the Tranley ladies and George Mayhew joined them with a big deferential and the elder ladies lent him their intensest attention isolating George with the young girl hmm, Adèle murmured not such a bad thing they say the girl will have half of old Monterey's money he's her mother's uncle and she's heaps handsomer than the other not that that seems to count anymore Campton shrugged the subject away yes, it would be a good thing if George could be drawn from what his mother with a retrospective pinching of the lips called his wretched infatuation but the idea that the boy might be coaxed into a marriage and a rich marriage by the Brandt's was even more distasteful to Campton if he really loved Maj Talcott better stick to her than let himself be cajoled away for such reasons as the second part of the program began Campton and Boylston slipped out together. Campton was oppressed and disturbed it's queer, he said taking Boylston's arm to steer him through the dense darkness of the streets all these people who forgotten the war have suddenly made me remember it Boylston laughed yes, I know he seemed preoccupied and communicative and the painter fancied he was going to lead the talk as usual to preparedness and America's intervention but after a pause he said you haven't been much at the office lately no, Campton interrupted I've shirked abominably since George got back but now that he's gone to the Brandt's you'll see oh I didn't mean it as a reproach sir how could you think it we're running smoothly enough as far as organization goes that's not what bothers me you're bothered yes, he was Anthony the trouble was, he went on to explain that Mr. Mayhew, after months of total indifference except when asked to represent them on official platforms had developed a disquieting interest in the friends of French art he had brought them in the beginning a certain amount of money none of which came out of his own pocket and in consequence had been imprudently put on the financial committee so that he had a voice in the disposal of funds though till lately he had never made it heard but now, apparently atrocities were losing their novelty and he was disposed to transfer his whole attention to the friends of French art with results which seemed incomprehensibly disturbing to Boylston until he let drop the name of Madame de Dolmets Campton exclaimed at it well, yes you must have noticed that she and Mr. Mayhew have been getting pretty chummy you see, he's done such a lot of talking that people think he's at least an oil king and Madame de Dolmets is dazzled but she's got her musical prodigy to provide for and Boylston outlined the situation which his astuteness had detected while it developed unperceived under Campton's dreaming eyes Mr. Mayhew was attending all their meetings now finding fault, criticizing asking to have the accounts investigated though they had always been audited at regular intervals by expert accountants and all this zeal originated in the desire to put Madame de Dolmets in Miss Anthony's place on the plea that her greater social experience her gift of attracting and interesting would bring in immense sums of money whereas Boylston grimly hinted they already had a large balance in the bank and it was with an eye to that balance that Madame de Dolmets was forcing Mayhew to press her claim you see sir, Mr. Mayhew never turns out to be as liberal as they expect when they first hear him talk and though Madame de Dolmets has him in her noose she's not getting what she wants by a long way and so they've cooked this up between them she and Madame Bocete without his actually knowing what they're after he stopped short releasing Boylston's arm but what you suggest is abominable he exclaimed yes I know it but the young man's voice remained steady well I wish you'd come to our meetings now you're back I will, I will but I'm no earthly use on financial questions you're much stronger there he felt Boylston's grin through the darkness oh they'll have me out too before long nonsense what do you mean I mean that lots of people are beginning to speculate in more charities oh in all sorts of ways sometimes I'm sick to the point of chucking it all but Miss Anthony keeps me going ah she would Campton agreed as he walked home his mind was burdened by Boylston's warning it was not merely the affair itself but all it symbolized that made his gorge rise Boylston said sick to the point of wanting to chuck it all to chuck everything connected with this hideous world that was dancing and flirting and money making on the great red mounds of dead he grinned at the thought that he had once believed in the regenerative power of war the solitary shock of great moral and social upheavals yet he had believed in it and never more intensely than at George's bedside in that air so cleansed by passion and pain that mere living seemed a meaningless gesture compared to the chosen surrender of life but in the Paris to which he had returned after barely four months of absence the instinct of self-preservation seemed to have wiped all meaning from such words poor fatuous mayhew dancing to Madame de Dolmets' piping Jorgenstein sinking under the weight of his international honors Madame de Trinley intriguing to push her daughter in such society and Julia placidly abetting her Captain hardly knew from which of these sorry visions he turned with a more complete loathing there were still the others to be sure the huge obscure majority out there in the night the millions giving their lives for this handful of trivial puppets and here in Paris everywhere in every country men and women toiling unwiredly to help and heal but in Mrs. Talcott's drawing room both fighters and toilers seemed to count as little in relation to the merry-makers as Miss Anthony and Mlle. Davril in relation to the brilliant people who had crowded their table into the obscurest corner of the room of a son at the front this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Mary Lou in New York City a son at the front by Edith Wharton Chapter 30 these thoughts continued to weigh on Captain he decided with one of his habitual quick jerks of resolution to get back to work he knew that George would approve and would perhaps be oftener with him if he had something interesting on his easel Sir Cyril Jorgenstein had suggested that he would like to have his portrait finished with the Legion of Honor added to his lapel no doubt and Harvey Mayhew Rosie and embarrassed had dropped into a hint that if Captain could find time to do a charcoal head oh just one of those brilliant sketches of his, of the young musical genius in whose career their friend Madame de Dormet was so much interested but Captain had cut them both short he was not working he had no plans for the present and in truth he had not thought even of attempting a portrait of George the impulse had come to him once as he sat by the boys bed but the face was too incomprehensible he should have to learn and unlearn too many things first at last one day it occurred to him to make a study of Madame Levelle he saw her in charcoal her simple unquestioning anguish had turned her old face to sculpture Captain set his canvas on the easel and started to shout for her down the stairs but as he opened the door he saw his old face to face with Mrs. Talcott oh she began at once in her breathless way you're here the old woman downstairs wasn't sure and I couldn't leave all the money with her could I money what money he echoed she was very simply dressed and a veil drooping low from her hat brim gave to her over eager face a shadowy youthful calm I may come in she questioned almost timidly and as Campton let her pass she added the money from the concert of course heaps and heaps of it I'd no idea we'd made so much and I wanted to give it to you myself she shook a bulging bag out of her immense muff while Campton continued to stare at her I didn't know you went out so early he finally stammered trying to push a newspaper over the disordered remains of his breakfast she lifted interrogative eyebrows that means that I'm in the way no but why did you bring the money here she looked surprised why not aren't you the head the real head of the committee and wasn't the concert given in my house her eyes rested on him with renewed timidity is it disagreeable to you to see me she asked disagreeable my dear child no he paused increasingly embarrassed what did she expect him to say next to thank her for having sent him the orderly's letter it seemed to him impossible to plunge into the subject uninvited surely it was for her to give him the opening if she wished to well no she broke out I've never once pretended to you have I the money's a pretext I wanted to see you here alone with no one to disturb us Campton felt a confused stirring of relief and fear all his old dread of scenes commotions disturbing emergencies of anything that should upset his perpetually vibrating balance was blend with the passionate desire to hear what his visitor had to say you it was good of you to think of sending us that letter he faltered she frowned in her anxious way and looked away from him afterward I was afraid you'd be angry angry how could I he groped for a word surprised yes I knew nothing nothing about you and not even that it was I who bought the sketch of him the one that Leonce Black sold for you last year the blood rushed to Campton's face suddenly he felt himself trapped and betrayed you you've got that sketch the thought was somehow intolerable to him now you are angry Mrs. Talcott murmured no no but I never imagined I know that was what frightened me you're suspecting nothing she glanced about her dropped to a corner of the divan and tossed off her hat with the old familiar gesture oh can I talk to you she pleaded Campton nodded I wish you'd light your pipe then and sit down too he reached for his pipe, struck a match and slowly seated himself you always smoke a pipe in the morning don't you he told me that she went on then she paused again and drew a long anxious breath oh he's so changed I feel as if I didn't know him any longer do you? Campton looked at her with deepening wonder this was more surprising than discovering her to be the possessor of the picture he had not expected deep to call unto deep in their talk I'm not sure that I do he confessed her fidgeting eyes deepened and grew quieter you're saying so makes me feel less lonely she sighed half to herself but has he told you nothing since he came back really nothing? nothing after all how could he I mean without indiscretion indiscretion oh she shrugged the word away with half a smile those such considerations belong to a prehistoric order of things then he hasn't even told you that he wants me to get a divorce a divorce, Campton exclaimed he sat staring at her as if the weight of his gaze might pin her down keep her from fluttering away and breaking up into luminous splinters George wanted her to get a divorce wanted therefore to marry her his passion went as deep for her as that too deep Campton conjectured for the poor little ephemeral creature who struck him as wriggling on it like a butterfly impaled please tell me he said at length and suddenly in short inconsequent sentences the confession poured from her George it seemed during the previous winter in New York when they had seen so much of each other had been deeply attracted had wanted everything and at once and there had been moments of tension and estrangement when she had been held back by scruples she confessed she no longer understood inherited prejudices she supposed and when her reluctance must have made her appear to be trifling whereas really it was just that she couldn't couldn't so they had gone on for several months with the usual emotional ups and downs till he had left for Europe to join his father had parted she had given him the half promise that if they met abroad during the summer she would perhaps after all then came the war George had been with her during those few last hours in Paris and had dined with her and her husband had Campton forgiven her the night before he was mobilized and then when he was gone she had understood that only timidity, vanity the phantom barriers of old terrors and traditions had prevented her being to him all that he wanted she broke off abruptly put in a few conventional words about an ill-assorted marriage and never having been really understood and then as if guessing that she was on the wrong tack jumped up, walked to the other end of the studio and turned back to Campton with the tears running down her ravaged face and now and now he says he won't have me she lamented but you tell me he wants you to be divorced she nodded, wiped away the tears and in so doing stole an unconscious glance at the mirror above the divan then seeing that the glance was detected she burst into a sort of sobbing laugh my nose gets so dreadfully red when I cry, she stammered Campton took no notice and she went on a divorce, yes and unless I do, unless I agree to marry him we're never to be anything but friends that's what he says yes, oh we've been all in and out of it a hundred times she pulled out a gold mesh bag and furtively restored her complexion as Mrs. Brandt had once done in the same place Campton sat still considering he had let his pipe go out nothing could have been farther from the revelation he had expected and his own perplexity was hardly less great than his visitors certainly it was not the way in which young men had behaved in his day nor evidently had it been gorgeous before the war finally he made up his mind to put the question and Talcott, she burst out at once ah that's what I say, it's not so simple what isn't? breaking up all one's life he paused with a deepening embarrassment of course Roger has made me utterly miserable but then I know he hasn't really meant to have you told George that? yes, but he says we must first of all be above board he says he sees everything differently now that's what I mean when I say that I don't understand him he says love is not the same kind of feeling to him that it was there's something of Meredith's that he quotes I wish I could remember it something about a mortal lease good lord, Campton groaned not so much at the hopelessness of the case as at the hopelessness of quoting Meredith to her after a while he said abruptly you must forgive my asking but things change sometimes they change imperceptibly do you think he's as much in love with you as ever? he had been half afraid of offending her but she appeared to consider the question impartially and without a shadow of resentment sometimes I think more because in the beginning it wasn't meant to last and now if he wants to marry me oh I wish I knew what to do Campton continued to ponder there's one more question since we're talking frankly what does Talcott know of all this? she looked frightened oh nothing, nothing and you've no idea how he would take it? she examined the question with tortured eyebrows and at length to Campton's astonishment brought out magnificently he'd be generous you mean but it would go hard with him oh dreadfully, dreadfully she seemed to need the assurance to restore her shaken self-approval Campton rose with a movement of pity and laid his hand on her shoulder my dear child, if your husband cares for you give up my son her face fell and she drew back oh but you don't understand, not in the least it's not possible, it's not moral you know I'm all for the new morality first of all we must be true to self she paused and then broke out you tell me to give him up because you think he's tired of me but he's not, I know he's not it's his new ideas that you don't understand any more than I do it's the war that has changed him he says he wants only things that last that are permanent things that hold a man fast that sometimes he feels as if he were being swept away on a flood and we're trying to catch at things at anything as he's rushed along under the waves he says he wants quiet, monotony to be sure the same things will happen every day when we go out together he sometimes stands for a quarter of an hour and stares at the same building or at the Sen under the bridges but he's happy I'm sure I've never seen him happier only it's in a way I can't make out oh my dear if it comes to that I'm not sure that I can not sure enough to help you I'm afraid she looked at him disappointed you won't speak to him then not unless he speaks to me ah he frightens you just as he does me she pulled her hat down on her troubled brow gathered up her furs and took another side long peep at the glass then she turned toward the door on the threshold she paused and looked back at Campton don't you see she cried that if I were to give George up he'd get himself sent straight back to the front Campton's heart gave an angry leap for a second he felt the impulse to strike her to catch her by the shoulders and bundle her out of the room with a great effort he controlled himself and opened the door you don't understand you don't understand she called back to him once again from the landing Madge Talcott had asked him to speak to his son he had refused he retaliated by planting that poisoned shaft in him but what had retaliation to do with it she had probably spoken the simple truth and with the natural desire to enlighten him if George wanted to marry her it must be since human nature though it might change its vocabulary kept its instincts it must be that he was very much in love and in that case her refusal would in truth go hard with him and it would be natural that he should try to get himself sent away from Paris from Paris yes but not necessarily to the front after such wounds and such honors he had only to choose a staff appointment could easily be got or no doubt with his two languages he might if he preferred have himself sent on a military mission to America with all this propaganda talk wasn't he the very type of officer they wanted it was Campton's dearest wish that George should stay where he was he knew his peace of mind would vanish the moment his son was out of sight but he suspected that George would soon weary of staff work or of any form of soldiering at the rear and try for the trenches if he left Paris whereas in Paris Madge Talcott might hold him as she had meant his father to see the first thing then was to make sure of a job at the war office Campton turned and tossed like a sick man on the hard bed of his problem to plan, to scheme, to plot and circumvent nothing was more hateful to him there was nothing in which he was less skilled if only he dared to consult Adel Anthony but Adel was still incorrigibly war-like and her having been in George's secret while his parents were excluded from it left no doubt as to the side on which her influence would bear she loved the boy, Campton sometimes thought even more passionately than his mother did but how did the old song go? she loved honor or her queer conception of it more ponder as he would he could not picture her even now lifting a finger to keep George back Campton struggled all the morning with these questions after lunch he pocketed Mrs. Talcott's money bag and carried it to the Palais Royal where he discovered Harvey Mayhew in confabulation with Madame Bocete who still trailed her ineffectual beauty about the office the painter thought he detected a faint embarrassment in the glance with which they both greeted him hello, Campton, looking for our good friend Boylston he's off duty this afternoon, Madame Bocete tells me as he is pretty often in these days, I've noticed Mr. Mayhew sardonically added in fact the office has rather been left to run itself lately, eh? of course our good Miss Anthony is absorbed with her refugees gives us but a divided allegiance and Boylston, well young men, young men of course it's been a weary pull for him by the way, my dear fellow, Mr. Mayhew continued as Campton appeared about to turn away I called it Mrs. Talcott's just now to ask for the money from the concert a good round sum I hear it is and she told me she'd given it to you have you brought it with you? if so Madame Bocete here would take charge of it Madame Bocete turned her great resigned eyes on the painter Mr. Campton knows I'm very careful I will lock it up till his friends return now that Mr. Boylston is so much away I very often have such responsibilities Campton's eyes returned her glance but he did not waver thanks so much but as the sum is rather large it seems to me the bank's the proper place will you please tell Boylston I've deposited it Mr. Mayhew's benevolent pink turned to an angry red for a moment Campton thought he was about to say something foolish but he merely bent his head stiffly muttered a vague phrase about irregular proceedings and turned to his seat by Madame Bocete's desk as for Campton his words had decided his course he would take the money at once to bullet in Brant's and seize the occasion to see the banker Mr. Brant was the only person with whom at this particular juncture he cared to talk of George End of Chapter 30 Chapter 31 of A Sun at the Front This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Riley McGuire A Sun at the Front by Edith Warden Chapter 31 Mr. Brant's private office was as glitteringly neat as when Campton had entered it for the first time and seen the fatal telegram about Benny Upsher marring the order of the desk Now he crossed the threshold with different feelings to have Mr. Brant look up and smile to shake hands with him accept one of his cigars and sink into one of the blue leather armchairs seemed to be in the natural order of things he felt only the relief of finding himself with the one person likely to understand About George he began Yes, said Mr. Brant briskly It's curious. I was just thinking of looking you up It's his birthday next Tuesday, you know Oh, said the father, slightly put off He had not come to talk of birthdays nor did he need to be reminded of his sons by Mr. Brant He concluded that Mr. Brant would be less easy to get on with in Paris than at the front And we thought of celebrating the day by a little party with perhaps the smallest kind of a dance Or just bridge Yes, probably just bridge The banker added tentatively Opinions differ as to the suitability It's for his mother to decide But of course, no evening clothes and we hoped perhaps to persuade you Our only object is to amuse him to divert his mind from this wretched entanglement It was doubtful if Mr. Brant had ever made such a long a speech except perhaps at a board meeting and then only when he read the annual report He turned pink and stared over Campton's shoulder at the paneled white wall on which a false Reynolds hung Campton meditated The blush was the blush of Mr. Brant But the voice was the voice of Julia Still, it was probable that neither husband nor wife was aware how far matters had gone George is more involved than you think, Captain said Mr. Brant looked startled In what way? He means to marry her He insists on her getting a divorce A divorce? Good gracious, murdered Mr. Brant He turned over a jade paper cutter Trying its edge absently on his nail Does Julia... He began at length Campton shook his head No, I wanted to speak to you first Mr. Brant gave his quick bow He was evidently gratified and the sentiment stimulated his faculties as it had when he found that Campton no longer resented his presence at the hospital His small, effaced features took on a business-like sharpness and he readjusted his eyeglasses and straightened the paper cutter which he had put back on the desk You have this from George? He asked No, from her She's been to see me She doesn't want to divorce She's in love with him in her way that is but she's frightened and that makes him the more eager the more determined at any rate Mr. Brant appeared to seize the distinction George can be very determined Yes, I think his mother ought to be made to understand that all this talk about a wretched entanglement isn't likely to make him any less so Mr. Brant's look seemed to say that making Julia understand had proved a no less onerous task for his maturity than for Campton's youth If you don't object, perhaps the matter might for the present continue to be kept between you and me, he suggested Oh, by all means what I want, Campton pursued is to get him out of this business altogether They wouldn't be happy, they couldn't be She's too much like He broke off, frightened at what he had been about to say Too much, he amended like the usual fool of a woman that every boy of George's age thinks he wants simply because he can't get her And you say she came to you for advice She came to me to persuade him to give up the idea of a divorce Apparently she's ready for anything, short of that It's a queer business She seems sorry for talk it in a way Mr. Brant marked his sense of the weight of this by a succession of attentive nods He put his hands in his pockets leaned back and tilted his dapper toes against the gold trellis scrap basket The attitude seemed to change the pale panelling of his background into a glass and mahogany Won't he be satisfied with all the rest, so to speak Since you say she offers it No, he won't There's the difficulty It seems it's the new view the way the young man feels since the war He wants her for his wife Nothing less Ah, he respects her Mr. Brant impressed And Campton reflected that he had no doubt respected Julia And what she wants is to get you to persuade him to accept less Well, something of the sort Mr. Brant sat up and dropped his heels to the floor Well then, don't! He snapped Don't Persuade her on the contrary to keep him hoping to make him think she means to marry him Don't you see? Mr. Brant exclaimed almost impatiently Don't you see that if she turns him down Definitely he'll be scheming to get away to get back to the front the minute his leave is over Tell her that Appeal to her on that ground Make her do it She will if she's in love with him And we can't stop him from going back Not one of us He's restless here already I know that Always talking about his men saying he's got to get back to them The only way is to hold him by this girl She's the very influence we need He threw it all out in sharp, terse phrases as a businessman might try to hammer facts about an investment into the bewildered brain of an impractical client Captain felt the blood rising to his forehead not so much an anger that Mr. Brant has that the sense of his own inward complicity There's no earthly reason why George should ever go back to the front he said None whatever we can get him any staff job he chooses His mother's already got the half promise of a post for him at the war office but you'll see you'll see we can't stop him Did we before? There's only this woman who can do it Campton looked over the banker's head at the reflection of the false Reynolds in the mirror that anyone should have been fool enough to pay a big price for such a patent fraud seemed to him as incomprehensible as his own present obtuseness seemed to the banker You do see, don't you? You argue Mr. Brant anxiously Oh, I suppose so Campton slowly got to his feet the adroit brushwork of the forged picture fascinated him and he went up to look at it more closely Mr. Brant pursued him with a gratified glance Ah, you're admiring my Reynolds I paid a thumping price for it but that's always my principle pay high but get the best it's a better investment Just so, Campton assented Dolly Mr. Brant seemed suddenly divided from him by the whole width of the gulf between that dob on the wall and a real Reynolds They had nothing more to say to each other nothing whatever Well, goodbye he held out his hand Think it over, think it over Mr. Brant called out after him as he infallated the sumptuous offices a meddled veteran holding back each door It was not until Campton was back at Montmartre and throwing off his coat to get into his old studio clothes that he felt in his pocket the weight of the forgotten concert money It was too late in the day to take it back to the bank even if he had had the energy to retrace his steps and he decided to hand the bag over to Boylston with whom he was dining that night to meet the Elder Dastry home on a brief leave from his ambulance Think it over Mr. Brant's adoration continued to echo in Campton's ears as if he needed to be told to think it over Once again the war, war and world had vanished from his mind and he saw only George himself and George George in safety, George in peace They blamed women who were cowards about their husbands mistresses who schemed to protect their lovers Well, he was as bad as any one of them if it came to that his son had bought his freedom had once offered his life and nearly lost it Brant was right at all costs they must keep him from rushing back into that hell That Mrs. Tauket should be the means of securing his safety was bitter enough this trivial barren creature to be his all it seemed the parody of Campton's own youth and Julia, after all had been only a girl when he had met her inexperienced and still malleable a man less absorbed in his art less oblivious of the daily material details of life might conceivably have made something of her but this little creature with her ferrago of false ideas her vanity, her restlessness her on-disguise desire to keep George and yet not lose her world had probably reached the term of her development and would trip on through an eternal infancy of fads and frenzies Luckily, as Mr. Brant said they could use her for the time use her better, no doubt than had she been a more finely tempered instrument Campton was still pondering on these things as he set out for the restaurant where he had agreed to meet Boylston in Dastry at the foot of his own stairs he was surprised to run against Boylston under the Port Corsair they gave each other a quick questioning look as men did when they encountered each other unexpectedly in those days Anything up? Oh, the money You've come for the money Campton remembered that he had left the bag upstairs The money? Haven't you heard? Louis Dastry's killed, said Boylston they stood side by side in the doorway while Campton's darkened mind struggled anew with the mystery of fate almost every day now the same readjustment had to be gone through the cowering averted mind dragged upward and forced to visualize a new gap in the ranks and summoned the remaining familiar figures to fill it up and blot it out and today this cruel gymnastic was to be performed for George's best friend the Elder Dastry's soul-staken life Only a few days ago the lad had passed through Paris just back from America and in haste to rejoin his regiment alive and eager, throbbing with ideas, with courage, mirth and irony the very material France needed to rebuild her ruins to get her sons and now, struck down as George had been not to rise like George Once more the inner voice encamped in question distinctly Could you bear it? And again he answered less than ever Allowed, he asked, Paul? Oh, he went off at once to break the news to Louis' mother in the country The boy was all Paul had left Yes? Or if he just stayed on at his job in America? Boylston did not answer and the two stood silent looking out unseemly at the black empty street There was nothing left to say nowadays when such blows fell hardly anything left to feel had sometimes seemed Well, I suppose we must go and eat something, the older man said and arm and arm they went out into the darkness When Campton returned home that night he sat down and with the help of several pipes wrote a note to Mrs. Tauquette asking when she would receive him Thereafter he tried to go back to his painting and to continue his daily visits to the Palais Royale office but for the time nothing seemed to succeed with him he threw aside his study of Madame Lebel he hung about the office confused and idle and with the ever clearer sense of things were disintegrating George's birthday party had been given up on an account of young Dastry's death Mrs. Brant evidently thought the postponement unnecessary since George's return she had gone over heart and soul to the business as usual party but Mr. Brant quietly sighed it with George and Campton was glad to be spared the necessity of celebrating the day in such a setting but the fault was not his sons the painter was aware of having voluntarily avoided George he said to himself as long as I know he's safe why should I bother him but in reality he did not feel himself to be fit company for anyone and had even shunned poor Paul Dastry on the latter's hurried passage through Paris when he'd come back from carrying the fatal news to young Dastry's mother but on earth could Paul and I have found a say to each other Campton argued with himself for men of our age there's nothing left to say nowadays the only thing I can do is try to work up one of my old studies of Louis that might please him a little later on but after one or two attempts he pushed away that canvas too at length one afternoon George came in they had not met for over a week and as George's blue uniform attached itself against the blurred tapestries at the studio the north light mottling the fresh curves of his face the father's heart gave a leap of pride his son had never seemed to him so young and strong and vivid George with a sudden blush took his hand in a long pressure I say dad Madge has told me told me that you know about us and that you've persuaded her to see things as I do she hadn't had a chance to speak to me of your visit till last night Campton felt his color rising but though his own part in the business still embarrassed him he was glad that the barriers were down I didn't want George continued still flushed and slightly constrained to say anything to you about all this till I could say here's my wife and now she's promised she's promised thanks to you you know your visit to her she did it she told me the whole thing yesterday how she'd come here in desperation to ask you to help her to have her mind cleared up for her and how you thought it all over and then gone to see her and how wise and perfect you'd been about it all poor child if you knew the difference it's made to her they recede it now the littered table between them Campton, his elbows on it his chin on his hands the difference to you too he questioned George smiled he was exactly the same detached smile which he used to shed on the little nurse who brought him his cocoa of course now I can go back without worrying he let the words fall as carelessly as if there were nothing in them to challenge attention go back Campton stared at him with a blank countenance had he heard a right passing Laurie suddenly roared in his ears like the guns of the front did you say go back George opened his blue eyes wide why of course as soon as ever I'm patched up you didn't think I thought you had the sense to realize that you've done your share in one line and that your business now is to do it in another the same detached smile again brushed George's lips but if I happen to have only one line nonsense you know they don't think that at the war office I don't believe the war office will shut down if I leave it what an argument it sounds like Campton breaking off on a sharp breath closed his lids for a second keeping gazing too steadily into George's eyes and now at last he knew with that mysterious look in the mint it was Benny Apsher's look inaccessible to reason beyond reason belonging to other spaces other weights and measures over the edge somehow of the tangible calculable world a man can't do more than his duty you've done that he growled but George insisted with his gentle obstinacy you'll feel differently about it when America comes in Campton shook his head never about your case you will when you see how we all feel when we're all in it you wouldn't have me looking on would you and then there are my men I've got to get back to my men but you've no right to go now no business his father broken violently persuading that poor girl to wreck her life and then leaving her planting her there with her past ruined and her future George you can't George in his long months of illness had lost his old readiness of complexion at his father's challenge the blood again rose the more visibly to his still gaunt cheeks and white forehead he was evidently struck you'll kill her and kill your mother Campton stormed oh it's not for tomorrow not for a long time perhaps my shoulder still too stiff I was stupid the young man haltingly added to put it as I did of course I've got to think of Madge now he acknowledged as well as mother the blood flowed slowly back to Campton's heart you've got to think of just them your common sense of the thing that's all I ask you've done your turn you've done more but never mind that now it's different you're barely patched up you're of use immense use for staff work and you know it and you've asked a woman to tie up her future to yours at what cost you know too your duty to keep away from the front now as it was before well I admit it to go there you've done just what I should have wanted my son to do up to this minute George laid a hand on his a little wistfully then just go on trusting me I do to see that I'm right if I can't convince you ask Boylston ask Adele George sat staring down at the table for the first time as they met a Doulan's Campton was conscious of reaching his son's inner mind and of influencing it I wonder if you really love her he suddenly risked the question did not seem to offend George scarcely to surprise him of course he said simply only well everything's different nowadays isn't it so many of the old ideas have come to seem such humbug that's what I want to drag her out of the coils and coils of stale humbug they were killing her well take care you don't Campton said thinking that everything was different indeed as he recalled the reasons young men had had for loving and marrying in his own time a faint look of amusement came into George's eyes kill her oh no I'm gradually bringing her to life but all this is hard to talk about yet by and by you'll understand she'll show you will show you together but at present nothing's to be said to anyone please not even to mother Madge thinks this is no time for such things there of course I don't agree but I must be patient the secrecy, the underhandedness are hateful to me but for her it's all a part of the sacred humbug he rose listlessly the discussion had bled all the life out of him and took himself away when he had gone his father drew a deep breath yes the boy would stay in Paris he would almost certainly stay for the present at any rate and people were still prophesying that in the spring there would be a big push all along the line and after that the nightmare might be over Campton was glad he had gone to see Madge talk it he was glad above all but if the thing had to be done it was over and that by Madge's wish no one was to know of what had passed between them it was a distinct relief in spite of what he had suggested to George not to have to carry that particular problem to Adele Anthony or Boylston a few days later George accepted a staff appointment in Paris end of chapter 31 recording by Riley McGuire