The Tree of Heaven Part 67

"And I simply cannot bear it."

"But--he didn't go then. He waited till--till he was free. If anybody could have made him, Nicky could. But it wasn't even Nicky. It was himself."

"If he'd been killed as Nicky was--but to die like that, in the hospital--of those horrible wounds."

"He was leading a charge, just as Nicky was. And you know he was happy, just as Nicky was. Every line he's written shows that he was happy."

"It only shows that they were both full of life, that they loved their life and wanted to live.

"It's no use, Ronny, you're saying you know they're there. I don't. I'd give anything to believe it. And yet it wouldn't be a bit of good if I did. I don't _want_ them all changed into something spiritual that I shouldn't know if it was there. I want their bodies with me just as they used to be. I want to hear them and touch them, and see them come in in their old clothes.

"To see Nicky standing on the hearthrug with Timmy in his arms. I want things like that, Ronny. Even if you're right, it's all clean gone."

Her lips tightened.

"I'm talking as if I was, the only one. But I know it's worse for you, Ronny. I _had_ them all those years. And I've got Anthony. You've had nothing but your poor three days."

Veronica thought: "How can I tell her that I've got more than she thinks? It's awful that I should have what she hasn't." She was ashamed and beaten before this irreparable, mortal grief.

"And it's worse," Frances said, "for the wretched mothers whose sons haven't fought."

For her pride rose in her again--the pride that uplifted her supernaturally when Nicky died.

"You mustn't think I grudge them. I don't. I don't even grudge John."

The silence of Michael's room sank into them, it weighed on their hearts and they were afraid of each other's voices. Frances was glad when Dorothy came and they could begin their work there.

But Michael had not left them much to do. They found his papers all in one drawer of his writing-table, sorted and packed and labelled, ready for Morton Ellis to take away. One sealed envelope lay in a place by itself. Frances thought: "He didn't want any of us to touch his things."

Then she saw Veronica's name on the sealed envelope. She was glad when Veronica left them and went to her hospital.

And when she was gone she wanted her back again.

"I wish I hadn't spoken that way to Veronica," she said.

"She won't mind. She knows you couldn't help it."

"I could, Dorothy, if I wasn't jealous of her. I mean I'm jealous of her certainty. If I had it, too, I shouldn't be jealous."

"She wants you to have it. She's trying to give it you.

"Mother--how do we know she isn't right? Nicky said she was. And Michael said Nicky was right.

"If it had been only Nicky--_he_ might have got it from Veronica. But Michael never got things from anybody. And you _do_ know things in queer ways. Even I do. At least I did once--when I was in prison. I knew something tremendous was going to happen. I saw it, or felt it, or something. I won't swear I knew it was the War. I don't suppose I did.

But I knew Frank was all mixed up with it. And it was the most awfully real thing. You couldn't go back on it, or get behind it. It was as if I'd seen that he and Lawrence and Nicky and Michael and all of them would die in it to save the whole world. Like Christ, only that they really _did_ die and the whole world _was_ saved. There was nothing futile about it."

"Well--?"

"Well, _they_ might see their real thing the same way--in a flash.

Aren't they a thousand times more likely to know than we are? What right have we--sitting here safe--to say it isn't when they say it is?"

"But--if there's anything in it--why can't I see it as well as you and Veronica? After all, I'm their mother."

"Perhaps that's why it takes you longer, Mummy. You think of their bodies more than we do, because they were part of your body. Their souls, or whatever it is, aren't as real to you just at first."

"I see," said Frances, bitterly. "You've only got to be a mother, and give your children your flesh and blood, to be sure of their souls going from you and somebody else getting them."

"That's the price you pay for being mothers."

"Was Frank's soul ever more real to _you_, Dorothy?"

"Yes. It was once--for just one minute. The night he went away. That's another queer thing that happened."

"It didn't satisfy you, darling, did it?"

"Of course it didn't satisfy me. I want more and more of it. Not just flashes."

"You say it's the price we pay for being mothers. Yet if Veronica had had a child--"

"You needn't be so sorry for Veronica."

"I'm not. It's you I'm sorriest for. You've had nothing. From beginning to end you had nothing.

"I might at least have seen that you had it in the beginning."

"_You_, Mummy?"

"Yes. Me. You _shall_ have it now. Unless you want to leave me."

"I wouldn't leave you for the world, Mummy ducky. Only you must let me work always and all the time."

"Let you? I'll let you do what you like, my dear."

"You always have let me, haven't you?"

"It was the least I could do."

"Poor Mummy, did you think you had to make up because you cared for them more than me?"

"I wonder," said Frances, thoughtfully, "if I did."

"Of course. Of course you did. Who wouldn't?"

"I never meant you to know it, Dorothy."

"Of course I knew it. I must have known it ever since Michael was born.

I knew you couldn't help it. You had to. Even when I was a tiresome kid I knew you had to. It was natural."