Chapter V: Epilogue

_In the two years that have passed since the events of the Prologue, the country-house has been in the hands of the enemy. The wide open doorway and the uncurtained casements show springtide country, with stumps of fruit-trees, trampled fields, and, in the distance, the burned rafters of a hamlet and the gaunt tower of a ruined church. Within, the room has been stripped bare of all that made it livable, hangings, rugs, cushions, pictures, bric-a-brac. The good and heavy furniture has been replaced with plain and cheap articles. At the left is a deal table, on which stand a lamp with a green shade, of ordinary pattern, and an earthen jug with a few sprays of lilac. A wooden chair is beside the table. At the centre is a plain table, on which is a big basket of coarse mending. At either side of the table is a rush-bottom chair. A cottage settle is at right angles to the hearth. Beside the hearth is a wheel-chair, and near by a wooden chair._

_The season is May, eight months after the events upon the battle-line. The time is late afternoon._

_On the bench in the bow-window Thomas, neatly but poorly clad, sits with a shabby little picture book. Near by the Professor, aged, shabby, and almost senile, is irritably looking from the window. Lydia, gaunt and aged, all in black, sits mending at the right of the table. In the wheel-chair, with a rug across his knees, sits Basil, the haggard wreck of the boy who meant to end the war in six weeks._

PROFESSOR. Dear, dear! Katherine is very late with the mail.

LYDIA. Well, Kate can’t go like a race-horse, you might remember. She’s tired, poor girl! And no wonder, with all that she has to do.

PROFESSOR. But at such a time it is most exasperating not to have the paper promptly.

BASIL. Probably Kate ducked in somewhere when that shower came up.

THOMAS [_going to Lydia_]. Can I go down the lane and meet Aunt Katherine?

LYDIA. Yes, Thomas. But mind you don’t go near the soldiers’ camp.

THOMAS. No, I won’t.

[_Thomas runs out at the terrace door._]

LYDIA. That camp is enough to demoralize all the boys and girls in the district. What there is about brass buttons and a bugle—

BASIL. Oh, come, Mother! Our chaps are decent enough fellows.

LYDIA. Well, I’ll be thankful when their camp is broken up. They demobilize next week, didn’t you say?

BASIL. They were planning to. But there’s no telling what will happen with these new complications.

LYDIA. Fiddlesticks! You needn’t tell me that we’re going to fight again. We’ve got peace at last, haven’t we? We’ve got the victory, haven’t we?

BASIL. I wonder. If we have, I don’t think much of what they call the fruits of victory.

LYDIA. Fruits of victory! I don’t see much of them in this house.

[_Gertrude, in shabby black clothes, white, sullen, and weary, comes in at the left._]

GERTRUDE. That last shower did the business. The kitchen roof is leaking like a sieve. Give me the mending, Mother.

LYDIA. There’s enough for two. Shoddy stuff they sell us nowadays.

GERTRUDE. [_Sits left of table, with mending._] There’s a half day’s work to do on that roof. We need an able-bodied man—and the money to pay him.

LYDIA. Well, Robert will be home very soon now. And when he takes hold of things—

GERTRUDE. We can’t do much without ready money. And every penny is eaten up with the new taxes.

PROFESSOR. It is entirely the fault of the ministry. They should have stood out for a proper war indemnity. They should have made the foreigners pay for all our losses.

BASIL. And what the devil were the foreigners to pay with? I tell you, they’re worse off than we are.

LYDIA [_going to sit on the settle near Basil_]. O sonny, how can that be possible?

PROFESSOR. Well, well! Here’s Kate at last. And high time, I should think.

[_Katherine comes in with Thomas at the terrace door. She wears a plain and inexpensive walking suit, hat, and blouse. She looks older by ten years._]

PROFESSOR. You are late, Katherine.

[_Thomas gives the Professor a newspaper, which the old man eagerly spreads open._]

KATHERINE. I’m sorry, Uncle. The road was a bit heavy. Here’s a letter for you, Trudie!

GERTRUDE. Why, it’s from Margaret. It’s months since we’ve had a word from her.

BASIL. Give us a look-in, Uncle.

PROFESSOR. Most annoying! [_Going to Basil._] Only one penny paper a day, and at a crisis like this—a national crisis. [_Sits on the chair beside Basil and shares the paper with him._]

THOMAS. Aunt Katherine! Can I go out and play a little?

KATHERINE. Yes, dear. Stay in the garden, remember. [_Puts her hat and coat in the closet._]

THOMAS. Yes, I will.

[_Thomas goes out at the terrace door._]

BASIL. Well, it looks squally, all right.

GERTRUDE. Bad news, Basil?

PROFESSOR. At least we are in better shape than we were two years ago. We have an efficient army of seasoned men.

BASIL. Seasoned like me, eh?

LYDIA. We’re not going to fight again?

KATHERINE. It’s nothing but talk, Mother. [_Sits right of table, takes mending._]

BASIL. We have cause enough to fight, and don’t you forget it.

PROFESSOR. Yes. The conduct of our late associates in arms has violated every usage of international law.

BASIL. We’ll teach ’em a thing or two. And we’ve got those that will help us.

KATHERINE. You don’t really think we’ll fight against our old comrades?

PROFESSOR. In the shift of events that is not altogether impossible.

LYDIA. You mean we’ll actually fight now on the side of the foreigners? Ignorant wretches!

BASIL. Oh, they’re not half bad, Mother. Really they’re much more our sort than our old associates. They were mighty decent to me, you know, when I was off my head, before Kate found me.

PROFESSOR. The foreigners are not the worst of people, Lydia. Philip now, he was a quite likable young man.

[_Gertrude listens tensely._]

BASIL. He wasn’t a half bad sort, old Phil.

PROFESSOR [_turning to his paper_]. Killed in action, didn’t you say, Kate?

KATHERINE [_rising_]. Yes. He was killed in a raid at St. Jo’s. Instantly killed. [_Goes to the window at right._]

LYDIA. Poor fellow! At least it’s a comfort to think that he did not suffer. You have that to remember, Gertrude.

GERTRUDE. Oh, yes! I remember. [_Rises and goes with her letter into the bow-window._]

BASIL. Poor old Phil!

PROFESSOR [_reading the paper_]. Tut, tut! Shocking! Most shocking!

BASIL. Let’s see, sir. [_Glancing at the paper._] Ah, that’s rotten!

LYDIA. What is it?

BASIL. Getting nasty, our late comrades in arms. Women of ours have been attacked among them. Oh, I say! Little children—butchered!

KATHERINE. Basil! Two years ago, those are the same stories they told about Phil’s countrymen.

GERTRUDE. Here’s interesting news. Margaret is to be married.

KATHERINE. Not Margaret— Hush!

[_Lydia lays a hand on Basil’s arm._]

BASIL. It doesn’t matter. Who waits for a man as good as dead?

GERTRUDE. She can forget. There are such women. Isn’t she lucky? [_Turns to the door._]

LYDIA. Where are you going?

GERTRUDE. Out where the garden used to be.

[_Gertrude goes out at the terrace door._]

LYDIA [_rising_]. Perhaps I’d better follow her. It’s the old folks have to tend upon the young folks now.

[_Lydia goes out at the terrace door._]

BASIL. You can have the paper, sir.

PROFESSOR. Yes, yes. [_Hurries toward the chair at the left._] The editorials—their comments are too mild. They do not understand the principles our late associates have shamelessly violated. [_Sits at the left and buries himself in the coveted paper._]

KATHERINE [_laying her hand on Basil’s arm_]. Old man!

BASIL [_sharply_]. If you don’t mind letting me alone! I beg your pardon, Kate. About all I can do now is to bite on the bullet—gracefully, and keep on biting for a little matter of forty or fifty years.

KATHERINE. Doctors don’t know everything. Perhaps—

BASIL. They know enough to know I’m tied to this chair till death do us part. That’s in the marriage service, isn’t it? [_Breaking down._] Ah!

KATHERINE. Basil! Don’t! Don’t!

LYDIA [_outside, excitedly_]. Kate! O Kate!

KATHERINE. Mother! What’s wrong?

[_Lydia hurries in at the terrace door._]

LYDIA. Kate! Here’s Rob come home this very day. Here’s Rob come home at last. I told you—I kept telling you—they couldn’t fight again. Now we’ve got Rob back. It’s all right. It’s all right. Come in, Rob! Come in!

[_Robert, noticeably aged, in civilian clothes, appears at the terrace door. He has the look of a man who has just been struck in the face. Lydia hurries down to the Professor, who rises._]

ROBERT. I—I hardly recognized the house. Kate!

KATHERINE [_going to his arms_]. You’ve come back to stay, Rob? You’re not in uniform. Oh, I was afraid—

ROBERT [_looking about the dismantled room_]. They did a pretty thorough job here, didn’t they?

KATHERINE. You’ll get used to it, Rob. We’re all getting used to it.

ROBERT [_in the doorway_]. Cleaned out the orchards, didn’t they? All fruit trees, those were. Just got ’em in condition to bear.

KATHERINE. I wrote you how things were.

ROBERT. Yes. I didn’t quite take it in. [_Starts toward the hearth, stops, smitten at the sight of Basil, then goes to him._] Hello, Bub! Hard luck, old man! [_Gertrude appears in the doorway, unnoticed by Robert_]. Cleaned us up here pretty well, the foreigners, didn’t they? Cleaned us up, while we were getting ready to fight! And now we’re turning out to help ’em thrash our old comrades in arms.

KATHERINE. What!

ROBERT. War was declared at noon to-day.

KATHERINE. War was declared!

ROBERT [_going to the Professor_]. Here’s a late paper, sir.

PROFESSOR. Thank you, Robert, thank you! [_Retires into the bow-window, where he reads the paper, oblivious of all else._]

LYDIA. They’re going to keep on fighting! [_Goes to Basil, sits on the settle._]

KATHERINE. But you’ve come home.

ROBERT. Yes. They only want able-bodied men for cannon fodder—young men, strong men, not chaps like me. Knocked my heart out in the service. Got rheumatism in those damned trenches. That’s why they gave me my walking ticket. That’s why I’ve come home.

KATHERINE. And now we fight for the foreigners. I can’t believe it.

GERTRUDE [_coming into the room_]. Phil would have been useful now. A pity, isn’t it, Rob, that you murdered him.

ROBERT. Trudie! What do you mean?

GERTRUDE. Ask Kate!

KATHERINE. Gertrude!

ROBERT. You talked?

LYDIA. You shan’t blame Kate. She found my boy. She brought him home.

ROBERT. You talked, Kate?

GERTRUDE. In her sleep. I know what you did to him. I’m glad you’ve come here. At every turn of the stair—in every room of this house that was home to him—you’ll see Phil now, as I see him, all the days of your life.

ROBERT. Kate! In your sleep—you remembered like that?

KATHERINE. I can’t forget. I can’t forget.

ROBERT. I’d been drinking.

KATHERINE. Don’t! Don’t! I know.

ROBERT. You don’t understand. You’ve got to understand. In the trenches that winter, with the dirty water at our knees. Days on end, weeks on end, months on end. Always cold. Always wet. Vermin crawling over us. Dogs’ food that we snatched like dogs. And all the time the guns were pounding, pounding, pounding, and we shouted to be heard, and our ear-drums were cracking. We turned up the filth and slime to bury our dead, and we came on the rotting dead they’d laid there—

KATHERINE. Don’t! Don’t!

ROBERT. Well, I got to depending on the stuff. It deadened things. But I never went drunk to bed till the night I got your letter—the letter about Roland.

KATHERINE. I’m not blaming you. [_Sinking on chair, at the right of the table._] God help us all!

ROBERT. Can’t you understand, Trudie? I was half drunk that night when Phil— No! I don’t mean that. All that I did was right.

GERTRUDE. Your friend! He was your friend!

ROBERT. I don’t carry my friendships onto the firing line. He was nothing to me, that chap. I was ready to make him talk. At any cost. Yes. [_Gertrude, with a strangled cry, goes into the bow-window._] But I didn’t do it for fun, Kate. [_Goes to the table._] To save my own chaps from getting pounded to pieces. I was right. He’s got no business coming into my dreams. I was right. I’ll say that to you, Kate, just as I’ll say it to Almighty God.

KATHERINE. Oh, the long way you’ve come, since you stood together, you three big, kind men we were so proud of, here in this very room, fussing over a little hurt beast. The Woodsy Boy came through that door. The boy you—

ROBERT [_sitting down opposite her_]. The conscript you saw me shoot? That was mutiny in the ranks. I was right, under the rules of war.

KATHERINE. Only two years ago that was, only two years. It was the day that Roland— Don’t you remember? He asked me about the picture of Moloch.

[_Very faint, but continuously swelling louder, is heard outside at the right the music of the March-out, heard in Act I._]

GERTRUDE. What’s that?

LYDIA. It can’t be the March-out that I hear!

[_Thomas, wildly excited, darts in at the terrace door._]

THOMAS. O Aunt Katherine! The soldiers are leaving the camp. They’ll march right by our house.

[_Thomas darts out again._]

LYDIA. I can’t live through it again. Oh, I’m too old!

BASIL. Why don’t you throw flowers, Trudie?

[_Gertrude, with a hysteric cry, sinks upon the floor in the bow-window._]

KATHERINE. And we thought the war was ended.

ROBERT. Thought the war was over, did you? Not a bit of it. As long as men are men, there’ll be fighting.

LYDIA. We can’t bear any more.

KATHERINE. We’ve nothing left to give.

ROBERT. Stop crying! There’s an ocean of tears been shed already—an ocean of blood. Doesn’t make any difference. We’re fighting still. No end to it. God’s a joke. Got any brandy in the house, Kate? I’m dead tired. I’m down and out. [_Rests his head on his arms upon the table._]

THOMAS [_running past the terrace door_]. Oh, the soldiers! The soldiers! The soldiers!

KATHERINE. Moloch is hungry still.

BASIL. And I can’t go with ’em! [_Collapses, sobbing._]

KATHERINE. More of them—more of them—more of them!

ROBERT. If they’d only stop that damned noise!

KATHERINE. Marching—marching—marching—

[_The March-out is at its fortissimo._]

CURTAIN

THE END

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text,
and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.

Inconsistent hyphenations have been left as is.

Page 56: “Katherine” typeface corrected from small caps to italics.
Page 74: “froom” replaced by “from”.
Page 83: “Phil Pray?” replaced by “Phil. Pray?”.
Page 92: “replaced table].” replaced by “table.]”.