Theodor Mommsen - "Römische Geschichte Book 4"

Roger Thompson Finlay - "The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns"

Ferdinand Raimund - "Der Alpenkonig und der Menschenfeind"

Jean Webster - "Jerry Junior"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Fortitude

H >> Hugh Walpole >> Fortitude




Yes, the beast was moving... and, out and in, lost and then found again,
crept that twisting chain of beggars to whose pallid army Peter himself had
once so nearly belonged.

"I suppose I've got a headache after all that row with Clare," Peter
thought as he climbed off the omnibus.


V

He realised, as he came into the Bloomsbury square, and saw Mrs. Brockett
gloomily waiting for him, that the adventures of his life were most
strangely bound together. Not for an instant did he seem to be able to
escape from any one of them. Now it would be Cornwall, now the Bookshop,
now Stephen, now Mr. Zanti, now Bucket Lane, now Treliss--all of them
interweaving, arresting his action at every moment. Because he had done
that once now this must not be permitted him; he felt, as he rang the old
heavy bell of Brockett's that his head would never think clearly again. As
the door opened and he stepped into the hall he heard, faintly, across the
flat spaces of the Square "Tap-tap-tap-tap-clamp-clamp...."

Even Mrs. Brockett, who might be considered if any one in the world, immune
from morbid imaginations, felt the heaviness of the day, suggested a
prevalence of thunder, and shook her head when Peter asked about Miss
Monogue.

"She's bad, Mr. Peter, very bad, poor dear. There's no doubt about that.
It's hard to see what can be done for her--but plucky! That's a small word
for it!"

"I'm sure she is," said Peter, feeling ashamed of having made so much of
his own little troubles.

"She must get out of London if she's to improve at all. In a week or two I
hope she'll be able to move."

"How's every one else?"

"Oh, well enough." Mrs. Brockett straightened her dress with her beautiful
hands in the old familiar way-- "But you're not looking very hearty
yourself, Mr. Peter."

"Oh! I'm all right," he answered smiling; but she shook her head after him
as she watched him go up the stairs.

And then he was surprised. He came into Norah Monogue's room and found her
sitting up by her window, looking better than he had ever seen her. Her
face was full of colour and her eyes bright and smiling. Only on her hands
the blue veins stood out, and their touch, when she shook hands with him,
was hot and burning.

But he was reassured; Mrs. Brockett had exaggerated and made the worst of
it all.

"You're looking splendid--I'm so glad. I was afraid from your letter-"

"Oh! I really am getting on," she broke in gaily, "and it's the nicest boy
in the world that you are to come in and see me so quickly. Only on a day
like this London does just lie heavily upon one doesn't it? and one just
longs for the country--"

A little breath of a sigh escaped from her and she looked through her
window at the dim chimneys, the clouds hanging like consolidated smoke, the
fine, thin dust that filtered the air.

"You're looking tired yourself, Peter. Working too hard?"

"No," he shook his head. "The work hasn't been coming easily at all. I
suppose I've been too conscious, lately, of the criticisms every one made
about 'The Stone House.' I don't believe one ought really to listen to
anybody and yet it's so hard not to, and so difficult to know whose opinion
one ought to take if one's going to take anybody's. I wish," he suddenly
brought out, "Henry Galleon were still alive. I could have followed him."

"But why follow anybody?"

"Ah! that's just it. I'm beginning to doubt myself and that's why it's
getting so difficult."

Her eyes searched his face and she saw, at once, that he was in very real
trouble. He looked younger, just then, she thought, than she had ever seen
him, and she felt herself so immensely old that she could have taken him
into her arms and mothered him as though he'd been her own son.

"There are a lot of things the matter," she said. "Tell me what they all
are."

"Well," he said slowly, "I suppose it's all been mostly my own fault--but
the real difficulty is that I don't seem to be able to run the business of
being married and the business of writing together. I don't think Clare in
the least cares now about my writing--she almost resents it; she cared at
first when she thought that I was going to make a huge success of it, but
now--"

"But, of course," said Miss Monogue, "that success comes slowly--it must if
it's going to be any use at all--"

"Well, she doesn't see that. And she wants me to go out to parties and play
about all the time--and then she doesn't want me to be any of the things
that I was before I met her. All my earlier life frightens her--I suppose,"
he suddenly ended, "I want her to be different and she wants me to be
different and we can't make a compromise."

Then Miss Monogue said: "Have any outside people interfered at all?"

Peter coloured. "Well, of course, Mrs. Rossiter stands up for Clare. She
came and talked to me this morning and I think the things that she said
were quite true. I suppose I am morose and morbid sometimes--more than I
realise--and then," he added slowly, "there's Cards--"

"Cards?"

"Cardillac--a man I was at school with. I'm very fond of him. He's the best
friend I've got, and he's been all over the place and done everything and,
of course, knows ever so much more about the world than I do. The fact
is he thinks really that my novels are dreadful nonsense, only he's much
too kind to say so--and, of course, Clare looks up to him a lot. Although
he's only my own age he seems so much older than both Clare and myself. I
don't believe she'd have lost interest in my work so quickly if he hadn't
influenced her--and he's influenced me too--" Peter added sighing.

"Well--and is there anything else?"

"Yes. There's Stephen. I can't begin to tell you how I love that kid.
There haven't been many people in my life that I've cared about and I've
never realised anything so intensely before. Besides," he went on laughing
proudly, "he's such a splendid kid! I wish you could see him, Norah. He'll
do something one day--"

"Well, what's the trouble about Stephen?"

"Clare's so odd about him. There are times when I don't believe she cares
for him the least little bit. Then there are other times when she resents
fiercely my interfering about him. Sometimes she seems to love him more
than anything in the world, but it's always in an odd defiant way--just as
though she were afraid that something would hurt her if she showed that she
cared too much."

There was silence between them for a minute and then Peter summed it all up
with:--"The fact is, Norah, that every sort of thing's getting in between
me and my work and worries me. It's as though I were tossing more balls in
the air than I could possibly manage. At one moment I think it's Clare that
I've got especially to hang on to--another time it's the book--and then
it's Stephen. The moment I've settled down something turns up to remind me
of Cornwall or the Bookshop. Fact is I'm getting battered at by something
or other and I never can get my breath. I oughtn't ever to have
married--I'm not up to it."

Norah Monogue took his hand.

"You are up to it, Peter, but I expect you've got a lot to go through
before you're clear of things. Now I'm going to be brutal. The fact is that
you're too self-centred. People never do anything in the world so long as
they are wondering whether the world's going to hurt them or no. Those
early years of yours made you morbid. You've got a temper and one or two
other things that want a lot of holding down and that takes up your
attention--And then Clare isn't the woman to help you--"

Peter was about to break in but she went on:--'"Oh! I know my Clare through
and through. She's just as anxious as you are not to be hurt by anything
and so she's being hurt all the time. She's out for happiness at any cost
and you're out for freedom--freedom from every kind of thing--and because
both of you are denied it you are restive. But you and Clare are both
people whose only salvation is in being hurt and knocked about and bruised
to such an extent that they simply don't know where they are. Oh! I
know--I'm exactly the same sort of person myself. We can thank the Gods if
we are knocked about--"

Suddenly she paused and, falling back in her chair, put her hand to her
breast, coughing. Something seized her, held her in its grip, tossed her
from side to side, at last left her white, speechless, utterly exhausted.
It had come so suddenly that it had taken Peter entirely by surprise. She
lay back now, her eyes closed, her face a grey white.

He ran to the door and called Mrs. Brockett. She came and with an
exclamation hurried away for remedies.

Peter suddenly felt his hand seized--a hoarse whisper was in his
ear--"Peter--dear--go--at--once--I can't bear--you--to see me--like this.
Come back--another day."

He knelt, moved by an affection and tenderness that seemed stronger than
any emotion he had ever known, and kissed her. She whispered:

"Dear boy--"

On his way back to Chelsea, the orange lamps, the white streets powdered
with the evening glow, the rustling plane trees whispered to him, "You've
got to be knocked about--you've got to be knocked about--you've got to be
knocked about--" but the murmur was no longer sinister.

Still thinking of Norah, he went up to the nursery to see the boy in bed.
He remembered that Clare was going out alone to a party and that he would
have the evening to himself.

On entering the room, dark except for a nightlight by the boy's bed, some
unknown fear assailed him. He was instantly, at the threshold, conscious of
it. He stood for a moment in silence. Then realised what it was. The boy
was moaning in his sleep.

He went quickly over to the cot and bent down. Stephen's cheeks were
flaming, his hands very hot.

Peter rang the bell. Mrs. Kant appeared.

"Is there anything the matter with Stephen?"

Mrs. Kant looked at him, surprised, a little offended. "He's had a little
cold all day, sir. I've kept him indoors."

"Have you taken his temperature?"

"Yes, sir, nothing at all unusual. He often goes up and down."

"Have you spoken to your mistress?"

"Yes, sir. She agrees with me that there is nothing unusual--"

He brushed past the woman and went to his wife's bedroom.

She was dressed and was putting on a string of pearls, a wedding present
from her father. She smiled up at him--

"Clare, do you know Stephen's ill?"

"No, it's only a cold. I've been up to see him--"

He took her hand--she smiled up at him--"Did you enjoy your visit?" She
fastened the necklace.

"Clare, stay in to-night. It may be nothing but if the boy got worse--"

"Do you want me to stay?"

"Yes."

"I wanted you to go with me this afternoon--"

"That was different. The boy may be really ill--"

"You didn't do what I wanted this afternoon. Why should I do what you want
now?"

"Clare, stay. Please, please--"

She took her hand gently out of his, and, as she went out of the door
switched off the electric light.

He heard the opening of the hall door and, standing where she had left him
in the dark bedroom, saw, shining, laughing at him, her eyes.




CHAPTER XI

WHY?


I

There are occasions in our life when the great Wave so abruptly overwhelms
us that before we have recovered our dazed senses it has passed and the
water on every side of us is calm again.

There are other occasions when we stand, it may seem through a lifetime of
anticipation bracing our backs for the inevitable moment. Every hour before
it comes is darkened, every light is dimmed by its implacable shadow. Then
when at last it is upon us we meet it with an indifference, almost with a
relief, because it has come at last.

So was it now with Peter. During many weeks he had been miserable,
apprehensive, seeing an enemy in every wind. Now, behold, his adversary in
the open.

"This," he might cry to that old man, down in Scaw House, "this is what you
have been preparing for me, is it? At last you've shown me--well, I'll
fight you."

Young Stephen was very ill. Peter was strangely assured that it was to be a
bad business. Well, it rested with him, Peter, to pull the boy through. If
he chose to put his back into it and give the kid some of his own vigour
and strength then it was bound to be all right.

Standing there in the dark, he stripped his mind naked; he flung from it
every other thought, every other interest--his work, Clare, everything
must go. Only Stephen mattered and Stephen should be pulled through.

For an instant, a little cold trembling fear struck his heart.
Supposing ...? Then fiercely, flinging the thought from him he trampled
it down.

He went to the telephone and called up a doctor who lived in Cheyne Walk.
The man could be with him in a quarter of an hour.

Then he went back into the nursery. Mrs. Kant was there.

"I've sent for Dr. Mitchell."

"Very well, sir."

"He'll be here in quarter of an hour."

"Very well, sir."

He hated the woman. He would like to take her thin, bony neck and wring it.

He went over to the cot and looked down. The little body outlined under
the clothes was so helpless, the little hands, clenched now, were so tiny;
he was breathing very fast and little sounds came from between his teeth,
little struggling cries.

Peter saw that moment when Stephen the Elder had held Stephen the younger
aloft in his arms. The Gods appear to us only when we claim to challenge
their exultation. They had been challenged at that moment.... Young Stephen
against the Gods! Surely an unequal contest!


II

Dr. Mitchell came and instantly the struggle was at its height.
Appendicitis. As they stood over the cot the boy awoke and began to cry a
little, turned his head from side to side as though to avoid the light,
beating with his hands on the counterpane.

"I must send for a nurse at once," Dr. Mitchell said.

"Everything is in your hands," Peter answered.

"You'd better go down and have something to eat."

The little cry came trembling and pitiful, driving straight into Peter's
heart.

"Temperature 105--pretty bad." Mitchell, who was a stout, short man with
red cheeks, grey eyes and the air of an amiable Robin, was transformed now
into something sharp, alert, official.

Peter caught his arm--

"It's all right?... you don't think--?"

The man turned and looked at him with eyes so kind that Peter trembled.

"Look here, we've got to fight it, Westcott. I ought to have been called
hours ago. But keep your head and we'll pull the child through.... Better
go down and have something to eat. You'll need it."

Outside the door Peter faced a trembling Mrs. Kant.

"Look here, you lied just now. You never took the boy's temperature."

"Well, sir--"

"Did you or not?"

"Well, sir, Mrs. Westcott said there was no need. I'm sure I thought--"

"You leave the house now--at once. Go up and pack your things and clear
out. If I see you here in an hour's time the police shall turn you out."

The woman began to cry. Peter went downstairs. To his own surprise he found
that he could eat and drink. Of so fundamental an importance was young
Stephen in his life that the idea that he could ever lose him was of an
absurd and monstrous incredibility. No, of that there was no question--but
he was conscious nevertheless of the supreme urgency of the occasion.
That young Stephen had ever been delicate or in any way a weakling was
a monstrous suggestion. Always when one thought of him it was a baby
laughing, tumbling--or thoughtfully, with his hand rolled tightly inside
his father's, taking in the world.

Just think of all the tottering creatures who go on and on and snap their
fingers at death. The grotesque old men and women! Or think of the feeble
miserables who never know what a day's health means--crowding into Davos or
shuddering on the Riviera!

And young Stephen, the strongest, most vital thing in the world!
Nevertheless, suddenly, Peter found that he could eat and drink no more. He
put the food aside and went upstairs again.

In the darkened nursery he sat in a chair by the fire and waited for the
hours to pass. The new nurse had arrived and moved quietly about the room.
There was no sound at all save the monotonous whispering beseeching little
cries that came from the bed. One had heard that concentration of will
might do so much in the directing of such a battle, and surely great
love must help. Peter, as he sat in the half-darkness thought that he
had never before realised his love for the boy--how immense it was--how
all-pervading, so that if it were taken from him life would be instantly
broken, without colour, without any rhythm or force.

As he sat there he thought confusedly of a great number of things of his
own childhood--of his mother--of a boy at Dawson's who had asked him once
as they gazed up at a great mass of apple blossoms in bloom, "Do you think
there is anything in all that stuff about God anyway, Westcott?"--of a
night when he had gone with some loose woman of the town and of the wet
miry street that they had left behind them as she had closed the door--of
that night at the party when he had seen Cardillac again--of the things
that Maradick had said to him that night when young Stephen was born--and
so from that to his own life, his own birth, his father, Scaw House, the
struggle that it had all been.

He remembered a sentence out of a strange novel of Dostoieffsky's that
he had once read, "The Brothers Karamazoff": "It's a feature of the
Karamazoffs ... that thirst for life regardless of everything--" and the
Karamazoffs were of a sensual, debased stock--rotten at the base of them
with an old drunken buffoon of a father--yes, that was like the Westcotts.
All his life, struggle ... and young Stephen--all _his_ life, struggle...
and yet, even in the depths of degradation, if the fight were to go that
way there would still be that lust for life.

So many times he had been almost under. First Stephen Brant had saved him,
then at Brockett's Norah Monogue, then in Bucket Lane his illness, then in
Chelsea his marriage, lately young Stephen... always, always something had
been there to keep him on his feet. But if everything were taken from him,
if he were absolutely, nakedly alone--what then? Ah, what then!

He buried his head in his hands. "God, you don't know what young Stephen is
to me--or, yes, of course you do know, God--and because you do know, you
will not take him from me."

The little tearing pain at his heart held him--every now and again it
turned like some grinding key.

Mitchell entered with another doctor. Peter went over to the window, and
whilst they made their examination, stared through the glass at the
fretwork of trees, the golden haze of London beyond, two stars that now,
when the storm had spent itself, showed in a dark dim sky. Very faintly the
clanging note of trams, the clatter of a hansom cab, the imperative call of
some bell came to him.

The world could thus go on! Mitchell crossed to him and put his hand on his
shoulder--

"He's pretty bad, Westcott. An operation's out of the question I'm afraid.
But if you'd like another opinion--"

"No thanks. I trust you and Hunt." The doctor could feel the boy's body
trembling beneath his touch.

"It's all right, Westcott. Don't be frightened. We'll do all mortals can.
We'll know in the early morning how things are going to be. The child's got
a splendid constitution."

He was interrupted by the opening of the nursery door and, turning, the men
saw Clare with the light of the passage at her back, standing in the
doorway. Her cloak was trailing on the floor--around her her pink filmy
dress hung like shadows from the light behind her. Her face was white, her
eyes wide.

"What--?" she whispered in the voice of a frightened child.

Peter crossed the room, and took her with him into the passage, closing the
door behind him.

She clung to him, looking up into his face.

"Stephen's very bad, dear. No, it's something internal--"

"And I went out to a party?" her voice was trembling, she was very near to
tears. "But I was miserable, wretched all the time. I wanted to come back,
I knew I oughtn't to have gone.... Oh Peter, will he die? Oh! poor little
thing! Poor little thing!"

Even at that moment, Peter noticed, she spoke as though it were somebody
else's baby.

"No, no, dear. It'll be all right. Of course it will. Mitchell's here,
he'll pull him through. But you'd better go and lie down, dear. I promise
to come and tell you if anything's the matter. You can't do any
good--there's an excellent nurse!"

"Where's Mrs. Kant?"

"I dismissed her this evening for lying to me. Go to bed. Clare--really
it's the best thing."

She began to cry with her hands up to her face, but she went, slowly, with
her cloak still trailing after her, to her room.

She had not, he noticed, entered the nursery.


III

He went back and sat down again in the arm-chair by the fire. Poor Clare!
he felt only a great protecting pity for her--a strange feeling, compounded
of emotions that were unexpectedly confused. A feeling that was akin to
what he would have felt had she been his sister and been insulted by some
drunken blackguard in the street. Poor Clare! She was so young--simply not
up to these big grown-up troubles.

Those little cries had ceased--only every now and again an echo of a
moan--so slight was the sound that broke the silence. The hours advanced
and there settled about the house that chilly ominous sense of anticipation
that the early morning brings in its grey melancholy hands. It was a little
house but it was full, now, of expectancy. Up the stairs, through the
passages, pressing against the windows there were many presences waiting
for the moment when the issue of this struggle would be decided. The air
was filled with their chill breath. The struggle round the bed was at its
height. On one side doctors, nurses, the father, the mother--on the other
that still, ironic Figure, in His very aloofness so strong, in His
indifference so terrible.

With Peter, as the grey dawn grew nearer, confidence fled. He was suddenly
conscious of the strength and invisibility of the thing that he was
fighting. He must do something. If he were compelled to sit, silently,
quietly, with his hands folded, much longer, he would go mad. But it was
absurd--Stephen, about whom he had made so many plans, Stephen, concerning
whom there had been that struggle to bring about his very existence ...
surely all that was not now to go for nothing at all.

If he could do something--if he could do something!

There were drops of sweat on his forehead--inside his clothes his body was
hot and dry and had shrunk, it seemed, into some tiny shape, like a nut, so
that his things hung loosely all about him.

He could not bear that dark cavernous nursery, with the faint lights and
the stairs and passages beyond it so crowded with urgent silence!

He caught Mitchell on the shoulder.

"How is it?"

"Oh! we're fighting it. It's the most rapid thing I've ever known. If we
only could have operated! Look here, go and lie down for a bit--I'll let
you know if there's any change!"

He went to his dressing-room, all ghostly now with the first struggling
light of dawn. He closed the door behind him and then fell down on his
knees by the bed, pressing his face into his hands.

He prayed: "Oh! God, God, God. I have never wanted anything like this
before but Stephen is more to me, much, much more to me than anything that
I have ever had--more, far more than my own life. I haven't much to offer
but if you will let me keep Stephen you can have all the rest. You can send
me back to Bucket Lane, take my work, anything ... I want Stephen ... I
want Stephen. God, he is such a good boy. He has always been good and he
will make such a fine man. There won't be many men so fine as he. He's good
as gold. God I will die myself if he may live, I'm no use. I've made a mess
of things--but let him live and take me. Oh! God I want him, I want him!"

He broke into sobs and was bowed down there on the floor, his body
quivering, his face pressed against the bed.

He was conscious that Clare had joined him. She must have heard him from
her room. He tried as he felt her body pressed against his, to pull himself
together, but the crying now had mastered him and he could only feel her
pushing with her hand to find his--and at last he let her take his hand and
hold it.

He heard her whisper in his ear.

"Peter dear, don't--don't cry like that. I can't bear to hear you like
that. I'm so miserable, Peter. I've been so wicked--so cross and selfish.
I've hurt you so often--I'm going to be better, Peter. I am really."

At that moment they might have come together with a reality, an honesty
that no after-events could have shaken. But to Peter Clare was very far
away. He was not so conscious of her as he was of those presences that
thronged the house. What could she do for him now? Afterwards perhaps. But
now it was Stephen--Stephen--Stephen--

But he let her hold his hand and he felt her hair against his cheek, and at
last he put his arm around her and held her close to him, and she, with her
face against his, went fast asleep. He looked down at her. She looked so
young and helpless that the sight of her leaning, tired and beaten, against
him, touched him and he picked her up, carried her into her room and laid
her on her bed.

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