Free The Aerodrome: A Love Story by Rex Warner

welcome, it was added, an opportunity to say a few words at some point during or after the funeral service. Such were the contents of the letter and I, when I had heard them, felt at first nothing but distaste. No consideration had in the past ever, so far as I was aware, been shown by the Air Force either to our village or to ourselves. So what reason was there for gratification in this belated token of respect, these conventional amends for a disaster which had been caused in part by the general irresponsibility of the airmen towards anything which was outside their own organization? So I thought, but it was evident that the two ladies thought differently. The Squire's sister received the news blushingly, as though some particular compliment had been paid to herself, and the Rector's wife, though her face was graver, was still, I could see, remarkably pleased with the letter which she watched meditatively with her eyes as her friend held it in her hand. "We could offer the Air Vice-Marshal a room at the Manor," said the Squire's sister. "That is, if he wants to stay the night." I thought that her face looked unnaturally, even pathetically, thin as she looked inquiringly at the Rector's wife who was now staring at the edge of the table with a slight frown on her face. She raised her eyes to me and smiled. "What do you think, Roy?" she asked. "Would it not be better if he stayed here?" And there was a kind of urgency in her question which surprised me. "I really don't mind at all," I said. "Is it so important anyway? Probably he won't want to stay the night." Both ladies, I thought, seemed disappointed with my reply. There was a short pause, and then the Squire's sister, looking sharply at me, said: "But the point is that we should decide what to do if he does want to stay." I said that it was better for them to decide the point between them, and that I was quite ready to fall in with any arrangement which they might care to make. Then I left the room and began to walk towards the Manor. As I went I thought with bitterness of the many humiliations and inconveniences which we in the village had already had to suffer from this Air Force whose belated expression of regret seemed so to please my two friends. There had been a time, I knew, when the authority of squire and parson in the village had been absolute, and had been wisely and tenderly exercised. That was before now; for now, although legally the position was just as it had always been, the very presence of the aerodrome on the hill, the very sound and sight of the machines crossing and recrossing our valley, seemed somehow to have dissipated the cohesion of our village and to have set up a standing threat to our régime. The threat was even then nearer and more definite than I fancied. This I discovered very soon after I had entered the Manor, and had seen the Squire pacing up and down the hall, his hands clasped behind his back, and a look of intense concentration on his face. In front of him was standing at attention a man dressed in Air Force uniform. He was a small man, with red hair and moustache, and he was smiling as he watched the Squire who continued to turn back and forwards the length of the hearthrug as though he were confined in some invisible cage. Soon he looked towards me, and I offered to leave the room, but he raised his hand, stopping me. "No, stay where you are, Roy," he said. "My business with this gentleman is just over." "I shall call again on you in a couple of days, then?" said the airman. He spoke, I thought, as though he were delivering an ultimatum and was enjoying his task. The Squire looked at him sharply from beneath his thick white eyebrows. "I can settle nothing before then," he said. The airman's eyes were going over the room. He seemed half amused by the wealth of mural decoration, and, without looking at the Squire, he said: "It's a great pity, of course, but there it is." To this the Squire made no reply, but moved slowly in the