In the beginning of the story, the mood features the characteristic ease and lightness associated with English literature from the Edwardian period. The story's opening ("Everyone in the village knew...") gives the expositional passages a conversational tone and makes it feel like the narrator is gossiping directly with the reader. This gives the mood an element of casual familiarity that remains until Michael dies in the war.
Around the middle of the story, the mood is increasingly emptied of its ease. As the war takes over the story, the mood hardens and the reader feels increasingly overwhelmed and numb alongside Helen. The sharp contrast of the mood in the various parts of the story reflects the shift that took place in British society when the war broke out in 1914. While many people, especially the younger portions of society, entered the new century with an excitement for modernity, the war threw a wrench in the hopes of a whole generation.
In the final passages of the story, the mood involves a gripping blend of desolation and hope. On the one hand, the war-torn landscape crowded with tens of thousands of graves fills Helen and the reader with dread. On the other hand, Helen's encounter with the compassionate gardener and the narrator's emphasis on the "young plants" in the soft earth introduce a small trickle of hope as the story comes to an end.
