It was afternoon at Mannering.
Elizabeth was walking home from the village through the park. Still the same dry east-wind weather—very cold in the wind, very warm in the sun. If the German offensive began while these fine days held, they would have the luck of weather as we had never had it. Think of the drenching rains and winds of the Passchendaele attack! In the popular mind the notion of 'a German God' was taking actual concrete shape. A huge and monstrous form, sitting on a German hill, plotting with the Kaiser, and ordering the weather precisely as the Kaiser wished—it was thus that English superstition, aided by Imperial speeches and telegrams, began to be haunted.
Yet the world was still beautiful—the silvery stems of the trees, the flitting of the birds, the violet carpets underfoot. On the fighting line itself there was probably a new crop of poets, hymning the Spring with Death for listener, as Julian Grenfell and Rupert Brooke had hymned it, in that first year of the war that seems now an eternity behind us.
Moving along a path converging on her own, Elizabeth perceived the Squire. For the first time that morning he had put off their joint session, and she had not seen him all day. Her mind was now always uneasily aware of him—aware, too, of some change in him, for which in some painful way she felt herself responsible. He had grown strangely tame and placable, and it was generally noticed that he looked older. Yet he was more absorbed than ever in the details of Greek research and the labour of his catalogue. Only, of an evening, he read theTimesfor a couple of hours, generally in complete silence, while Elizabeth and Mrs. Gaddesden talked and knitted.
An extraordinary softness—an extraordinary compassion—was steadily invading Elizabeth's mind in regard to him. Something suggested to her that he had come into life maimed of some essential element of being, possessed by his fellow-men, and that he was now conscious of the lack, as a Greek Faun might be conscious of the difference between his life and that of struggling and suffering men. Nothing, indeed, could less suggest the blithe nature-life which Greek imagination embodied in the Faun, than the bizarre and restless aspect of the Squire. This spare white-haired man, with his tempers and irritations, was far indeed from Greek joyousness. And yet the Greek sense of beauty, half intellectual, half sensuous, had always seemed to her the strongest force in him. Was it now besieged by something else?—was the Faun in him, at last, after these three years, beginning to feel the bitter grip of humanity?
'"Deeper"? I don't know what you mean. There is nothing "deep" in me!' She often recalled that saying of his, and the look of perplexity which had accompanied it.
To herself of late he had been always courteous and indulgent; she had hardly had an uncivil word from him! But it seemed to her that he had also begun to avoid her, and the suspicion hurt her amazingly. If indeed it were true, then leave Mannering she must.
He came up with her at a cross-road, and threw her a look of enquiry.
'You have been to the village?'
'To the hospital. Thirty fresh wounded arrived last night.'
'I have just seen Chicksands,' said the Squire abruptly. 'Arthur tells him the German attack must be launched in a week or two, and may come any day. A million men, probably, thrown against us.'
'So—the next few months will decide,' said Elizabeth, shuddering.
'My God!—why did we ever go into this war!' cried the man beside her suddenly, in a low, stifled voice. She glanced at him in astonishment. The new excuses, the new tenderness for him in her heart made themselves heard.
'It was for honour,' she breathed—'for freedom!'
'Words—just words. They don't stop bombs!'
But there was nothing truculent in the tone.
'You had a line from Mr. Desmond this morning?'
'Yes—a post card. He was all right.'
Silence dropped between them. They walked on through the beautiful wooded park. Carpets of primroses ran beside them, and masses of wild cherry blossoms were beginning to show amid the beeches. Elizabeth was vaguely conscious of beauty, of warm air, of heavenly sun. But the veil upon the face of all nations was upon her eyes also.
When they reached the house, the Squire said,
'I looked up the passage in thePersaethat occurred to me yesterday. Will you come and take it down?'
They went into the library together. On a special table in front of the Squire's desk there stood a magnificent Greek vase of the early fifth century B.C. A king—Persian, from his dress—was sitting in a chair of state, and before him stood a small man apparently delivering a message.Αγγελοςwas roughly written over his head.
The Squire walked up and down with a text of thePersaein his hand.
'"This vase," he dictated, "may be compared with one signed by Xenophantos, in the Paris collection, the subject of which is the Persian king, hunting. Here we have a Persian king, identified by his dress, apparently receiving a message from his army. We may illustrate it by the passage in thePersaeof Æschylus, where Atossa receives from a messenger the account of the battle of Salamis—a passage which contains the famous lines describing the Greek onslaught on the Persian fleet:
'"'Then might you hear a mighty shout arise—
'"'Go, ye sons of Hellas!—free your fathers, free your children and your wives, the temples of your gods, and the tombs of your ancestors. For now is all at stake!...'
'"We may recall also the final summing-up by theαγγελοςof the Persian defeat—
'"'Never, on a single day, was there so great a slaying of men.'"'
Elizabeth took down the words, first in Greek and then in English. They rang in her ears, long after she had transcribed them. The Squire moved up and down in silence, absorbed apparently in the play which he went on reading.
Outside the light was failing. It was close on six o'clock, and summer time had not yet begun.
Suddenly the Squire raised his head.
'That, I think, was the telephone?'
Elizabeth rose—
'May I go? It is probably Captain Dell.'
She hurried away to her office-room, where the call-bell was insistently ringing.
'Yes—who is that?'
'A telegram please—for Mr. Mannering—from London.'
'Wait a moment—I will tell Mr. Mannering.'
But as she turned to go back to the library she saw the Squire had followed her, and was standing at the door. He came forward at once and took up the receiver.
Elizabeth watched him with a fast beating pulse. He heard the message, took out a pencil and wrote it down on a piece of paper lying near, put up the receiver, and turned to her.
'It is from Aubrey. "Desmond is severely wounded. Please come at once. Permission will be given to you and Pamela to go to France. I hope to go with you. Will meet you King's Cross 8.40. Aubrey."'
He steadied himself a moment by a hand on Elizabeth's table. She went up to him, and took his other hand, which closed an instant on hers.
'I thought so,' he said, under his breath. 'I knew it.... Telephone, please, to Fallerton for the taxi, while I go and speak to Forest.'
She gave the order and then hastened into the hall where Mrs. Gaddesden was busy trimming a hat. The Squire's eldest daughter sprang up at sight of Elizabeth.
'Oh, what is it? I know it's bad news—it's Desmond!'
Elizabeth repeated the telegram. 'Your father is going off at once. I have telephoned for the car.'
'Oh, but I must go too—of course I must!' said Alice, weeping. 'Where is my maid?'
Elizabeth pointed out gently that, in speaking of the permits for France, Major Mannering had only referred to the Squire and Pamela.
'Oh, but he must have meant me too—of course he must! Where is my maid?' She rang the upstairs' bell violently. 'Oh, father, howawful!'—the Squire had just entered the hall—'of course I'm going with you?'
'What does she mean?' said the Squire impatiently to Elizabeth. 'Tell her I'm going alone.'
'But, father, you must take me!' cried Alice, running forward with clasped hands. 'He is my brother! I must see him again!'
'He asks for Pamela,' said the Squire grimly. 'Aubrey shall wire to you. You'd better stay here—if Miss Bremerton will look after you.'
'I don't want to be looked after—I want to look after Desmond and you,' said Alice, with sobs.
The Squire's eyes travelled over the soft elaboration of her dress and hair—all her perfumed and fashionable person.
'It is impossible,' he said sharply. Then turning to Elizabeth he gave her a few directions about his letters. 'I shall get money in town. I will wire directly we arrive.'
Alice was silenced, and sat half sulky, half sobbing, by the fire, while the preparations for departure went forward. She offered help hysterically once or twice, but it was not needed.
The little car from the village arrived in half an hour. The Squire stood at the hall door waiting for it. He had not spoken since the news arrived except to give the most necessary orders. But as he saw the car nearing the house, he turned to Elizabeth.
'I expect we shall cross to-night. I shall wire you to-morrow.' Then to Forest—
'Do your best to help Miss Bremerton. She is in charge of everything.'
'Aye, sir. You'll give our duty to Mr. Desmond, sir. I trust you'll bring him home.'
The Squire made no reply. He stood motionless till the car arrived, stepped into it, and was gone.
Elizabeth went back into the house, and to Alice Gaddesden, still sobbing by the fire. At sight of Elizabeth she broke out into complaints of her father's unkindness, mixed presently, to Elizabeth's dismay, with jealousy of her father's secretary.
'I don't know why father didn't let me help him with his packing, and it's I who should have been left in charge! I'm his eldest daughter—it is natural that I should be. I can tell you it's very hard—to see somebody—who's not a relation—doing—doing everything for him!—so that he won't let anybody else advise him—or do anything! It is very—very—wounding for us all. Pamela feels it—I know she does—and Desmond too.'
Elizabeth, very white and distressed, knelt down by her and tried to calm her. But the flood of angry self-pity could not be stayed.
'Oh, I daresay you don't mean it, but you have—yes, you have a way of getting everybody's attention. Of course you're awfully clever—much cleverer than I am—or Pamela. But still it—it isn't pleasant. I know Pamela felt it dreadfully—being cut out with people she likes—people she cares about—and who—who might care for her—like Arthur Chicksands. I believe—yes, I do believe—though she never told me—that's why she went to London.'
Elizabeth rose from her knees. For a moment she was struck dumb. And when at last she spoke it was only to repeat the name Mrs. Gaddesden had mentioned in utter bewilderment.
'Captain Chicksands! What can you mean?'
'Why, of course girls can't hold their own with older women when the older women are so charming and clever—and all that'—cried Mrs. Gaddesden, trying desperately to justify herself—'but I've been awfully sorry for Pamela! Very likely it's not your fault—you couldn't know, I daresay!'
'No, indeed, I didn't know!' said Elizabeth, in a low voice, 'and I can't understand now what you mean.'
'Don't you remember the day Arthur Chicksands spent here just before Desmond went? Don't you remember how he talked to you all the afternoon about the woods? Well,Isaw Pamela's face as she was sitting behind you.'
Mrs. Gaddesden raised a triumphant though tear-stained countenance. She was avenging not only her father's latest slight, but a long series of grievances—small and great—connected with Elizabeth's position in the house. And the Squire's farewell to her had turned even her grief to gall.
'If Pamela was hurt, I was a most innocent cause!' said Elizabeth at last, indignantly. 'And if you or any one else had given me the smallest hint—'
'How could we?' was the rather sulky reply. 'Pamela, of course, never said a word—to me. But I rather think she did say something to Desmond.'
'Desmond!' cried Elizabeth under her breath. She turned slowly, and went away, leaving Mrs. Gaddesden panting and a little scared at what she had done.
Elizabeth went back to the library, where there was much to put in order. She forced herself to tidy the Squire's table, and to write a business letter or two. But when that was done she dropped her face in her hands, and shed a few very bitter tears.
She seemed to herself to have failed miserably. In truth, her heart clung to all these people. She soon attached herself to those with whom she lived, and was but little critical of them. The warm, maternal temper which went with her shrewd brain seemed to need perpetually objects on which to spend itself. She could have loved the twins dearly had they let her, and day by day, in the absence of the mother, she had been accustomed to nurse, she had even positively enjoyed 'petting' Mrs. Gaddesden, holding her wool for her, seeing to her hot-water bottles, and her breakfast in bed.
Pamela in love with Arthur Chicksands! And she remembered that a faint idea of it had once crossed her mind, only to be entirely dismissed and forgotten.
'But I ought to have seen—I ought to have known! Am I really a vampire?'
And she remembered how she, in her first youth, had suffered from the dominance and the accomplishment of older women; women who gave a girl no chance, who must have all the admiration, and all the opportunities, who would coolly and cruelly snatch a girl's lover from her.
'And that's how I've appeared to Pamela!' thought Elizabeth between laughing and crying. 'Yet all I did was to talk about ash for aeroplanes! Oh, you poor child—you poor child!'
She seemed to feel Pamela's pain in her own heart—she who had had love and lost it.
'Am I just an odious, clever woman?' She sat down and hated herself. All the passing vanity that had been stirred in her by Sir Henry's compliments, all the natural pleasure she had taken in the success of her great adventure as a business woman, in the ease with which she, the Squire's paid secretary, had lately begun to lead the patriotic effort of an English county—how petty, how despicable even, it seemed, in presence of a boy who had given his all!—even beside a girl in love!
And the Squire—'Was I hard to him too?'
The night came down. All the strange or beautiful shapes in the library wavered and flickered under the firelight—the glorious Nikê—the Erôs—the noble sketch of the boy in his cricketing dress....
The following morning came a telegram from Aubrey Mannering to Mrs. Gaddesden. Elizabeth had done her best to propitiate her but she remained cold and thorny, and when the telegram came she was pleased that the news came to her first, and—tragic as it was—that Elizabeth had to ask her for it!
'Terrible wounds. Fear no hope. We shall bring him home as soon as possible.'
But an hour later arrived another—from the Squire to Elizabeth.
'Have a bed got ready in the library. Desmond's wish. Also accommodation near for surgeon and nurses. May be able to cross to-morrow. Will wire.'
But it was nearly two days before the final message arrived—from Pamela to her sister. 'Expect us 7.20 to-night.'
By that time the ground-floor of the west wing had been transformed into a temporary ward with its adjuncts, under the direction of a Fallerton doctor, who had brought Desmond into the world and pulled him through his childish illnesses. Elizabeth had moved most of the statues, transferred the Sargent sketch to the drawing-room, and put all the small archæological litter out of sight. But the Nikê was too big and heavy to be moved, and Elizabeth remembered that Desmond had always admired 'the jolly old thing' with its eager outstretched wings and splendid brow. Doctor Renshaw shook his head over the library as a hospital ward, and ordered a vast amount of meticulous cleaning and disinfection.
'No hope?' he said, frowning. 'How do we know? Anyway there shall be no poison I can help.' But the boy's wish was law.
On the afternoon before the arrival, Elizabeth was seized with restlessness. When there was nothing more to be done in the way of hospital provision (for which a list of everything needed had been sent ahead to Doctor Renshaw)—of flowers, of fair linen—and when, in spite of the spring sun shining in through all the open windows on the bare spotless boards, she could hardly bear the sight and meaning of the transformation which had come over the room, she found herself aimlessly wandering about the big house, filled with a ghostly sense of past and future. What was to be the real meaning of her life at Mannering? She could not have deserted the Squire in the present crisis. She had indeed no false modesty as to what her help would mean, practically, to this household under the shadow of death. At least she could run the cook and the servants, wrestle with the food difficulties, and keep the Squire's most essential business going.
But afterwards? She shivered at the word. Yes, afterwards she would go! And Pamela should reign.
Suddenly, in a back passage, leading from her office to the housekeeper's room, she came upon a boy of fourteen, Forest's hall-boy, really a drudge-of-all-work, on whom essential things depended. He was sitting on a chair beside the luggage lift absorbed in some work, over which his head was bent, while an eager tip of tongue showed through his tightened lips.
'What are you doing, Jim?' Elizabeth paused beside the boy, who had always appeared to her as a simple, docile creature, not very likely to make much way in a jostling world.
'Please, Miss, I'm knitting,' said Jim, raising a flushed face.
'Knitting! Knitting what?'
'Knitting a sock for my big brother. He's in France, Miss. Mother learnt me.'
Elizabeth was silent a moment, watching the clumsy fingers as they struggled with the needles.
'Are you very fond of your brother, Jim?' she asked at last.
'Yes, Miss,' said the boy, stooping a little lower over his work. Then he added, 'There's only him and me—and mother. Father was killed last year.'
'Do you know where he is?'
'No, Miss. But Mr. Desmond told me when he was here he might perhaps see him. And I had a letter from Mr. Desmond ten days ago. He'd come across Bob, and he wrote me a letter.'
And out of his pocket he pulled a grimy envelope, and put it into Elizabeth's hands.
'Do you want me to read it, Jim?'
'Please, Miss.' But she was hardly able to read the letters for the dimness in her eyes. Just a boyish letter—from a boy to a boy. But it had in it, quite unconsciously, the sacred touch that 'makes us men.'
A little later she was in the village, where a woman she knew—one Mary Wilson—was dying, a woman who had been used to come up to do charing work at the Hall, before the last illness of a bed-ridden father kept her at home. Mary was still under fifty, plain, clumsy, and the hardest worker in the village. She lived at the outbreak of war with her father and mother. Her brother had been killed at Passchendaele, and Mary's interest in life had vanished with him. But all through the winter she had nursed her father night and day through a horrible illness. Often, as Elizabeth had now discovered, in the bitterest cold of the winter, she had had no bed but the flagstones of the kitchen. Not a word of complaint—and a few shillings for both of them to live upon!
At last the father died. And the night he died Mary staggered across to the wretched cottage of a couple of old-age pensioners opposite. 'I must rest a bit,' she said, and sitting down in a chair by the fire she fainted. Influenza had been on her for some days, and now pneumonia had set in. The old people would not hear of her being taken back to her deserted cottage. They gave up their own room to her; they did everything for her their feeble strength allowed. But the fierce disease beat down her small remaining strength. Elizabeth, since the story came to her knowledge, had done her best to help. But it was too late.
She went now to kneel at the beside of the dying woman. Mary's weary eyes lifted, and she smiled faintly at the lady who had been kind to her. Then unconsciousness returned, and the village nurse gave it as her opinion that the end was near.
Elizabeth looked round the room. Thank God the cottage did not belong to the Squire! The bedroom was about ten feet by seven, with a sloping thatched roof, supported by beams three centuries old. The one window was about two feet square. The nurse pointed to it.
'The doctor said no pneumonia case could possibly recover in a room like this. And there are dozens of them, Miss, in this village. Oh, Mary is glad to go. She nursed her mother for years, and then her father for years. She never had a day's pleasure, and she was as good as gold.'
Elizabeth held the clammy, misshapen hand, pressing her lips to it when she rose to go, as to the garment of a saint.
Then she walked quickly back through the fading spring day, her heart torn with prayer and remorse—remorse that such a life as Mary Wilson's should have been possible within reach of her own life and she not know it; and passionate praying for a better world, through and after the long anguish of the war.
'Else for what will these boys have given their lives!—what meaning in the suffering and the agony!—or in the world which permits and begets them?'
Then, at last, it was past seven o'clock. The dusk had fallen, and the stars were coming out in a pure pale blue, over the leafless trees. Elizabeth and Alice Gaddesden stood waiting at the open door of the hall. A motor ambulance was meeting the train. They would soon be here now.
Elizabeth turned to Mrs. Gaddesden.
'Won't you give a last look and see if it is all right?'
Alice's weak, pretty face cleared, as she went off to give a final survey to Desmond's room. She admitted that Elizabeth had been 'nice' that day, and all the days before. Perhaps she had been hasty.
Lights among the distant trees! Elizabeth thought of the boy who had gone out from that door, two months before, in the charm and beauty of his young manhood. What wreck was it they were bringing back?
Then the remembrance stabbed her of that curt note from France—of what Mrs. Gaddesden had said. She withdrew into the background. With all the rest to help, she would not be wanted. Yes, she had been too masterful, too prominent.
Two motors appeared, the ambulance motor behind another. They drew up at the side door leading direct through a small lobby to the library, and the Squire, his eldest son, and Captain Chicksands stepped out—then Pamela.
Pamela ran up to her sister. The girl's eyes were red with crying, but she was composed.
'On the whole, he has borne the journey well. Where is Miss Bremerton?'
Elizabeth, hearing her name, emerged from the shadow in which she was standing. To her astonishment Pamela threw an arm round her neck and kissed her.
'Is everything ready?'
'Everything. Will you come and see?'
'Yes. They won't want us here.'
For the lobby was small; and surgeon and nurses were already standing beside the open door of the ambulance, the surgeon giving directions to the stretcher-bearers of the estate who had been waiting.
Pamela looked at the bed, the nurses' table, the bare boards, the flowers. Her face worked pitifully. She turned to Elizabeth, who caught her in her arms.
'Oh, I am glad you have put the picture away!'
One deep sob, and she recovered herself.
'He's not much disfigured,' she murmured, 'only a cut on the forehead. Most of the journey he has been quite cheerful. That was the morphia. But he's tired now. They're coming in.'
But it was the Squire who entered—asking peremptorily for Miss Bremerton.
The well-known voice struck some profound response in Elizabeth. She turned to him. How changed, how haggard, was the aspect!
'Martin—that's the surgeon we've brought with us—wants something from Fallerton at once. Renshaw's here, but he can't be spared for telephoning. Come, please!'
But before she could pass through the door, it was filled by a procession. The stretcher came through, followed by the surgeon and nurses who had come from France. Elizabeth caught a glimpse of a white face and closed eyes. It was as though something royal and sacred entered the hushed room. She could have fallen on her knees, as in a Breton 'pardon' when the Host goes by.
The bustle of the arrival was over. The doctors had given their orders, the nurses were at their posts for the night, and, under morphia, Desmond was sleeping. In the shaded library there were only hushed voices and movements. By the light of the one lamp, which was screened from the bed, one saw dimly the fantastic shapes in the glass cases which lined the walls—the little Tanagra figures with their sun-hats and flowing dress—bronzes of Apollo or Hermes—a bronze bull—an ibex—a cup wreathed with acanthus. And in the shadow at the far end rose the great Nikê. She seemed to be asking what the white bed and the shrouded figure upon it might mean—protesting that these were not her symbols, or a language that she knew.
Yet at times, as the light varied, she seemed to take another aspect. To Aubrey, sitting beside his brother, the Nikê more than once suggested the recollection of a broken Virgin hanging from a fragment of a ruined church which he remembered on a bit of road near Mametz, at which he had seen passing soldiers look stealthily and long. Her piteous arms, empty of the babe, suggested motherhood to boys fresh from home; and there were moments when this hovering Nikê seemed to breathe a mysterious tenderness like hers—became a proud and splendid angel of consolation—only, indeed, to resume, with some fresh change in the shadows, its pagan indifference, its exultant loneliness.
The Squire sat by the fire, staring into the redness of the logs. Occasionally nurse or doctor would come and whisper to him. He scarcely seemed to hear them. What was the good of talking? He knew that Desmond was doomed—that his boy's noble body was shattered—and the end could only be a question of days—possibly a week. During the first nights of Desmond's sufferings, the Squire had lived through what had seemed an eternity of torment. Now there was no more agony. Morphia could be freely given—and would be given till all was over. The boy's young strength was resisting splendidly, a vitality so superb was hard to beat; but beaten it would be, by the brutality of the bullet which had inflicted an internal injury past repair, against which the energy of the boy's youth might hold out for a few days—not more. That was why he had been allowed to bring his son home—to die. If there had been a ray, a possibility of hope, every resource of science would have been brought to bear on saving him, there in that casualty clearing-station, itself a large hospital, where the Squire had found him.
All the scenes, incidents, persons of the preceding days were flowing in one continuous medley through the Squire's mind—the great spectacle of the back of the Army, with all its endless movement, its crowded roads and marching men, the hovering aeroplanes, thecamouflagedguns, the long trains of artillery waggons and motor-lorries, strange faces of Kaffir boys and Chinese, grey lines of German prisoners. And then, the hospital. Nothing very much doing, so he was told. Yet hour after hour the wounded came in, men shattered by bomb and shell and rifle-bullet, in the daily raids that went on throughout the line. And scarcely a moan, scarcely a word of complaint!—men giving up their turn with the surgeon to a comrade—'Never mind me, sir—he's worse nor me!'—or the elder cheering the younger—'Stick it, young'un—this'll get you to Blighty right enough!'—or, in the midst of mortal pain, signing a field postcard for the people at home, or giving a message to apadrefor mother or wife. Like some monstrous hand, the grip of the war had finally closed upon the Squire's volatile, recalcitrant soul. It was now crushing the moral and intellectual energy in himself, as it had crushed the physical life of his son. For it was as though he were crouching on some bare space, naked and alone, like a wounded man left behind in a shell-hole by his comrades' advance. He was aware, indeed, of a mysterious current of spiritual force—patriotism, or religion, or both in one—which seemed to be the support of other men. He had seen incredible, superhuman proofs of it in those few hospital days. But it was of no use to him.
There was only one dim glimmer in his mind—towards which at intervals he seemed to be reaching out. A woman's face—a woman's voice—in which there seemed to be some offer of help or comfort. He had seen her—she was somewhere in the house. But there seemed to be insuperable barriers—closed doors, impassable spaces—between himself and her. It was a nightmare, partly the result of fatigue and want of sleep.
When he had first seen his son, Desmond was unconscious, and the end was hourly expected. He remembered telegraphing to a famous surgeon at home to come over; he recalled the faces of the consultants round Desmond's bed, and the bald man with the keen eyes, who had brought him the final verdict:
'Awfully sorry!—but we can do nothing! He may live a little while—and he has been begging and praying us to send him home. Better take him—the authorities will give leave. I'll see to that—it can't do much harm. The morphia will keep down the pain—and the poor lad will die happy.' And then there was much talk of plaster bandages, and some new mechanical appliance to prevent jolting—of the surgeon going home on leave who would take charge of the journey—of the nurses to be sent—and other matters of which he only retained a blurred remembrance.
The journey had been one long and bitter endurance. And now Desmond was here—his son Desmond—lying for a few days in that white bed—under the old roof. And afterwards a fresh grave in Fallerton churchyard—a flood of letters which would be burnt unread—and a world without Desmond.
Meanwhile, in a corner of the hall, Chicksands and Pamela were sitting together—hand in hand. From the moment when he had gone down to Folkestone to meet them, and had seen Pamela's piteous and beautiful face, as she followed the stretcher on which Desmond lay, across the landing-stage of the boat, Chicksands' mind had been suddenly clear. No words, indeed, except about the journey and Desmond had passed between them. But she had seen in his dark eyes a sweetness, a passion of protection and help which had thawed all the ice in her heart, and freed the waters of life. She was ashamed of herself, but only for a little while! For in Desmond's presence all that concerned herself passed clean out of sight and mind. It was not till she saw Elizabeth that remorse lifted its head again; and whatever was delicate and sensitive in the girl's nature revived, like scorched grass after rain.
Since the hurried, miserable meal, in which Elizabeth had watched over them all, Pamela had followed Elizabeth about, humbly trying to help her in the various household tasks. Then when at last Elizabeth had gone off to telephone some final orders to Captain Dell at Fallerton for the morning Pamela and Arthur were left alone.
He came over to where she sat, and drew a chair beside her.
'Poor child!' he said, under his breath—'poor child!'
She lifted her eyes, swimming in tears.
'Isn't it marvellous, how she's thought of everything—done everything?'
Elizabeth had not been in his mind, but he understood theamendeoffered and was deeply touched.
'Yes, she's a wonderful creature. Let her care for you, Pamela, dear Pamela!'
He lifted her hand to his lips, and put his arm round her. She leant against him, and he gently kissed her cheek. So Love came to them, but in its most tragic dress, veiled and dumb, with haggard eyes of grief.
Then Pamela tried to tell him all that she herself had understood of the gallant deed, the bit of 'observation work' in the course of which Desmond had received his wound. He had gone out with another subaltern, a sergeant, and a telephonist, creeping by night over No Man's Land to a large shell-hole, close upon an old crater where a German outpost of some thirty men had found shelter. They had remained there for forty-eight hours—unrelieved—listening and telephoning. Then having given all necessary information to the artillery Headquarters which had sent them out, they started on the return journey. But they were seen and fired on. Desmond might have escaped but for his determined endeavours to bring in the Sergeant, who was the first of them to fall. A German sniper hidden in a fragment of ruin caught the boy just outside the British line; he fell actually upon the trench.
Desmond had been the leader all through, said Pamela; his Colonel said he was 'the pluckiest, dearest fellow'—he failed 'in nothing you ever asked him for.'
Just such a story as comes home, night after night, and week after week, from the fighting line! Nothing remarkable in it, except, perhaps, the personal quality of the boy who had sacrificed his life. Arthur Chicksands, with three years of the war behind him, felt that he knew it by heart—could have repeated it, almost in his sleep, and each time with a different name.
'The other lieutenant who was with him,' said Pamela, 'told us he was in splendid spirits the day before; and then at night, just before they started, Desmond was very quiet, and they said to each other that whatever happened that night they never expected to see England again; and each promised the other that the one who survived, if either did, would take messages home. Desmond told him he was to tell me, if he was killed—that he'd "had a splendid life"—and lived it "all out." "She's not to think of it as cut short. I've had itall. One lives here a year in a day." And he'd only been seven weeks at the front! He said it was the things he'd seen—not the horrible things—but the glorious things that made him feel like that. Now he did believe there was a God—and I must believe it too.'
The tears ran down her face. Arthur held the quivering hands close in his; and through his soldier's mind, alive with the latest and innermost knowledge of the war, there flashed a terrible pre-vision of the weeks to come, the weeks of the great offensive, the storm of which might break any day—was certain, indeed, to break soon, and would leave behind it, trampled like leaves into a mire of blood, thousands of lives like Desmond's—Britain's best and rarest.
An hour later the hall was deserted, except for Elizabeth, who, after seeing Pamela to bed, came down to write some household letters by the only fire. Presently the surgeon who was sitting up with Desmond appeared, looking worried. His countenance brightened at sight of Elizabeth, with whom he had already had much practical consultation.
'Could you persuade Mr. Mannering to go to bed?'
Elizabeth rose with some hesitation and followed him into the library. The great room, once so familiar, now so strange, the nurses in their white uniforms, moving silently, one standing by the bed, watch in hand—Major Mannering on the farther side, motionless—the smell of antiseptics, the table by the bed with all its paraphernalia of bandages, cups, glasses, medicine bottles—the stillness of brooding death which held it all—seemed to dash from her any last, blind, unreasonable hope that she might have cherished.
The Squire standing by the fire, where he had been opposing a silent but impatient opposition to the attempt of doctor and nurses to make him take some rest, saw Elizabeth enter. His eyes clung to her as she approached him. So shewasnear him—and he was not cut off from her.
Then the surgeon watched with astonishment the sudden docility of a man who had already seemed to him one of the most unmanageable of persons. What spell had this woman exercised? At any rate, after a few whispered words from her, the Squire bowed his white head and followed her out of the room.
In the hall Elizabeth offered him a candle, and begged him to go to bed. He shook his head, and pointed to a chair by the dying fire.
'That will do. Then I shall hear—'
He threw himself into it. She brought him a rug, for the night was chilly, and he submitted.
Then she was going away, for it was past midnight, but something in his fixed look, his dull suffering, checked her. She took an old stool and sat down near him. Neither spoke, but his eyes gradually turned to hers, and a strange communion arose between them. Though there were no words, he seemed to be saying to her—'My boy!—my boy!'—over and over again—and then—'Stay there!—for God's sake, stay!'
And she stayed. The failing lamp showed her upturned face, with its silent intensity of pity, her hands clasped round her knees, and the brightness of her hair. The long minutes passed. Then suddenly the Squire's eyelids fell, and he slept the sleep of a man physically and mentally undone.
Aubrey Mannering sat by his brother all night. With the first dawn Desmond awoke, and there was an awful interval of pain. But a fresh morphia injection eased it, and Aubrey presently saw a smile—a look of the old Desmond. The nurse washed the boy's hands and face, brought him a cup of tea, took pulse and temperature.
'He's no worse,' she said in a whisper to Aubrey, as she passed him.
Aubrey went up to the bed.
'Aubrey, old chap!' said the boy, and smiled at him. Then—'It's daylight. Can't I look out?'
The nurse and Mannering wheeled his bed to the window, which opened to the ground. A white frost was on the grass, and there was a clear sky through which the sunrise was fast mounting. Along an eastern wood ran a fiery rose of dawn, the fine leaf-work of the beeches showing sharply upon it. There was a thrush singing, and a robin came close to the window, hopped on the ledge, and looked in.
'Ripping!' said Desmond softly. 'There were jolly mornings in France too.' Then his clear brow contracted. Aubrey stooped to him.
'Any news?' said the blanched lips.
'None yet, old man. We shan't get the papers till eight.'
'What's the date?'
'March 18th.'
Desmond gave a long sigh.
'I would have liked to be in it!'
'In the big battle?' Aubrey's lip trembled. 'You have done your bit, old man.'
'But how is it going toend?' said the boy, moving his head restlessly. 'Shall we win?—or they? I shall live as long as ever I can—just to know. I feel quite jolly now—isn't it strange?—and yet I made the doctors tell me—'
He turned a bright look on his brother, and his voice grew stronger. 'I had such a queer dream last night, Aubrey,—about you—and that friend of yours—do you remember?—you used to bring him down—to stay here—when Pam and I were little—Freddy Vivian—'
The boy looking out into the woods and the morning did not see the change—the spasm—in his brother's face. He continued—'We kids liked him awfully. Well, I saw him! I actually did. He stood there—by you. He was talking a lot—I didn't understand—but—'
A sudden movement. Aubrey fell on his knees beside the bed. His deep haggard eyes stared at his brother. There was in them an anguish, an eagerness, scarcely human.
'Desmond!—can't you remember?'
The words were just breathed—panted.
Desmond, whose eyes had closed again, smiled faintly.
'Why, of course I can't remember. He had his hand on your shoulder. I just thought he was cheering you up—about something.'
'Desmond!—it was I that killed him—I could have saved him!'
The boy opened his eyes. His startled look expressed the question he had not strength to put.
Aubrey bent over the bed, speaking hurriedly—under possession. 'It was at Neuve Chapelle. I had gone back for help—he and ten or twelve others who had moved on too fast were waiting in a bit of shelter till I could get some more men from the Colonel. The Germans were coming on thick. And I went back. There was a barrage on—and on the way—I shirked—my nerve went. I sat down for twenty minutes by my watch—I hid—in a shell-hole. Then I went to the Colonel, and he gave me the men. And when we got up to the post, I was just a quarter of an hour too late. Vivian was lying there dead—and the others had been mopped up—prisoners—by a German bombing party. It was I who killed Vivian. No one knows.'
Aubrey's eyes searched those of the boy.
The next moment Mannering was torn with poignant remorse that, under the sudden shock of that name, he should have spoken at last—after three years—to this dying lad. Crime added to crime!
'Don't think of it any more, Desmond,' he said hurriedly, raising himself and laying his hand on his brother's. 'I oughtn't to have told you.'
But Desmond showed no answering agitation.
'I did see him!' he whispered. 'He stood there—' His eyes turned towards the window. He seemed to be trying to remember—but soon gave up the effort. 'Poor old Aubrey!' His feeble hand gave a faint pressure to his brother's. 'Why, it wasn't you, old fellow!—it was your body.'
Aubrey could not reply. He hid his face in his hands. The effort of his own words had shaken him from top to toe. To no human being had he ever breathed what he had just told his young brother. Life seemed broken—disorganized.
Desmond was apparently watching the passage of a flock of white south-westerly clouds across the morning sky. But his brain was working, and he said presently—
'After I was struck, I hated my body. I'd—I'd like to commit my spirit to God—but not my body!'
Then again—very faintly—
'It was only your body, Aubrey—not your soul. Poor old Aubrey!' Then he dozed off again, with intervals of pain.
At eight o'clock Pamela came in—a vision of girlish beauty in spite of watching and tears, in her white dressing-gown, the masses of her hair loosely tied.
She sat down by him, and the nurse allowed her to give him milk and brandy. Paralysis in the lower limbs was increasing, but the brain was clear, and the suffering less.
He smiled at her, after the painful swallowing was over.
'Why!—you're so like mother, Pamela!'
He was thinking of the picture in the 'den.' She raised his hand, and kissed it—determined to be brave, not to break down.
'Where's Broomie?' he whispered.
'She'd like to come and see you, Dezzy. Dezzy, darling!—I was all wrong. She's been so good—good to father—good to all of us.'
The boy's eyes shone.
'I thought so!' he said triumphantly. 'Is she up?'
'Long ago. Shall I tell her? I'll ask Nurse.'
And in a few more minutes Elizabeth was there.
Desmond had been raised a little on his pillows, and flushed at sight of her. Timidly, he moved his hand, and she laid hers on it. Then, stirred by an impulse that seemed outside her will, she stooped over him, and kissed his forehead.
'That was nice!' he murmured, smiling, and lay for a little with his eyes shut. When he opened them again, he said—
'May I call you Elizabeth?'
Elizabeth's tender look and gesture answered. He gazed at her in silence, gathering strength for some effort that was evidently on his mind.
'Father minds awfully,' he said at last, his look clouding. 'And there's no one—to—to cheer him up.'
'He loves you so,' said Elizabeth, with difficulty, 'he always has loved you so.'
The furrow on his brow grew a little deeper.
'But that doesn't matter now—nothing matters but—'
After a minute he resumed, in a rather stronger voice—'Tell me about the woods—and the ash trees. I did laugh over that—old Hull telling you there were none—and you—Why, I could have shown him scores.'
She told him all the story of the woods, holding his hot hand in her cool ones, damping his brow with the eau-de-cologne the nurses gave her, and smiling at him. Her voice soothed him. It was so clear and yet soft, like a song,—not a song of romance or passion, but like the cheerful crooning songs that mothers sing. And her face reminded him even more of his mother than Pamela's. She was not the least like his mother, but there was something in her expression that first youth cannot have—something comforting, profound, sustaining.
He wanted her always to sit there. But his mind wandered from what she was saying after a little, and returned to his father.
'Is father there?' he asked, trying to turn his head, and failing.
'Not yet.'
'Poor father! Elizabeth!' he spoke the name with a boyish shyness.
'Yes!' She stooped over him.
'You won't go away?'
Elizabeth hesitated a moment, and he looked distressed.
'From Mannering, I mean. Do stay, Broomie!'—the name slipped out, and in his weakness he did not notice it—'Pamela knows—that she was horrid!'
'Dear Desmond, I will do everything I can for Pamela.'
'And for father?'
'Yes, indeed—I will be all the help I can,' repeated Elizabeth.
Desmond relapsed into silence and apparent sleep. But Elizabeth's heart smote her. She felt she had not satisfied him.
But before long by the mere natural force of her personality, she seemed to be the leading spirit in the sick-room. Only she could lead or influence the Squire, whose state of sullen despair terrified the household. The nurses and doctors depended on her for all those lesser aids that intelligence and love can bring to hospital service. The servants of the house would have worked all night and all day for her and Mr. Desmond. Yet all this was scarcely seen—it was only felt—'a life, a presence like the air.' Most of us have known the same experience—how, when human beings come to the testing, the values of a house change, and how men and women, who have been in it as those who serve, become naturally and noiselessly its rulers, and those who once ruled, their dependents. It was so at Mannering. A tender, unconscious sovereignty established itself; and both the weak and the strong grouped themselves round it.
Especially did Elizabeth seem to understand the tragic fact that as death drew nearer the boy struggled more painfully to live, that he might know what was happening on the battlefield. He would have the telegrams read to him night and morning. And he would lie brooding over them for long afterwards. The Rector came to see him, and Desmond accepted gratefully his readings and his prayers. But they were scarcely done before he would turn to Elizabeth, and his eager feverish look would send her to the telephone to ask Arthur Chicksands at the War Office if Haig's mid-day telegram was in—or any fresh news.
On the 20th of March, Chicksands, who had been obliged to go back to his work, came down again for the night. Desmond lay waiting for him, and Arthur saw at once that death was much nearer. But the boy had himself insisted on strychnine and morphia before the visit, and talked a great deal.
The military news, however, that Chicksands brought him disappointed him greatly.
'Notyet?'—he said miserably—'not yet?'—breathing his life into the words, when Chicksands read him a letter from a staff officer in the Intelligence Department describing the enormous German preparations for the offensive, but expressing the view—'It may be some days more before they risk it!'
'I shall be gone before they begin!' he said, and lay sombre and frowning on his pillows, till Chicksands had beguiled him by some letters from men in Desmond's own division which he had taken special trouble to collect for him.
And when the boy's mood and look were calmer, Arthur bent over him and gave him, with a voice that must shake, the news of his Military Cross—for 'brilliant leadership and conspicuous courage' in the bit of 'observation work' that had cost him his life.
Desmond listened with utter incredulity and astonishment.
'It's not me!'—he protested faintly—'it's a mistake!'
Chicksands produced the General's letter—the Cross itself. Desmond looked at it with unwilling eyes.
'I call it silly—perfectly silly! Why, there were fellows that deserved it ten times more than I did!'
And he asked that it should be put away, and did not speak of it again.
In all his talk with him that night, the elder officer was tragically struck by the boy's growth in intelligence. Just as death was claiming it, the young mind had broadened and deepened—had become the mind of a man. And in the vigil which he kept during part of that night with Martin, the able young surgeon who had brought Desmond home, and was spending his own hard-earned leave in easing the boy's death, Chicksands found that Martin's impression was the same as his own.
'It's wonderful how he's grown andthoughtsince he's been out there. But do we ever consider—do we ever realize—enough!—what a marvellous thing it is that young men—boys—like Desmond—should be able to live, day after day, face to face with death—consciously and voluntarily—and get quite used to it? Which of us before the war had ever been in real physical danger—danger of violent death?—and that not for a few minutes—but for days, hours, weeks? It seems to make men over again—to create a new type—by the hundred thousand. And to some men it is an extraordinary intoxication—this conscious and deliberate acceptance—defiance!—of death—for a cause—for their country. It sets them free from themselves. It matures them, all in a moment—as though the bud and the flower came together. Oh, of course, there are those it brutalizes—and there are those it stuns. But Desmond was one of the chosen.'
The night passed. The Squire came in after midnight, and took his place by the bed.
Desmond was then restless and suffering, and the nurse in charge whispered to the Squire that the pulse was growing weaker. But the boy opened his eyes on his father, and tried to smile. The Squire sat bowed and bent beside him, and nurses and doctors withdrew from them a little—out of sight and hearing.
'Desmond!' said the Squire in a low voice.
'Yes.'
'Is there anything I could do—to please you?' It was a humble and a piteous prayer. Desmond's eyes travelled over his father's face.
'Only—love me!' he said, with difficulty. The Squire grew very white. Kneeling down he kissed his son—for the first time since Desmond was a child.
Desmond's beautiful mouth smiled a little.
'Thank you,' he said, so feebly that it could scarcely be heard. When the light began to come in he moved impatiently, asking for the newspapers. Elizabeth told him that old Perley had gone to meet them at the morning train at Fallerton, and would be out with them at the earliest possible moment.
But when they came the boy turned almost angrily from them. 'The Shipping Problem—Attacks on British Ports—Raids on the French Front—Bombardment of German Towns—Curfew Regulations'—Pamela's faltering voice read out the headings.
'Oh, what rot!' he said wearily—'what rot!'
After that his strength ebbed visibly through the morning.
Chicksands, who must return to town in the afternoon, sat with him, Pamela and Elizabeth opposite—Alice and Margaret not far away. The two doctors watched their patient, and Martin whispered to Aubrey Mannering, who had come down by a night train, that the struggle for life could not last much longer.
Presently about one o'clock, Aubrey, who had been called out of the room, came back and whispered something to Chicksands, who at once went away. Elizabeth, looking up, saw agitation and expectancy in the Major's look. But he said nothing.
In a few minutes Chicksands reappeared. He went straight to Desmond, and knelt down by him.
'Desmond!' he said in a clear voice, 'the offensive's begun. The Chief in my room at the War Office has just been telephoning me. It began at eight this morning—on a front of fifty miles. Can you hear me?' The boy opened his eyes—straining them on Arthur.
'It's begun!' he said eagerly—'begun! What have they done?'
'The bombardment opened at dawn—about five—the German infantry attacked about eight. It's been going on the whole morning—and down the whole front from Arras to the Scarpe.'
'And we've held?—we'veheld?'
'So far magnificently. Our outpost troops have been withdrawn to the battle-zone—that's all. The line has held everywhere. The Germans have lost heavily.'
'Outpost troops!' whispered the boy—'why, that's nothing! We always expected—to lose the first line. Good old Army!'
A pause, and then—so faintly breathed as to be scarcely audible, and yet in ecstasy—'England!—England!'
His joy was wonderful—heart-breaking—while all those around him wept.
He lay murmuring to himself a little while, his hand in Pamela's. Then for a last time he looked at his father, but was now too weak to speak. His eyes, intently fixed on the Squire, kept their marvellous brightness—no one knew how long. Then gently, as though an unseen hand put out a light, the brilliance died away—the lids fell—and with a few breaths Desmond's young life was past.