CHAPTER XXIA PEAL OF BELLS
BY THE time that a certain note of a few lines, written outside a Field Hospital window in France, had reached a certain Base Hospital, many miles away, Robert Black was able to open his own mail, for a fortnight had gone by. He was so fortunate as to have two other letters in this mail, a happening which of itself would have made the rainy day much less dismal. But to find this particular handwriting upon the third envelope was enough to flood the ward with light—for him, though to some others, near him, who had had no letters, it remained a sombre place, as before.
He kept this third letter unopened till the morning dressings were over, the carts of surgical supplies had ceased to move through the ward, and the surgeons and nurses had left behind them patients soothed and made comfortable and ready for the late morning nap which followed naturally upon the pain and fatigue of the dressings. Then, when his neighbours in the beds on either side were no longer observant, Black drew out the single sheet, feeling an instant sense of disappointment that the lines were so few. Then—he read them, and his regret was changed in an instant to a joy so profound that he could only lie drawing deep breaths of emotion, as he stared out of a near-by window at tossing tree tops dripping with rain,against the sky of lead. The sky for him had opened, and let through a sea of glory.
Again and again, after a little, his eager eyes re-read the words, so few, yet so full of meaning. Among them certain lines stood out:
I know, at last, that you are right. I don’t understand it yet—but I believe it. Somebody does hear—and it is possible to speak to Him—— You were right when you said that I would find it all around me here—— It took this dear, wise boy to make it real to me—as you made it real to him—— So—it has come through you, after all—— God keep you safe, Robert Black—I pray for it on my knees.Jane.
I know, at last, that you are right. I don’t understand it yet—but I believe it. Somebody does hear—and it is possible to speak to Him—— You were right when you said that I would find it all around me here—— It took this dear, wise boy to make it real to me—as you made it real to him—— So—it has come through you, after all—— God keep you safe, Robert Black—I pray for it on my knees.
Jane.
It was well for him that this stimulus came when it did, for within twenty-four hours arrived another message of the sort which is not good for convalescents. Cary Ray sent a scrawl of a letter from some post upon the Front, which was three weeks in getting through, so that the news it contained was already old. Black read it, and then turned upon his pillow and hid his face in his arm. When his fellow patients saw that face again, though it was composed, and the Chaplain’s manner was as they had known it all along, not a man but understood that he had had a heavy blow. By and by he asked for his writing tablet and pen, and they saw him slowly write a short letter. These were the words he wrote:
My dear Mr. and Mrs. Lockhart:I wish that this word I send you might be the first to reach you, that you might receive the news of your boy from the hand of a friend. But whether the official word comes first or not, you will be glad to have me tell you all I know—which comes to me through Cary Ray, and which he says has been absolutely verified.
My dear Mr. and Mrs. Lockhart:
I wish that this word I send you might be the first to reach you, that you might receive the news of your boy from the hand of a friend. But whether the official word comes first or not, you will be glad to have me tell you all I know—which comes to me through Cary Ray, and which he says has been absolutely verified.
Tom’s division was one sent forward to replace the remnant of two British and French divisions which had been long in the field. The men went into position to hold the line under the hottest possible machine-gun fire. Tom’s battalion lost all its officers except himself and a second lieutenant, and these two were forced to take command. They succeeded in holding the position for many hours and until relief came, thus saving the day in that sector, and causing the final retirement of the enemy. The second lieutenant, Fisher, himself severely wounded, told Cary Ray that “Lockhart was a regular bull-dog for hanging on, nothing could make him turn back. His men would go anywhere he told them to, for he always went with them—and went first.” When he fell it was under a rain of gunfire, and there could not have been an instant’s survival.Though you have prayed many prayers for your boy, and they have been answered differently from the way in which you would have had them, I believe your faith in God is no less than before. When Tom and his father meet again, some day, and talk it over, it will all be clear to that father why his boy went home ahead of him. But Tom knows—now; I’m very sure of that.So, dear friends, you have a glorious memory to comfort you. The gold star you will wear will be the highest honour that can come to you. Nothing that Tom could have accomplished in a long life of effort could so crown that life with imperishable beauty, or so make it immortal. I rejoice with you, for the lad was my dear friend, and I can never forget him.Faithfully yours,Robert Black.
Tom’s division was one sent forward to replace the remnant of two British and French divisions which had been long in the field. The men went into position to hold the line under the hottest possible machine-gun fire. Tom’s battalion lost all its officers except himself and a second lieutenant, and these two were forced to take command. They succeeded in holding the position for many hours and until relief came, thus saving the day in that sector, and causing the final retirement of the enemy. The second lieutenant, Fisher, himself severely wounded, told Cary Ray that “Lockhart was a regular bull-dog for hanging on, nothing could make him turn back. His men would go anywhere he told them to, for he always went with them—and went first.” When he fell it was under a rain of gunfire, and there could not have been an instant’s survival.
Though you have prayed many prayers for your boy, and they have been answered differently from the way in which you would have had them, I believe your faith in God is no less than before. When Tom and his father meet again, some day, and talk it over, it will all be clear to that father why his boy went home ahead of him. But Tom knows—now; I’m very sure of that.
So, dear friends, you have a glorious memory to comfort you. The gold star you will wear will be the highest honour that can come to you. Nothing that Tom could have accomplished in a long life of effort could so crown that life with imperishable beauty, or so make it immortal. I rejoice with you, for the lad was my dear friend, and I can never forget him.
Faithfully yours,Robert Black.
Late that night, when all was quiet in the ward, he wrote this same news to Jane. But at the end of his letter came other words, of such joy and thanksgiving as a man can write only when his heart is very full.
What you tell me of yourself goes to my deepest heart, as you must well know. I knew it would come—it had to come. What it means to me I can tell you only when I see you, face to face. The thought of that hour shakes me through and through.
What you tell me of yourself goes to my deepest heart, as you must well know. I knew it would come—it had to come. What it means to me I can tell you only when I see you, face to face. The thought of that hour shakes me through and through.
On the 11th of November, at half after ten in the morning, Jane was in one of the larger towns which had been swept by devastating fires at one time or another throughout the entire period of the war. She had been sent with a certain Brigadier General who had been under her care at the Field Hospital, and who had obtained for her a short leave that she might accompany him and see for herself something of this famous region. At the time of their arrival shells had again unexpectedly begun pouring in upon the town, though the rumour of the coming armistice was persistent, and even the hour was given.
“I can’t let you go any nearer,” General Lewiston said to Jane, as his car approached the town, and halted at his order, “much as I want you to be there when the guns cease firing. They’re evidently going to keep it as hot here as they know how, up to the very last minute.”
“Oh, but you must let me stay,” Jane begged. “I’m not in the least afraid, and I’d give all I possess to be exactly there, when the hour comes.”
“I’ll leave you here, in care of Lieutenant Ferguson, and send back for you when it’s over,” the General offered.
“Please, take me in with you. I’ve been under fire, before. We were bombed three times in hospital, you know.”
“Yes, but this is different, Miss Ray. I’m responsible for you now.”
“Not a bit, General. It’s my responsibility, if I ask it—as I do.”
He couldn’t resist her, or that sweet sturdiness of hers which made her seem unlike the women for whom a man had to be “responsible.” So he bade his chauffeur drive on. Thus it came about that Jane had her wish and was actually in this most noteworthy of French towns when,at the close of that last hour of roaring guns and bursting shells, it all came to an end, as one graphic account put it, “as though God Himself had dropped a wet blanket over the crackling flames of hell.”
So, after that first breathless stillness which succeeded upon the din, Jane heard that which she could never afterward forget—nor could any other who heard it. From the high tower which had come through scatheless above the otherwise ruined cathedral, rang out a great peal of bells. The cathedral doors were opened, and hundreds of soldiers surged in. Jane saw them go, and called General Lewiston’s attention.
“Mayn’t we follow?” she urged, and the officer nodded. They got out of the car and crossed the space and went in at the great battered doors in the roofless walls which still stood to protect the sacred enclosure. As they went in they heard the notes of “Praise God from whom all blessings flow,” break from a young tenor in the very centre of the crowd, and heard it taken up and grow and swell till it seemed to lift above the broken walls to the very sky. And then they saw the wonderful thing which followed. If, before this hour, Jane by her own experience had not been brought to her knees, surely she must have fallen upon them now—as she did, with the General beside her on one side and the Lieutenant on the other, both with bared heads. For all those men before her, British and French and Mohammedan and Jew, had now dropped to their knees, and led by an unknown man with a Red Triangle on his sleeve who had lifted his arms to them as a signal were devoutly saying together the words of the Lord’s Prayer. Such a deep, whole-hearted sound it was which came from all those brawny throats as Jane had never heard before.She had heard men cheer—she had heard them sing—she had never heard men pray together, regardless of sect or creed, as she heard them now. And suddenly she realized what she had never understood before, that it is not one man here or there who believes that it is of use to say “Our Father,” but that it is the great, all but universal cry from every heart in time of stress. The armistice was signed, the guns had ceased—it was the first deep instinct of these men of every creed to speak their gratitude to high Heaven.
There was singing again then—glorious singing of national anthems, British and French and American. Jane’s voice joined the General’s and the Lieutenant’s and the three looked at one another. The General’s eyes were wet, and the Lieutenant’s lips were trembling, while Jane frankly wiped the streaming tears away as she smiled into the two faces, which smiled understandingly back. And presently they were out and away again, and the General was saying to Jane, “I’m glad you had your way, Miss Ray, since you didn’t get hurt, for you’ve seen to-day what must almost have paid you for all you have spent since you came over.”
“I’m paid a thousand times,” she answered, and so she felt about it.
Things happened rapidly now. There was plenty of work still for the hospitals, but it was of a different sort. No longer did the ambulances bring to Jane the freshly wounded. She was sent back to a Base Hospital, where were the cases which needed long care before they could be discharged. She had had more than one letter from Robert Black urging her to keep in close touch with him, before the one came which said that he was soon to be sent home. He asked if it would be possible for her to getleave and come to London, where the final days of his convalescence were to be spent. He was walking about now, he said, and—what it would be to walk down certain streets with her! He added other statements calculated to have their effect upon her, if only to make her understand how very much he wanted to see her.
It was not easy to bring about, but at length she obtained a four days’ leave, and through the influence of Doctor Leaver secured the difficult permission to cross the Channel on one of the crowded boats. An early December night saw her making the crossing, the wind and spray stinging her face into brilliant colour, her big coat-collar turned well up about her throat, her eyes set straight ahead toward the English coast. It was almost sixteen months since she had left England on her way to France—sixteen months of the hardest work she had ever dreamed of doing—and the happiest. Not one hard hour would she take back—not one!
Dover, and many delayed hours to London, with post-war conditions, crowded trains, upset schedules—and always the wounded and crippled everywhere, that she might not for a minute forget. Then, at last, Charing Cross Station, and the lights of the great city, no longer obscured because of enemy air-raids. As Jane came out upon the street she drew a deep breath of content. She had been several times in London, and knew her way about. It was not far to the house where she was expected, but she had not been met because it had been impossible to know beforehand just when she might get in. The days of making careful consultation of railway schedules and then wiring an expectant friend the hour and minute of one’s intended arrival were long gone by—and had not yet come again.
She was keyed to a high pitch of expectation during every moment of that walk. She was so near now—so near! She was actually in the same great city. It was almost unbelievable, but it was true. There was a chance—it couldn’t be more than the millionth part of one, but it was a chance—that at any moment she might turn a corner and see coming toward her the tall figure which she had last seen a year ago in August. How would he look? What would he say? Would he be—different? Oh, he must be different! He couldn’t have been through it all and not have suffered some change. But—she knew as well as she knew anything in the world that in the way that mattered most to her he would not be different, he would be absolutely the same. As for herself, was she not different too? And was she not—absolutely the same? Oh, no—oh, no! With the development of her experience and the growth of her sacrifice had not the thing within her heart and spirit which was his become a thousand times more his? No doubt of that. Then—might not that which he had for her have been augmented too? The thought was one she had to put away from her. Enough, if he could but give her so much of his heart as he had given before. That of itself, she thought, would be all that she could bear—to-day.
The old green door with the shining brass knocker she so well remembered came into view as she turned into the quaint little street not far from Westminster Abbey where lived her English friend. On the first of her visits to England, in search of rare objects for her shop, she had met Miss Stoughton, an Englishwoman in the late thirties, who had an established reputation as a connoisseur and collector of rare antiques. Business dealings withthis woman had resulted in a permanent friendship between the two. Miss Stoughton was separated from her family, all of whom were strongly opposed to her independent establishment in business, a departure from all the family traditions of birth and education. She had chosen nevertheless to live her own life, and when the Great War came to England she had a well developed business experience to back her in giving her services to her country. At the moment when Jane came to her she had just returned to the little house, after a long period of absence.
The green door opened at the first fall of the knocker, and the tall Englishwoman herself welcomed Jane with hearty hospitality.
“My dear—this is most awfully jolly—to see you again! How well you are looking! A trifle thin, perhaps—and no wonder—but such a fine colour! Come in—come in! The house is still a bit upset, you know, but you won’t mind that.”
“It doesn’t look upset,” Jane commented, after one glance about the little drawing room, where a bright fire burned on the diminutive hearth, and a tea-table beside it offered refreshment, as if it had been waiting for the guest. “It looks just as I remember it—the prettiest room I ever saw in England.”
“Oh, my dear Jane—you are the same extravagant admirer of my simple things. But I always appreciated your praise of them, for you are not only a connoisseur but an artist. And you have put aside all that to do this nursing! Do sit down and tell me all about it, while we have tea. But first——” she interrupted herself with a gesture—“let me not fail to give my message—a most important message. Morning, noon, and night for threedays now, have I been besieged by a tall Scotsman in uniform with the cross of a regimental chaplain. He had what I may call a determined chin, and the finest pair of black eyes I ever saw. It seems he also is expecting you, but he fears you may in some way find it difficult to reach him, or may lose an instant of time in doing so. He is likely to receive orders to sail for the States at any time; and I gather from his quite evident anxiety that if he should be forced to leave without having seen Miss Ray it would be to him a calamity.”
“It would be one to me too,” Jane answered, with a rising colour but a steady meeting of her friend’s quizzical look. “How, please, can I let him know?”
“A messenger waits within call,” Miss Stoughton assured her, gaily. “Our war-time telephone service is still frightfully crippled, so we provide ourselves with substitutes. A small boy is ready to run post-haste through the streets of London to carry the news of your arrival to”—she picked up a card lying upon a priceless small table of an unbelievable antiquity of which Jane had long envied her the possession, and read the name with distinctness—“‘Mr. Robert McPherson Black.’ A very good name, my dear, and one which well fits the man. I should judge he is accustomed to have his own way in most things, at the same time that an undoubted spirit of kindness looks out of that somewhat worn face of his. I will despatch the messenger at once. Shall we make an appointment for the evening, or are you prepared to see your friend within the hour? He will most certainly return with the boy who goes for him—if he is not already on his way, on the chance of finding you.”
Jane came close to her hostess, and laid her hands upon her shoulders. “Dear Miss Stoughton,” she said, “I’msure you understand. If military orders weren’t such startling things and likely to arrive sooner than one expects them, I would put Mr. Black off until evening and just have the visit with you I so much want. But——”
“I do perfectly well understand,” replied Miss Stoughton, decidedly, “and I should be most awfully cross with you if you put off that very fine man an hour longer than necessary. He has two service chevrons and two wound stripes on his arm, and he walks with a cane; I should not be in the least surprised if within his blouse he wears concealed some sort of decoration. In any case he deserves every consideration. A chaplain with wounds has done something besides read the prayer book to his men behind the lines.”
She left the room and sent off her messenger. Returning she led Jane up the short staircase to the tiniest and most attractive of English guest rooms.
“You see, though I am not married nor intend to be,” she said, with the smile which made her somewhat plain but noteworthy face charming to her guest, “I can quite understand that you would like a look in the mirror before the Chaplain arrives. You have always reminded me of some smooth-winged bird, but the smoothest winged of birds will preen itself a good bit, and you shall do the same. Then come down, and we’ll be having tea when the knocker claps. After that—I have an engagement at my work-rooms—oh, yes, indeed I have! There is still much to be done for our soldiers and yours, you know.”
Jane would have been more—or less—than woman if she had not welcomed the chance to remove all possible traces of her journey before the sounding of that knocker. She made haste, but none too much, for Miss Stoughton’s predictions were truer than could have been expected ofone who must walk with a cane. As the last hairpin slipped into place the knocker fell, and Jane caught one quick breath before she ran to complete the freshening of every feather in those “smooth wings” of hers.
“He’s here, Jane dear,” Miss Stoughton presently announced, as she followed her knock into the little guest room. “I don’t consider myself at all susceptible to bachelor attractions, but I will admit that I like this man’s face and his nice manner—and—quite everything about him. I’m going to slip out now, and let you come down to find him alone.”
“Oh, please stay and have tea with us first, Miss Stoughton—please do!”
“I am convinced of your sincerity and truthfulness,” replied Miss Stoughton, “in all ordinary matters. I should not hesitate to buy from you any rare curio in the world on your word of honour alone that it was authentic. But when you urge me to stay by my fireside and have tea with you and a Scottish-American chaplain whom you have not seen for considerably more than a year, I have my doubts, my dear, of your good faith. I’ll see that the kettle is boiling for you, and you, as you Americans say, must ‘do the rest.’”
Jane laughed, her eyes glowing. “Oh, you’re such a friend,” she whispered. “But please don’t stay away long. I want you to know Mr. Black—indeed I do. And I’m so happy to have your home to meet him in.”
“My home is yours—and his—while you stay.” And Miss Stoughton went away, beaming with kindness—and experiencing a touch of envy. What must it be, she thought, to look as Jane was looking—so fresh and lovely in spite of her years of business life and these months ofwork and heavy care—and then go down to meet the eyes of such a man as this who waited below for her? Miss Stoughton walked very fast as she went through the crowded streets; it was best to hurry to her work, and not to think too long on what might be taking place in that little drawing room of hers.
Jane came down so quietly that Robert Black would not have heard her if he had not been on the watch. When she caught sight of him he was standing waiting for her, leaning upon the stout cane without which he could not yet wholly support himself. Her heart, at sight of the thin yet strong and undaunted look of his face, the whole soldierly pose of him in his uniform, gave one quick throb of mingled joy and pain, and then went on beating wildly. It couldn’t be real—it couldn’t—that after all both had been through they had met again—that they were both here, in this little London drawing room. Yet itwasreal—oh, thank God, itwasreal!
It was dark outside, but lamplight and firelight shone on both faces as the two pairs of eyes looked into each other.
“Itisyou,” said Robert Black, after a moment, while he still held Jane’s hand. “I can’t quite believe it—but it is you. Will you mind if I look at you very hard, for a little, to make myself sure?”
“I’m not so sure it is you,” Jane said. She couldn’t quite return that eager gaze, but she could take stock of his appearance, none the less, as a woman may. “You must have been through very, very much.”
“Not more than you. You are not changed at all, in one way; but in another way—you are. It is the change that I expected, but—it takes hold of me, just the same. You have seen—what you have seen.”
“Yes. And you have done—what you have done,” she answered.
“We have very much to tell each other, haven’t we? And so little time, at the longest, to tell it in—till we meet back home. I’m sorry to be going first, again, but I have no choice. I wanted to wait for my regiment, but—I suspect Red’s friend Doctor Leaver of having a hand in these rigid orders to get out of the country.”
“Aren’t the wounds doing well?” she asked him, with the nurse’s straightforwardness which was so natural to her now.
“The wounds are all right, but they left a bit of trouble behind. It’s nothing—only a matter of time. The sea voyage alone will undoubtedly work wonders. Have you any idea when you will be coming?”
“Within a month or two, I imagine.”
“Really?” His eyes lighted. “But—Jane—I can’t wait even till then to hear all that you can tell me of yourself.”
“Come and sit down. And—may I give you tea?”
She laughed as she said it, and he laughed with her, a note of sheer joy at the absurdity of stopping to drink tea, when the time was so short.
“Miss Stoughton will expect us to take it,” he admitted. “It’s unthinkable that we shouldn’t bother about it. Can’t we pour it away somewhere, where it will do no harm? On the fire?”
“And risk putting it out? I can never remember how small an English fireplace is, in a house of this size, till I see one again. Really, I don’t think it would do you any hurt to take the tea. You’re not wholly strong yet.” And she quickly made and poured it.
“Anything to get it over,” he agreed, and took the cup from her hand, drank, and set it down. “Now!” he said,and sat down beside her. “Jane, I can’t believe it, yet. I’ve been haunting Charing Cross Station for days. I wanted to see you get off the train. I wanted to see you before you saw me, so I could look—and look—and look at you. It’s been so long to wait.... Well!” He quite evidently laid sudden and firm restraint on his own emotions—he didn’t mean to let himself get out of hand. “Tell me all about it. You can’t know how I want to hear.”
“What will you have first?”
“Begin at the beginning. Tell me—everything you must know I want to know about you. How it began—what came first—and what followed. And—most of all—where you are now.”
They never knew how the hours passed—three hours—while they sat before the fire in the little London drawing room and lived again the year and more that had separated them. But when at last Robert Black, looking in amazement at the watch upon his wrist, rose to go, he was in possession of that knowledge of Jane’s experience which had transformed him from a convalescent to a well man—or so it seemed.
He took both her hands in his, and stood looking down at her.
“I’m very certain that my ship doesn’t sail before Monday,” he said, “or I shouldn’t take the chance I am taking. Jane—I haven’t said a word of what is nearest my heart. I have a strange fancy that I want to say that word—to-morrow. Do you remember that to-morrow is——”
“Sunday. Indeed I do remember it. I have thought, ever since I knew that I was coming, that if I could just—be in London on a Sunday—with you——”
His smile was like sunshine. “We’ll go to a service together. Will you trust me to choose the place?”
“I want you to.”
“I’ll come for you in the morning,” he said. Then he lifted first one of her hands to his lips and then the other, said, “Good-night!” and was gone, with a military sort of abruptness that was rather an emphasis of his former self than a change from it.
It was easy to know what he had to say to her, that he had chosen to defer until the following day. It had been in all his manner to her; there was no need that he should tell her it was coming; it was a most characteristic postponement and a highly significant one. Why, since he could choose it, should he not select the great Day of the week on which to say the words which he was not less eager to speak than she to hear? That he should do so could but show her how sacred an event it was to him, nor fail to make it quite as sacred to her.