CHAPTER XXIIITHE LETTER

“My dear Mrs. Barrimore,” Colonel Lane’s letter began, “I may remain here some time. Poor Henderson has rallied for the moment, but he seems to find my companionship a comfort, so I shall stay. I know my dear friends at Hawk’s Nest will look after Phyllis.“To me it is indescribably sad to see a brave soldier on his back, in a home such as this. He has nothing beyond his half-pay, and illness is expensive. He has been an invalid for six years now, unable even to walk without assistance at the best of times. He has two boys at Dulwich College. Mrs. Henderson, poor soul! is a helpless sort of woman, and can neither control the boys nor the house, though I am sure she does her best, according to her lights. She goes to early celebration every morning, wet or fine, but I think she would be serving God better if she stayed at home, and saw that the awful little maid-of-all-work did not burn poor Henderson’s toast.“She worries poor Henderson by reading prayers to him in a voice like a corncrake’s every morning and evening. Occasionally Henderson rebels, using regrettable language.“The house is one of a row, in a road called a ‘Grove,’ because a few trees grow on each side of it. There is a patch of front garden, and a larger patch behind. Henderson’s boys have laid his particular patch waste—the one at the back, I mean—andunfortunately that is all Henderson has to look at from his window. He has a kind of back-parlor allotted to him. He sleeps there (when he does sleep!) and lies there all day.“Piano-organs run riot.“Oh, if only I had known earlier, when it would have been possible to remove my poor friend to my house for a change!“They came here, it seems, to get the boys educated at Dulwich College. But East Dulwich is one of the most depressing places I ever saw.“Henderson and I yarn about Army matters—that is, I yarn, and he puts in something now and then. But he seems cheered, and forgets his pain while we travel over old roads after this fashion.“Really this house makes me ashamed of myself for being so discontented with my own. I find mine luxurious by contrast. Mrs. Ransom does keep it clean, too!“Here the boys have played the deuce with everything. Even the banister rails are broken. The handles are off most of the doors, and the carpet in the ‘front parlor,’ where the boys take their meals and do their ‘home-work,’ has large burns in it from their experiments with fireworks.“They are not bad boys by any means. They are a handsome pair, and full of life and spirits. They are simply uncontrolled, that is all. I confiscated a revolver from one of them to-day.“Poor Mrs. Henderson remonstrates, and the boys laugh. She retires to darn socks and sniff. (She has a habit of sniffing which irritates Henderson.) Really to me it is infinitely sad to look at her, and to remember what a pretty girl she was when Henderson married her. She had such a bright pair of eyes inthose days and roses in her cheeks. Now she is plain—very plain. Her greying hair is thin, and her eyes dull. Her face is sallow.“As I write I think of another woman, who is not so much younger than Mrs. Henderson, and yet is as fresh and flower-like as a girl, and I think it would break my heart if I saw her fade and become what my poor friend’s wife is. Life is a great mystery. Why should some suffer so much more than others?“This is a dismal letter, but you always let me talk to you of all in my mind, don’t you? I hope that Phyllis does not give you any anxiety. I told you that she had been writing to Captain Arbuthnot? I meant to write to him myself, but it got put off. Perhaps I had best let it alone for the present. Often it is best to do just nothing, isn’t it?“Has Philip been over? Remember me to him when you see him, and tell Robert I love him well!“As for you! whatever is best in me is yours already!”

“To me it is indescribably sad to see a brave soldier on his back, in a home such as this. He has nothing beyond his half-pay, and illness is expensive. He has been an invalid for six years now, unable even to walk without assistance at the best of times. He has two boys at Dulwich College. Mrs. Henderson, poor soul! is a helpless sort of woman, and can neither control the boys nor the house, though I am sure she does her best, according to her lights. She goes to early celebration every morning, wet or fine, but I think she would be serving God better if she stayed at home, and saw that the awful little maid-of-all-work did not burn poor Henderson’s toast.

“She worries poor Henderson by reading prayers to him in a voice like a corncrake’s every morning and evening. Occasionally Henderson rebels, using regrettable language.

“The house is one of a row, in a road called a ‘Grove,’ because a few trees grow on each side of it. There is a patch of front garden, and a larger patch behind. Henderson’s boys have laid his particular patch waste—the one at the back, I mean—andunfortunately that is all Henderson has to look at from his window. He has a kind of back-parlor allotted to him. He sleeps there (when he does sleep!) and lies there all day.

“Piano-organs run riot.

“Oh, if only I had known earlier, when it would have been possible to remove my poor friend to my house for a change!

“They came here, it seems, to get the boys educated at Dulwich College. But East Dulwich is one of the most depressing places I ever saw.

“Henderson and I yarn about Army matters—that is, I yarn, and he puts in something now and then. But he seems cheered, and forgets his pain while we travel over old roads after this fashion.

“Really this house makes me ashamed of myself for being so discontented with my own. I find mine luxurious by contrast. Mrs. Ransom does keep it clean, too!

“Here the boys have played the deuce with everything. Even the banister rails are broken. The handles are off most of the doors, and the carpet in the ‘front parlor,’ where the boys take their meals and do their ‘home-work,’ has large burns in it from their experiments with fireworks.

“They are not bad boys by any means. They are a handsome pair, and full of life and spirits. They are simply uncontrolled, that is all. I confiscated a revolver from one of them to-day.

“Poor Mrs. Henderson remonstrates, and the boys laugh. She retires to darn socks and sniff. (She has a habit of sniffing which irritates Henderson.) Really to me it is infinitely sad to look at her, and to remember what a pretty girl she was when Henderson married her. She had such a bright pair of eyes inthose days and roses in her cheeks. Now she is plain—very plain. Her greying hair is thin, and her eyes dull. Her face is sallow.

“As I write I think of another woman, who is not so much younger than Mrs. Henderson, and yet is as fresh and flower-like as a girl, and I think it would break my heart if I saw her fade and become what my poor friend’s wife is. Life is a great mystery. Why should some suffer so much more than others?

“This is a dismal letter, but you always let me talk to you of all in my mind, don’t you? I hope that Phyllis does not give you any anxiety. I told you that she had been writing to Captain Arbuthnot? I meant to write to him myself, but it got put off. Perhaps I had best let it alone for the present. Often it is best to do just nothing, isn’t it?

“Has Philip been over? Remember me to him when you see him, and tell Robert I love him well!

“As for you! whatever is best in me is yours already!”

Mrs. Barrimore read this letter in her bedroom with the door locked.

She laughed and cried a little over it, and finally did what most women do with epistles they greatly prize. She put it inside her bodice.

One little phrase in this letter came as balm to her troubled spirits after Philip’s remarks.

To Philip she was “the mother”—a person of the last generation trying to bloom out of due season; but to Colonel Lane she was still young and adorable.

Would Philip ever know, ever begin even to understand the sacrifice his mother had made for him?

Philip had heard from Dan’s open window hisuncle’s remark about the letter, and found in the fact of Colonel Lane’s writing to his mother another cause for resentment.

“Why didn’t Colonel Lane write to you instead of to my mother?” Philip asked his uncle, who was uncorking a bottle of claret in the dining-room before the others came in.

“That is his business, I suppose,” snapped Uncle Robert.

“I rather think it is mine,” asserted Philip.

“Don’t you make an ass of yourself, Philip,” Uncle Robert said, raising his voice.

Philip turned on his heel. He had more than half a mind to get Soda and go back to the bungalow without lunching.

In the entrance hall he encountered Phyllis, who drew him into the smoking-room.

“Philip!” she ejaculated tragically, “I am miserable!”

“Whatever about?” inquired the young man rather sourly. He was for the moment miserable himself, and in no mood to hear Phyllis’s troubles.

“Oh, don’t look so cold and hard, Philip! You have always been my friend. I have always come to you.”

Philip was still smarting under Uncle Robert’s snub, and was still distinctly unsympathetic in manner.

“If the account of your misery is likely to be a long one, you had best put it off till after luncheon. The gong will sound directly,” he said.

“Oh, if you don’t want to hear!” ejaculated Phyllis childishly.

“But I do, dear,” said Philip, more kindly. (After all, it was scarcely manly to vent his ill-humor onthis girl.) “You see, Phyllis, we should be interrupted,” he added, showing her his watch—a gold one and a gift from Uncle Robert.

“I almost wish I had never been born,” Phyllis asserted, not deigning to look at the watch. She came close to Philip, clutching his arm and peering up at him with childish, troubled eyes. “Philip, don’t letMr.Webster go to the White House,” she blurted out.

“Why?” he asked her in amazement.

“Oh, that has nothing to do with it,” she answered incoherently. “Stop him from going. You can if you like. Do! do! dear Philip!”

The gong sounded and there came the flutter of silk skirts on the staircase. Mrs. Barrimore, fresh and smiling, but with trouble in the dear grey eyes for those who could read them, entered the dining-room. Dan was already there with Uncle Robert, and presently Phyllis and Philip came in.

Philip was so occupied about the puzzling remarks he had just been hearing in the smoking-room that he forgot to resent his mother’s very charming appearance. Love can take ten years off any woman’s looks, and Mrs. Barrimore had a dear secret hidden under the dainty bodice.

“Well, Annie! What’s the old Colonel got to say?” Uncle Robert asked, with a defiant glance at Philip, who did not see it.

“The letter is all about the Hendersons,” Mrs. Barrimore answered with one of those lovely blushes of hers.

“They are most dreadfully poor,” she went on hurriedly, to cover her confusion. “There are two boys at Dulwich College. I wonder what they will do when they leave school!”

“They must go to Sandhurst,” affirmed Uncle Robert.

“But where is the money to come from?” she asked not unnaturally.

“Me!” shouted her brother. “M E—me!”

Everyone started, and Philip said: “Henderson is not a friend of yours—I don’t see—”

“No, you don’t see, Philip. You very often don’t see. Those boys must have a chance. It is the business of old bachelors who are well-off to look to these things—also—Bonum quo communices eo melius—which being interpreted for little Phyllis, means, ‘The good in which you let others share becomes thereby the better.’ We will have a confab after luncheon, Annie.”

Uncle Robert, who was never quite so happy as when confronted by somebody’s difficulties which he thought he could remove, carried his sister to his den as soon as luncheon was over to talk about the Hendersons.

“Lane will do all he can, I know,” Uncle Robert began, when he had carefully closed the door. “But you know, Annie, he ought to keep what he has for little Phyll. What do you think of a hamper of game, and a few dozens of good wine for a start off? The country ought to be ashamed of the poor gratitude she shows to the men who have fought for her and suffered for her. No proper provision is made for soldiers at any time. Think of it, Annie! Many a good officer is lost to our Army because he can’t afford the thing. An officer gets about enough to pay his laundry bill, and when he is too old, or when he is no further use to the nation, he can live in—East Dulwich! He can do as he can in genteel poverty. ‘Soldier, rest! thy warfare o’er,’ sings Scott. A nice bed a grateful country gives the soldier to reston! But talk never did anything. A hamper goes off this afternoon. Come, Annie, my love, help me with your woman’s wit! The hamper must go to Lane, of course.”

Dan had gone off to the room where he worked, which was big and airy and had a north light. The room had been empty until Uncle Robert had it converted into a temporary studio for Dan.

Phyllis, left alone with Philip, remarked: “I supposeMr.Webster is safe out of the way. I heardMr.Webster go to the studio—and Mrs. Barrimore andMr.Burns will be engaged for hours, so we can have our talk.”

“Very well,” answered Philip, yawning. “The sooner it’s over the sooner to rest—and good-bye to Miss Phyll and her moaning!”

“Don’t joke, Philip,” cried Phyllis, with an impatient shrug of her shoulders. “I am serious, I tell you—really I am. I am miserable, and you are very unkind to laugh at me.”

“I won’t laugh. Forge ahead! Look! my face is as long as a fiddle,” said Philip, trying not to smile.

At that same moment Mrs. Barrimore, referring to Colonel Lane’s letter, found a postscript which she had overlooked. It ran:

“I have just read over this letter, and find I have been a little unjust to poor Mrs. Henderson. She really has her hands full with her invalid husband, and the boys are of necessity left a lot to themselves. Then the inadequate maid—the limited income! Some women would have taken to drink or drugs! Mrs. Henderson has only taken to religion! Under happier circumstances I believe she would be very different.”

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