IV
Con’svisits were like those of the angels, unexpected, generally unannounced, and always very welcome. The one curious thing about them was, as the Colonel had said, that, as often as not, they coincided in most extraordinary fashion with the whirling home-calls of Alma Luard. And whenever it happened so, the Colonel chuckled himself nearly into a fit in private, and in public preserved his innocent unconsciousness with difficulty.
Mrs Dare went off to superintend the operations of her charlady, whose attention to corners and little details in general was subject to lapses unless the eye of the mistress was within easy range. And as Mrs Skirrow worked best under a sense of personal injury Mrs Dare became of necessity the recipient of all her conjugal woes and endless stories of filial ingratitude.
She had a husband,—an old soldier in every sense of the word,—who was cursed with a constitutional objection to authority and work of any kind, and two sons who took after their father. One or the other stumbled into a place now and again and lost it immediately, and Mrs Skirrow slaved night and day to keep them from any deeper depths than half-a-crown a day and her food was able to save them from.
“Is ut true, mum, that we’ll mebbe be having another war?” asked Mrs Skirrow as she flopped and scrubbed.
“I hope not, Mrs Skirrow, but there’s said to be the possibility of it. We must hope we’ll be able to keep out of it. War is very terrible.”
“’Tes that, mum, but there’s a good side to ut too. Mebbe ut’d give chance o’ someth’n to do to some as don’tdo much otherwise. If ut took my three off and made men of ’em or dead uns ut’d be a change anyway.”
“You’d find you’d miss them.”
“I would that,” said Mrs Skirrow emphatically, and added presently, “And be glad to.... I done my best to stir ’em up, but ut’s in their bones. Mebbe if they was in th’ army they’d manage to put some ginger into ’em.”
“It might do them good, as you say. But you might never see them again, you know.”
“I seen enough of ’em this last two years to last me. ’Taint reasonable for one woman to have to work herself to the bone for three grown men that can’t get work ’cause they don’t want to.”
“It is not. I think it absolutely shameful of them.”
“Not that they quarrel at all,” said Mrs Skirrow, instantly resentful of anyone blaming her inepts but herself. “I’m bound to say that for ’em. They’re good-tempered about it, but that don’t keep ’em in clo’es, to say noth’n of boots. I suppose, mum, you ain’t got an old pair of ...” and Mrs Skirrow’s lamentations resolved themselves into the usual formula.
It was close upon tea-time when Con came striding up the path, with a searching eye on the next-door grounds.
“And what do you think of the war, mother?” he asked briskly, with his face all alight, as soon as their greetings were over, and he had satisfied himself as to the welfare of the rest of the family, and expressed his entire satisfaction with the news about Lois and Ray.
“You mean this Austrian business? It’s very disturbing but I hope we won’t be drawn into it, my boy.”
“I expect we shall, you know. Pretty certain, it seems to me. And if we are I’m pretty sure to get the call....”
“I had not thought of that, Con,” and her hands dropped into her lap for a moment and she sat gazing at him. “That brings it close home. I pray it may not come to that.”
“Well, you see, I’ve had the cash, and the goods have got to bedelivered——”
“Of course.But——”
“And if it comes to a scrap they’ll need every medical they can get. What does Rhenius say about it all?”
“He’s away,—in Italy, I think.”
“I remember. He wrote me he was hoping to get off, if he could find a locum who wouldn’t poison you all in his absence. Well, anyway, I’m getting my kitpacked——”
“That’s business, my boy,” pealed the Colonel’s hearty voice, as he came in with a telegram in his hand. “I saw you turn in and I’d already been invited to drink a cup of tea with you. Alma can’t get off,”—he said, in a matter-of-fact way, showing the telegram.
“Oh?—did you expect her, sir?” with an assumption of surprise to cover his disappointment.
“I did, my boy, when I heard from your mother that she thought you might come to-day. Did you?”
“Medicals and nurses are not their own masters,” said Con non-committally. “Do you really think we’ll be into it, sir?”
“I do, Con. I don’t see how we can possibly keep out. It’s a most da—yes, damnably inevitable sequence, it seems to me. Austria goes for Servia. Russia won’t stand it. In that case Germany is bound to help Austria. France will help Russia. Exactly how we stand pledged to help France and Russia no one knows, I imagine, except the Foreign Secretary. But everyone knows that the German war-plan contemplates getting at France through Belgium. And if they try that, the fat’s in the fire and we’ve got to stop them or go under.”
“That’s exactly how they’re looking at it at our place, and all the R.A.M.C. men are getting their things together in readiness for the call.”
“It’ll be a tough business,” said the Colonel weightily, but with the light of battle in his eye. “But we’ve got to go through with it ... right to the bitter end.”
“Have you any doubts about the end, sir?”
“None, my lad. But the end is a mighty long way off and it’ll be a hot red road that leads to it, unless I’m very much mistaken. They’ve been preparing for this foryears, you see. It had to come, and some of us saw it. Da-asht pity we didn’t all see it! We’d have been readier for it than we are. Lord Roberts was right. Every man in Great Britain and Ireland ought to have been in training for it.”
“Conscription again, Colonel!” said Mrs Dare. “And you still think England would stand it?”
“Not conscription, my dear madam,—Universal Service,—a very different thing and not liable to the defects of conscription. France broke down through her faulty conscription in 1870. Germany won on her universal service. And, da-ash it! we ought to have had it here ever since. But you others thought we were all screaming Jingoes and mad on military matters because that was our profession. Now, maybe, it’s too late.”
“Still, you say you don’t believe they can beat us, sir?” said Con earnestly.
“Not in the long run. No, I don’t, my boy. But can you begin to imagine what a long run will mean in these times? I’ve seen war and I know what it meant up to twenty years ago. But—if I know anything about it—that was child’s-play to what this will be. Those—da-asht Germans are so infernally clever—and you must remember they’ve been working for this and nothing but this for the last twenty years, while we’ve been playing football and cricket, and squabbling over the House of Lords and Home Rule. Da-ash it! If our side had kept in I believe we’d have been readier.”
“I doubt it, sir,” said Con, with the laugh in the corners of his eyes. “You’d have been fighting for your lives all the time, whereas we at all events have done something—Old Age Pensions, and National Insurance, and so on,” at which the Colonel snorted like a war-horse scenting battle.
“And how is the work going, Con?” asked Mrs Dare, as a lead to less bellicose subjects.
“Oh, all right. About same as usual. We got a new old chap in the other day and he’s taken a curious fancy to my grin. He stops me every time we meet, and says,‘Doctor, do smile for me!’ and he’s such an old comic that I just roar, and then he roars too, and we’re as happy as can be.”
“He’s no fool,” said the Colonel. For Con’s grin was very contagious. The corners of his eyes had a way of wrinkling up when the humorous aspect of things appealed to him, his eyes almost disappeared, and then his face creased up all over and the laugh broke out. And as a rule it made one laugh just to watch him.
“But we had two rather nasty things, last week,” he said, sobering up. “Two of the old chaps were set to clean up an out-house, and one of them came out after a bit and sat down in the sun with his back against the wall, humming the ‘Old Hundredth,’ they say. One of the attendants asked him what he was doing there, and he said old Jim was tired and was lying down inside. And when they went in they found old Jim lying down with his head beaten in and as dead as a door-nail.”
“Good Lord!” said the Colonel. “And what did you do to the other?”
“What could we do? He was quite unconscious of having done anything wrong. He’ll be kept under observation of course. But the other matter was worse still, in one way. A table-knife disappeared one day from the scullery and couldn’t be found anywhere. And for a week we all went with our heads over both shoulders at once, and the feel of that knife slicing in between our shoulder-blades at any moment. I tell you, that was jolly uncomfortable.”
“And did you find it?” asked Mrs Dare anxiously.
“Yes, we hunted and hunted till we discovered it inside the back of a picture frame, and we were mighty glad to get it, I can tell you.”
“Gad!” said the Colonel, with extreme energy. “I’d sooner be at the front any day. It’s a safer job than yours, my boy.”
“I suppose there are possibilities of getting hurt even there, sir,” and Con’s creases wrinkled up.
“Oh, you can get hurt all right enough, but it’s not knives between your shoulder-blades.”
“Assegais,” suggested Mrs Dare, who knew his record.
“Assegais are deucedly uncomfortable, but that was fairfighting——”
Then Mr Dare walked in, very much later than usual for a Saturday. And, though he greeted them cheerfully, his face was very grave, to his wife’s anxious eyes.
“I waited a bit to see if any further news came along,” he said quietly.
“And how are they feeling about things?” asked the Colonel.
“Nervous. In fact, gloomy. Everybody admits that it seems incredible, but there’s a general fear that we may be drawn in, in spite of all Sir Edward Grey’s efforts.”
“We shall,” said the Colonel emphatically. “I feel it in my bones. Germany is very wide awake. She’s been crouching for a spring any time this several years, and here are England, France, and Russia tied up with internal troubles. It’s her day without a doubt. Take my advice and make your preparations, my friend. When it comes it’ll come all in a heap. I only wish we were readier for it, and I wish to God they’d have the common-sense to put Kitchener in charge of the Army. He’s the man for the job, and what earthly use is he in Egypt when Germany may be at our throats any day? Asquith can’t be expected to understand all the ins and outs of the machine.”
“Yes, it’s too much to expect of him. And as to Kitchener, I quite agree. He’s the right man for the job.”
“Exchange upset? Money tight?”
“Slump all round. Consols down one and a half. Bank rate three still, but expected to jump any day. In fact things are about as sick as they can be.”
“We’re in for a very bad time, I’m afraid,” said the Colonel gravely. And the shadow of the future lay upon them all.
When, presently, the Colonel got up to go, Mrs Dareand Con went with him to the front door, and Con went on down the path with him.
“May I speak to you about Alma, Colonel?” Con began, before they reached the gate.
“Yes, my boy, you may. But I know what you want to say.”
“You’ve seen it, sir? You know how we feel then. And you don’t object?”
“On the contrary, my boy. I’m very glad you have both chosen so wisely.”
“That’s mighty good of you, sir. I would have spoken to you before but I wanted to see my way a little more clearly. And now I can. Sir James Jamieson of Harley Street,—he’s the biggest man we have in mental diseases, you know,—well, he saw some scraps of mine in the ‘Lancet’ and asked me to call on him. He’s a fine man, and he wants me to go to him as soon as my courses are finished,—Munich and Paris and the rest. He’s getting on in years, you see, and he was good enough to say that, from what he had heard of me, he believed I was the man to carry on his work when his time came to go. It’s immense, you know.”
“Capital! I always knew you’d go far, Con. My only fear was lest the—er—atmosphere of your special line should in time affect your own mind and spirits. But so far it seems to have had no ill effect. Your spirits are above par, and I’ve just had an excellent proof of your judgment,”—at which Con laughed joyously.
“When you’re really keen on a thing it doesn’t upset you, no matter how unpleasant it may be. And this work is anything but unpleasant to me. It’s packed with interest. There’s so much we don’t know yet. And there’s heaps of quaint humour in it, if you look out for it.”
“Well, keep yourself fit, my boy, and I don’t think your brain will suffer.Mens sana, you know.”
“I see to that. I get a couple of hours on the links every day and I never play with a medical,—get quite outside it all, you know. Then I may speak to Alma,Colonel? She knows, of course, but we’ve never said very much.”
“Yes, my lad,—whenever you can catch her. She’s an elusive creature these days.”
“I’ll catch her all right,” said Con, all abeam.
The other young people had just returned from their tournament and were discussing points over the tea-cups.
“Hello! Here’s old Con,” shouted Noel, and they all jumped up and gave him merry welcome. Vic inquired earnestly after the state of his brain; and satisfied on that head, they poured out their own latest news.
“Vic and I won,” chortled Honor. “6-5, 6-4, against No and Gregor McLean.”
“Oh well,” explained Noel. “If you’d been round the links in the morning you wouldn’t have been half so nimble on your pins.”
“Bit heavy, I suppose?” said the Colonel.
“Heavy wasn’t the word for it, sir, and a beastly gusty wind that upset all one’s calculations. However, I licked old Greg into a cocked hat and he’s no end of a nib with the sticks; so that’s one to me. Pick up any lunch scores as you came along, Con?”
“Sorry, old man! I didn’t. I was thinking of other things,” and the Colonel nodded weightily, and said,
“In a week from now we’ll all have other things to think about, I’m afraid.”