XIV
Almaat St Barnabas’s, and Mrs Dare at The Red House each received a brief note from Con, from Southampton, saying he was leaving immediately but was not permitted to say more.
He seemed in the best of spirits and said he had plenty to do. After that the vail of war fell between him and them, and to them was left the harder task of possessing their souls in hope, with such patient endurance as they could draw from higher hidden sources. Both, however,—Alma in her crowded ward, and Mrs Dare in the less strenuous and so the more meditative sphere of home,—went about their daily tasks with tranquil faces which permitted no sign to show of the fears that might be in them. It was their quiet part in the crisis to give of their best and suffer in silence, as it was the part of the millions of other women similarly circumstanced.
Mr Dare had perhaps the heaviest burden to bear at this time, and in spite of his attempts at cheerfulness the weight of it was apparent in him. His business at a deadlock, valued customers urgently claiming the fulfilment of contracts, the goods they wanted hermetically sealed within the flaming borders of Germany and Austria, accounts for goods sent to those countries falling due, and no money forthcoming from abroad to meet them. No wonder he looked harassed and aged, and at times grew somewhat irritable under the strain.
What his wife was to him in those days none but he knew,—not even Mrs Dare herself in full. In her own quiet fashion she would at times draw him gently on to unburden himself to her in a way that would have been impossible to anyone else, and her great good sense wouldseek out the hopeful possibilities and tone down the asperities of life. And when things were past speaking about she would show, by her silent sympathy and brave face, that she understood but still had faith in the future.
But for an unusually alert and active business man to find himself, without warning, plunged suddenly into a perfect morass of difficulties, for which no blame attached to anyone save to the blind precipitancy of untoward circumstance;—to find himself helplessly idle where his days had always been briskly over-full,—it was enough to drive any man off his balance, and in some cases it did.
He went down to St Mary Axe each morning and stopped there all day in gloomy exasperation. He explained his situation to irritated clamourers for goods till he grew sick of explaining. He was grateful when release came at night; and in the night he lay awake at times and hugged to himself the few precious hours which still intervened before he must shoulder his burden again. Sunday he looked forward to, all the week long, as a dies non when business matters ceased perforce from troubling and his weary soul could take its rest. He longed for weeks of Sundays. At times, in his utter weariness, the thought of the final unbroken rest made infinite appeal to him.
The complete lack of any word from Lois and Ray added not a little to their anxieties. The Colonel, indeed, never would admit any possibility of mischance in the matter.
“Don’t you worry, Mrs Mother,” he would adjure her. “They’re having the time of their lives somewhere or other, I’ll wager you a sovereign.”
“If they’re shut up in Germany it may be a very unpleasant time,” argued Mrs Dare.
“But they’re not. Ray’s no fool and he got out of that trap instanter. Of that I’m certain. Where to I can’t, of course, say. Tirol seems nearest, from themap——”
“That’s Austria,” said Mrs Dare quietly.
“Well then, Switzerland—Russia—Italy—anywhere,—Idon’t know. But if he’s still in Germany he’s a much bigger fool than I ever thought him. They’re all right. Don’t you worry!”—which was all most excellent in intention but did not bring to the anxious mother-heart the comfort that one word from the missing ones would have done.
But the Colonel was too busy to waste time and energy in worrying, and, besides, he was not given that way. Immediately on the declaration of war, he had donned his uniform and gone down to Whitehall and tendered his services in any capacity whatever. His bluff, antique enthusiasm overcame even the natural repugnance of War-Office messengers to further the wishes of any but their own immediate chiefs, and he succeeded in seeing Lord Kitchener, whom he had not met since they toiled up Nile together in quest of Gordon.
The quiet, level-eyed man, who had gone so far and high since those days, gave him cordial greeting and expressed the hope that the younger generation would exhibit equal public spirit, in which case this belated creation of a sufficient fighting force would prosper to the extent of his wishes, which he acknowledged were great, though not more than the dire necessities of the case called for. He tactfully switched the Colonel’s enthusiasm on to the recruiting branch line, and the fiery little warrior had since then been devoting himself, heart and soul, to the business of presenting Kitchener’s Army to the youth of Willstead and neighbourhood as the one and only legitimate outlet for its duty to its King and Country.
With his V.C. and his Crimean and Mutiny and African medals, he made a brave show on a platform, and his fervid exhortations persuaded many from the outer back rows to the plain deal tables where the recruiting forms awaited them.
He toured the neighbouring villages in a motor car, and until the muddle-headed mismanagement by the authorities of the earlier comers cast somewhat of a chill on their waiting fellows, the Colonel was a great success.
Noel and Gregor MacLean were still impatiently hanging on for the War Office to decide whether or not the London Scottish were to be permitted to form a Second Battalion. And Noel, with the impetuosity of youth, grew so restive under the strain at times that he stoutly urged Gregor to enrol with him in one of the regiments of Kitchener’s army.
“Man!” he would growl, after the usual ineffectual visit to Headquarters. “We’re going to get left. It’ll all be over and done with before we get a look in. Let’s join the Hussars!”
“I’m for the London Scottish, my boy, if it’s at all possible. They say they’ll know in a week or two for certain, and we can wait all right. I know such a lot of the fellows there and I’d sooner be among friends. It makes a mighty difference and they’re all good chaps in the Scottish. Besides I’ve a natural yearning for the kilt. If they shut down on us, then we’ll sign on wherever you like.”
“Hang it, man! The fun’ll all be over.”
“Don’t you believe it, my son. K of K isn’t raking in all these men just to amuse himself. He’s the squarest-headed chap we’ve got, and those eyes of his see a long long way past Tipperary, you bet. We’re up against a jolly tough job and he knows it.... Anyway we’ll be fitter than most when they do take us on. I bet you there aren’t many recruits can down ten out of twelve clays at two hundred yards.”
This was Noel’s top score so far. He was rather proud of it and judicious reference to it always had a soothing effect on his feelings. So they strenuously kept up their training, walking all the way in and back whenever they went up to Buckingham Gate for news, and spending much time and money at the shooting-grounds.
The girls missed them, of course, but consoled themselves as best they could with one another. They did a round of the links each day for health’s sake, but felt the lack of Noel’s outspoken jibes and Gregor’s curt criticismsand all the subtle excitation and enjoyment of the former times, and learned that golf for duty and golf for pleasure are greens of very different qualities.
Still they would not have had it otherwise. The boys were doing their duty as it appeared to them, and it was their portion to miss them and get along as best they could without them. For their sakes they heartily wished Headquarters would make up its mind what it was going to do, and get them settled down to actual work and disciplined courses.
For this waiting on and on, with no definite certainty as to the outcome, was wearing on Noel’s temper, and bits of it got out on the loose at home at times and disturbed the atmosphere somewhat.
Like most boys of his age, when things went his way he was as pleasant as could be. And they so generally had gone his way that when they did not he resented it and let people know it. Like nine boys out of every ten, whose chief concern in life had so far been themselves and their own troubles and enjoyments, there was a streak of natural selfishness in him, any implication of which he would have hotly resented. He could be generous enough of his superfluities, but so far had had to make no call on himself for the higher virtues of self-denial or self-restraint. In short he was just an ordinary boy merging into man, very full of himself and his own concerns and enjoyments, and at times a little careless of others.
This odd new friendliness which had sprung up of late between himself and Victoria Luard was all very much to the good. It came in between him and himself and made him feel ready, and even anxious, to do great things for her, and to consider her feelings even before his own. But, at the same time, his feeling of personal discrepancy with regard to her, drove him in the rebound to occasional little displays of bearishness and boyish arrogance, the springs of which Victoria understood perfectly and was vastly amused at.
Gregor MacLean, with the advantages of his extra fiveyears and much shoulder-rubbing with his fellows, had grown out of these youthful discordances, and he sometimes took Noel humorously to task for his little lapses, and Noel would take more from him in that way than from anyone else.
Honor of course, in sisterly fashion, saw his faults and did not pass them over in silence. Still, she also generally did it in humorous fashion which left no more than a momentary sting even if it did not produce much result.
Miss Mitten knitted untiringly. Victoria gravely asserted to Mrs Dare and Honor, when they had dropped in for tea one afternoon, that, so assured was Auntie Mitt that the outcome of the war depended entirely on the number of body-belts and mufflers she could complete in a given time, that she went on knitting all night long in her sleep. And Auntie Mitt, in no way offended, though somewhat scandalised at such public mention of her in the privacy of her bed, only smiled and knitted harder than ever.
“The cold weather will be coming soon,” she said gently, “and it’s cold work fighting in the trenches.”
“But, my dear Auntie Mitt, they don’t fight in trenches nowadays,” said Vic.
“No?... They used to. I remember ... I remember hearing much of the discomforts of the trenches in the Crimean War from those who had taken part in it.”
“Nowadays they fire shell at you from four or five miles away and you’re dead before you know what’s hit you,” said Honor. “It’s low kind of fighting to my mind.”
“Or drop bombs on you from aeroplanes without a chance of hitting back,” added Vic, “which is lower still.”
“Well ... I don’t myself agree with anything of that kind,” said Auntie Mitt gently. “It certainly does not seem to me a very manly way of fighting.”
“It isn’t. But unfortunately it’s the way that’s in fashion,” said Vic.
“It is very horrible,” said Mrs Dare, busy with herknitting also and thinking of her two, one of whom would probably sooner or later be exposed to these barbarous novelties of civilised warfare. “But of course they respect the Red Cross men,”—in which case Con at all events might possibly return alive.
“Oh, they’ll respect the Red Cross all right, Mrs Mother,” said the Colonel, catching her last words as he strode in, with an early evening paper in his hand. “They’re big fighters but they’re civilised and they’ll fight like Christians.”
“What a horrible expression!” said Mrs Dare. “Fight like Christians!”
“Yes,—I apologise and withdraw. You are quite right, Mrs Mother,” with an old-fashioned little bow towards her. “It was not happily expressed.... And yet Christians have to fight at times, and if ever fighting was justified it is now—on our side. We’re fighting for Right and for the rights of everybody outside Germany. Never in the history of the world was there a more righteous war as far as we are concerned. And so we are fighting like—or if you prefer it—as Christians.”
“Yes, I prefer it that way. It is my only consolation when I think of the boys. They are fighting for the Right.”
“When they get to it,” said Honor. “What’s the latest, Colonel? Does Liége still stand where it did?”
“It stands marvellously—the forts that is. The Germans seem to have the town, but the forts are still alive and kicking. It’s simply marvellous how those Belgians have suddenly transformed themselves into the pluckiest fighters the world has ever seen. Marvellous! No one ever believed they could hold Germany’s millions for a day, and here they’ve kept them at bay for a whole fortnight and given France time to get herself in order. If the rest of the war goes the same way there can be no doubt as to how it will end.”
“Doubt?” echoed Vic scornfully. “You don’t meanto dare to say you’ve ever had any doubts as to how it would end, Uncle Tony?”
“There speaks Young England,—always cocksure of winning and inclined to despise the enemy. If you had seen as much of war as I have, my dear, you would be cocksure of nothing, except that you’d do your duty to the last gasp and would have to leave the rest to Providence. Germany is a tremendous fighting-machine. We have a tough job before us, but we’re fighting for the Right and please God we’ll win. It’s good to see the new spirit the war is evoking everywhere. Great Britain and Ireland shoulder to shoulder, and India and all the colonies rushing to help. It’s magnificent,—simply magnificent.”
“Yes,” said Mrs Dare quietly. “It is doing good in that way, and in matters at home also,—the matters which come home to the hearts of us women. We’ve just formed a committee for looking after the wives and children of the men who have to go to the front, and every single person I’ve seen about it is keen to help,—people in some cases who have hitherto shown no inclination for anything beyond their own concerns.”
“There will be a good deal of distress one way and another, I fear,” said the Colonel, nodding thoughtfully. “That is if things go on as they usually do.”
“I’m inclined to hope they’ll go better,” said Mrs Dare. “Our men at the head of affairs are in closer touch with the needs of the people than yours ever have been,”—with a pacificatory little nod towards him. “I know you don’t like Lloyd George, but you must acknowledge that he has handled the financial situation in a masterly way.”
“I do acknowledge it. And I’ll even go so far as to say that I don’t believe our side would have handled the whole matter as well as it has been done. We might. Men rise to the occasion,—as yours have done. We might,—but I confess I don’t at the moment see which of our men could have done what has had to be done as well as Sir Edward Grey, and Churchill and Lloyd George and Asquith.”
“Hooray!” cried Honor. “You’ll be on the right side yet, Colonel.”
“I’m always on the side of right, anyway. What are you girls doing to help?”
“I’m going to knit body-belts and mufflers,” said Honor lugubriously. “But I’m only a beginner and I’m shy of performing in public yet.”
“And you, Victoria-who-ought-to-have-been-Balaclava?”
“Our Central Committee in town is considering how we can best help, and as soon as they decide I’m on to it. In the meantime, Honor is teaching me to knit body-belts and mufflers,—that is, she’s passing on to me, the beginnings of her own little knowledge,—though I don’t quite see the need of them. It’ll all be over in a month, I expect.”
“If it’s all over in six months I shall be more than glad,” said the Colonel weightily. “And there’ll be plenty of cold days and nights before then. However, I’m glad you’re all doing what you can. It’ll do you all good.”