XXII
Raywent off in full rig first thing in the morning, taking his kit with him, in case, as he thought probable, he should be ordered to join his company at once.
Vic and Honor had business in town, so they went with him and Lois to the station, where they found Noel and Gregor marching impatiently about the platform for the train to come in.
“You can’t travel with us, you know,” said Noel. “We go third.Officers——”
“Thanks, my child! ‘Out of the mouths ofbabes——’”
“The girls will of course follow the uniform,” said Noel, while Gregor grinned hopefully.
“Of course,” said Honor, and they got in with Ray. He leaned out of the window for a last word with Lois, who was going up later to do some shopping; and then they were gone, and she stood watching the joggling end carriage till it was out of sight, and wondered forlornly if she would ever see him again.
She was still standing watching, with an odd little feeling in her heart that when she turned away it would be like cutting the last link with the happy past and turning to face the anxious future, which stood waiting peremptorily just behind her, when the down-train ran in. She turned with a sigh that was almost a sob, and went out into the road.
Her eyes were misty as she went. It was the beginning of partings, and if he went to the front, as he most assuredly would if the rest went, it might be the beginning of the end.
And life was just at its fullest with them, just openingits fairest white flowers. They were so very happy,—and would have been happier still, if this hideous war had not come.
But she must be brave. Ray was feeling it just as much as she was. But he had gone to his duty with high heart and quiet face, and she must do no less.
But it was hard, hard, hard, to part with him so soon. God help them both! They were in His hands, and she must cling to that with might and main.
“Lois!”—and she turned quickly and found Alma hurrying to come up with her.
But a much-altered Alma. The beautiful face, which used to be all agleam with the joy of life,—the gracious curving mouth, where quick smiles and ready laughter used to hover,—the eloquent eyes which caught your thought in advance of your words,—they were all there but frozen to the semblance of a marble saint. Lois caught her breath at the change in her.
“Am I too late? Has he gone?” panted Alma.
“Just gone. Oh, Alma! My dear! My dear!” and they embraced one another there in the road, oblivious of who might see them at it. For the tragic web of circumstance in which their hearts were caught lifted them above all care for such small mundane considerations.
“Vic wrote me a line last night about you two, and I knew Ray would have to be off at once, so I came as soon as I could possibly get away. Iwouldhave liked to see the dear old boy once more. How is he feeling and looking?”
“Just as you would expect him to. He looks splendid. He is feeling—well, very much as we are, I suppose.”
“Yes, these are sad and sober times for us all, but chiefly for us women. I think it hits us harder than the men. They have all the glamour and the activities. There is not much glamour in it for us who sit at home and wait for things to happen and fear the worst all the time.”
“No ... Al, dear, I can’t tell you all I feel about youand Con. But, dear, I feel somehow that he will come back. I do not believe he is ... gone for good.”
“I don’t myself. But the waiting and hearing nothing is hard to bear.... I thank God a dozen times a day that I have my work and that it is hard and taxing. If I hadn’t I should break down. You must get some work to do, Lois. It is the only way to bear it.... But when Con and I parted, the evening of the day we were married—it was just outside the big gate at the hospital—I just knelt by my bed half the night. I could not think of sleeping. And I gave him up, there and then, to God and his country, and made up my mind that I might never see him again.”
“It was brave and strong of you, dear. I’m afraid I haven’t got up to that yet.”
“It is best so. We may never see again any of those who go. If we can bring ourselves to really understand that, and say good-bye to them in our hearts, I think the pain of the actual news will be lessened.”
“But we can always hope for them.”
“Of course. We can, and do, and will. And if the hope is realised, so much the better. But if not, the pain will be less.”
“It is all very terrible. Who would have thought it three months ago?”
“Ay, indeed!... I cannot help hoping that those who brought it about may suffer in themselves every bit of the suffering they are causing.”
Her unexpected visit was a pleasant surprise to the Colonel and Auntie Mitt. It reminded them of her sudden home-swoops of ante-war-days, but with the unforgettable difference. Auntie Mitt, indeed, kept stealing surreptitious glances at her, as though she were not absolutely certain in her own mind that this really was their own Alma. And the Colonel’s voice had a novel inflection in it when he spoke to her.
“No news, Uncle, or you would have let me know,” was her first word to him.
“Nothing yet, my dear. I shall hear the moment they have anything definite. But they all seem quite hopeful.”
But she had heard that so often that it had come to lose its savour for her.
“I am very sorry to have missed Ray. I got off as early as I could, but we are terribly busy. Have you any further idea as to my going out?”
“My dear, you could go out, I imagine, with any party that is going. But ... I really think your best place is here,—at your own work, I mean. If any news came, and you were away out there somewhere,—think how awkward it might be. We might want you at once and never be able to find you. Can’t you bring your mind to stopping at home?”
“I suppose I must if you put it so. But I feel as though I would like to go out and tackle harder work still,—the harder and grimmer and redder, the better.”
“I know,” said the Colonel understandingly. “And if I thought it best I would say so, and help you there. But I really think you are best at home—for a time at all events. Now I must run, my dear. I promised to be in town at eleven. Stop as long as you can. I’ll send you good news as soon as I learn any.”
She stayed till close on mid-day, ran in for a short chat with Mrs Dare, had an early lunch, and then Lois walked back to the station with her.
“You will keep me posted as to Ray’s doings, Lo,” she said, as they stood on the platform. “For your sake, dear, I could almost wish he might not have to go. But I know him, and you know him, and we both know that if the rest went and he was left behind, it would break his heart.”
Lois nodded. Her heart was very full. She wished Alma could stop at home. They could have helped one another. Life was all partings at present.
“Remember, dear,” said Alma, as the train came round the curve, “we are more than ever sisters now. We must help one another all we can. And—don’t forget!—throwyourself into some good work or other. It is the very best anodyne.”
And, the next minute, Lois was watching the joggling end of the train as it carried her away.
She went slowly home to discuss with her mother what work she should set her hand to. But before they had decided anything the matter was settled for them, for the time being, in quite a different way. A telegram was brought over to her from Oakdene, and it was from Ray at Watford.
“Have got rooms for you at Malden Hotel here. Come along.”
“Have got rooms for you at Malden Hotel here. Come along.”
This meant a quick fly round if she was to do him no discredit. Within an hour she was in town and whirling in a taxi to Regent Street. Inside another hour she had chosen, tried on, and had properly fitted, a costume and hat equal to the occasion, and she reached the Malden at Watford just in time for tea.
Then she waited joyously for Ray to put in an appearance, her clouds for the time being lightened by the certainty of seeing him again, and of having at all events some small share in him for a few days longer.
She knew well enough that it was but a postponement of the evil day, a very temporary lifting of the war-clouds to let the sun of their happiness shine briefly through. But possibly, to one under sentence of death, a respite of even a week may seem a mighty gain,—seven long days and nights snatched from the shadow beyond. Possibly!—for to some it might seem better to have it over and done with rather than to live on in the inevitableness of the ever-approaching menace.
Yet most would be gratified for even the gift of days, and Lois was so. Like Alma, she felt that when the actual parting came it would be wisdom to look on it as possibly—probably final. And so these few unlooked-for extra days were jewels beyond compare, vouchsafed them by the goodness of God,—to be made the very most of,and afterwards to be treasured as long as memory lasted.
Ray came striding in on her just before dinner.
“Well!” he said, when he had kissed her to their hearts’ content, and then held her off at arm’s length to take her all in,—“We are smart!”
“To be upsides with you, sir.”
“However did you manage it? I was half afraid it would bother you to come, but the Colonel gave permission and it was too good a chance to miss.”
“I should think so, indeed. I am so glad you managed it.”
There was a joyous surface-light on his face though below it was set in firm restraint. Like herself,—but with larger knowledge of the actual facts and so a clearer estimate of the possibilities—he thought it more than likely they might never see one another again when they said their last good-bye. The slaughters out there were terrible. Officers especially were going under at a terrific rate. It seemed, from what they heard, that it was an essential part of the new low German fashion of fighting to make a dead set at every man in officer’s uniform.
But not for one moment did he regret what they had done. If the worst was to come, his last breath would be the happier for the knowledge that their lives had been one, and that Lois’s future was secure so far as Uncle Tony’s generous hands could make it.
His billet was not very far away, but the Colonel, who had known him for years and Uncle Tony still better, and who had heard all about their little romance, permitted him the privileges of the hotel so that he might spend as many of these last precious hours with his new-made wife as possible, and Ray saw to it that love trespassed not on duty by so much as one hair’s breadth.
He was up and away each day before she was properly awake, and he came in at night—when he came in at all—tired and hungry, but hungriest of all for another sight of her.
And Lois spent the days intercepting the Battalion on its route marches or exercising itself in cover-taking and trench-digging and manœuvering at Fortune’s Farm.
And always, when she managed to catch the long line on the march, the sight of the intent masterful faces under the cocked bonnets, and the rhythmic swing of the kilts and bare knees and hodden-gray stockings and blue flashes, to the spirited skirling of the pipes, brought her heart up into her throat, and, often as not, the tears into her eyes.
They looked so gallant and so gay, so eager to be at it, so gloriously young and full of life, so ready to do, and dare, and die,—and, inevitably, some of them, many of them maybe, would swing away into the war-cloud, just like that—gaily, gallantly, eagerly, and would never come out of it. The glorious young life would gasp itself out on the foreign soil,—those who loved them would know them no more save as happy memories,—and maybe that life that was dearer to her than her own would be among them.
It was a sweet, poignant, uplifting time, and she lived to its utmost every vital moment of it. As in one of those gorgeous death-banquets of old, the ever-pressing knowledge of the inevitable end heightened and deepened and quickened the vitality of the moments that were left. Life—in herself and in these others—had never seemed so wonderful and so desirable. For—for some of them—its hours were numbered.