XXXIII
Honorwalked quickly, with bent head to keep the sleet out of her eyes. She despised umbrellas and enjoyed braving the weather, when circumstances permitted her, as now, to wear a knitted toque and a rainproof. The bite of the sleet was in accord with her feelings. She would have liked to tramp against it for hours.
Noel gone! Gregor gone! It seemed incredible. Those two dear boys so full of bounding life and energy. Gone!—lying dead and cold under the French mud. She could not quite realise it yet. She felt numbed with the shock of it. Dead! Never to return to them! Never to see them in this life again! Oh, Gregor, Gregor!
But she must be brave, for, just across the Common there, was Gregor’s mother in happy unconsciousness of the blow that had befallen them. Oh, it would hurt her. It would bruise her. It might break her. She, Honor, must be brave and strong and help her to bear it.
And as she breasted the wind, and the sleet bit at her face, her mind began to work again with acute clarity of understanding. It carried her above herself. She saw—as though scales had fallen from the eyes of her spirit—that this fearsome Death which seemed so dreadful was not the end but the beginning. Their boys were possibly—probably—nearer to them even than they had been in life. The dear bodies might be lying there in France, but all that had been reallythemwas living still and might be—would be, she thought, watching them now, near at hand, nearer than ever before.
So full was her mind of the thought that she actually found herself glancing upwards into the sleety sky as if she might catch sight of them.
There was only gray sky and whirling sleet up there, but the belief was strong in her and she went on comforted.
The maid greeted her with her usual bright smile, and helped her off with her dripping coat. They all knew how things stood between Mr Gregor and her and cordially approved.
“Is Mrs MacLean down yet, Maggie?” she asked.
“Not yet, Miss Honor. She was feeling the cold, so she said she would have her breakfast in bed,”—as she showed her into the morning-room at the back, where a wood fire was burning brightly with cheerful hissings and spittings and puffs of smoke, and everything spoke of comfort and the quiet joy of life.
“Will you please ask her if I can see her at once, Maggie?”
“Yes, Miss Honor. Not bad news, I do hope, Miss,” but she knew that it was, for Honor’s face was tragic in spite of herself.
“Don’t hint it, Maggie. Just tell her I must see her,” and Maggie went quietly, as though she savoured the coming news already.
A table with newspapers and books and magazines was drawn up near the fire alongside Mrs MacLean’s favourite chair. On it was a photograph of Gregor in his uniform, in a massive silver frame. He looked bravely out at her. Just his own dear look as she knew him best. Quiet, reserved, but with the smiles just below and ready to break through on smallest provocation.
And it was all over. He was gone,—lying under the blood-stained soil across there. No,—she was to remember—he was more alive than ever, nearer to them than ever,—but—ah me!—they would never see him again on this side.
She was still bending over the photograph when Maggie came in, with a quiet, “Will you please to come up, Miss Honor?”
She turned the handle of the bed-room door, with her eyes anxiously seeking the extent of the news in Honor’s face. And Honor went into the room.
It was a full hour before she came out again. What had passed was between them and God. We may not trespass.
But her face had lost and gained in that hour inside with Gregor’s mother, and her eyes were red with weeping.
Maggie had been dusting within earshot of that door ever since it closed. She came now to meet Honor, and they went into the morning-room together.
“Is he wounded, Miss Honor?” she asked anxiously.
“He is dead, Maggie,—” and there was a sob in her voice as she said it. “And my brother also. They died together,” and Maggie burst into tears and nearly choked with the effort to do it quietly.
“Oh, Miss Honor!—Dead!—and him so fine and strong and only just got there! Oh, Miss!—And the mistress? Is she—willit——”
“I am going home now to get some things, and then I am coming back to stay with her for a time. She wishes it, and it will comfort her.”
“And your poor mothertoo——”
“It is very terrible for us all, but worst of all for Mrs MacLean. He was all she had. We must all do what we can to comfort her. They died splendidly, one helping the other. And Ray says it was instantaneous and so they did not suffer. Tell the others, Maggie, and don’t any of you give way—more than you can help—before Mrs MacLean.”
“We’ll do our best, Miss Honor, but it’ll no be easy. It’s too awful,” and Honor passed out into the sleety morning.
Mrs Dare quite understood and fully approved. Her old friend’s need was greater than her own. She gave Honor loving words for her right out of her heart, helped her to get ready the things she must take back with her, and promised to come over to see Mrs MacLean very shortly, when the freshness of their wounds should have had a little time to heal.
Mr Dare’s grief was great when he came home that nightto such news. But, like his wife, he had forecasted the possibility, and as they talked together of their boy, he said again, “Better so, dear, than growing up like some one knows—like that Nemmowe fellow for instance.... He did all he could and no man could do more.”
“He would never have turned out like young Nemmowe,” said Mrs Dare confidently.
“I don’t believe he would, seeing that he was your boy.”
Lois came over while they were still quietly talking of it all, and she brought with her a suggestion that made for their comfort all round.
In Honor’s absence Mr and Mrs Dare would find The Red House very empty, whereas for want of room at Oakdene they had reluctantly been compelled to refuse several fresh patients lately. So Lois’s idea was to transfer herself and Vic and Auntie Mitt, if she would come, to The Red House and so form a more complete family party there. They could then leave Oakdene entirely to their guests and the nursing staff, and could still do their own part in the way of providing and superintendence from next door.
“These trying times make one inclined to draw closer together,” she urged, and it seemed to them good, and the matter was decided on.
Vic, usually so light-hearted and full of talk, had become the silent member of the household. She had suffered a sore wound, and it was the harder to bear because it was more or less of a hidden wound and not to be spoken of or sympathised with.
She went for days like a stricken thing, scarcely speaking to any of them and preferring solitude. Then Mrs Dare ventured on her privacy and got her to talk about Noel, and they cried together over their loss and both felt the better for it. And presently she and Mrs Dare went across to see Mrs MacLean and Honor, and in their efforts to cheer and comfort Gregor’s mother they found some consolation themselves.
Mrs MacLean begged so anxiously to be allowed to keepHonor with her still that Mrs Dare could not find in her heart to say no. They were like mother and daughter, and Mrs MacLean’s only hope for the future was that the relationship which might have been should be realised as nearly as possible—as though Honor and Gregor had been married before he went out.
“I have thought sometimes when I saw in the papers about young people getting married like that that it was not very wise,” said the old lady. “But now I see it differently. It is the best thing to do, for it puts everything on a proper and legal footing. But, my dear, I know how very dear you were to him, and you are just as dear to me as if you had been married. Stay with me as long as you can put up with me. My heart would be very empty without you.”
And Honor kissed her and promised to stay.
“You see, my dear,” said the old lady, another time, to Honor’s very great surprise, “I have no one very near to me in kin, and I know just what our boy would have wished me to do. That large blue letter that came this morning was from Mr Worrall, the solicitor to the firm, and it contained a copy of Gregor’s will, which he had the good thought to make before he left. The bulk of his father’s money came to me, of course, and would have passed on to him when my time came. God has willed that otherwise, but I can still do what I know would have pleased him—which I know will still please him if he is still concerned with us below here, as both you and I rejoice to believe. Mr Worrall tells me he left all he had to you, and it may be somewhere about twenty thousandpounds——”
“Oh—but——”
But the old lady’s tremulous white hand constrained her to hear her out.
“And when I go, my dear, there is no one in the world he would have desired the rest—or most of it—to go to but yourself.”
But Honor’s head was down in the motherly lap and she was sobbing heart-brokenly.
“I know, my dear. Sooner himself than all the money in the world,” and she stroked the shaking head tenderly. “But God saw differently, and He knows best. We will treasure our memories together, you and I.... Oh, my boy! my boy!” and the white head bowed upon the brown, and the great burden of their sorrow was easier for the sharing.