Why Brian's coming should make all the difference may puzzle you, Padre,
but I'll explain.
Ours is an amateurish hotel, especially since the war. Any one who
happens to have the time or inclination runs it: or if no one has time
it runs itself. Consequently mistakes are made. But what can you expect
for eight francs a day, with _pension_?
I said that a very young youth brought up the news of the Becketts'
arrival. He'd merely announced that "_un monsieur et une dame_" had
called. Apparently they had given no names, no cards. But in truth there
were cards, which had been mislaid, or in other words left upon the desk
in the _bureau_, with the numbers of both our rooms scrawled on them in
pencil. Nobody was there at the time, but when the concierge came back
(he is a sort of unofficial understudy for the mobilized manager) he saw
the cards and sent them upstairs. They were taken to Brian and the names
read aloud to him. He supposed, from vague information supplied by the
_garçon_ (it was a _garçon_ this time) that I wished him to come and
join me in the _salon_ with my guests. He hated the thought of meeting
strangers (the name "Beckett" meant nothing to him), but if he were
wanted by his sister, he never yet left her in the lurch.
He and I both knew the house with our eyes shut, before the war; and
now that Brian is blind, he practises in the most reckless way going
about by himself. He refused to be led to the _salon_: he came unaided
and unerring: and I thought when he appeared at the door, I'd never seen
him look so beautiful. He _is_ beautiful you know! Now that his physical
eyesight is gone, and he's developing that mysterious "inner sight" of
which he talks, there's no other adjective which truly expresses him. He
stood there for a minute with his hand on the door-knob, with all the
light in the room (there wasn't much) shining straight into his face. It
couldn't help doing that, as the one window is nearly opposite the door;
but really it does seem sometimes that light seeks Brian's face, as the
"spot light" in theatres follows the hero or heroine of a play.
There was an asking smile on his lips, and--by accident, of course--his
dear blind eyes looked straight at Mrs. Beckett. We are enough alike, we
twins, for any one to know at a glance that we're brother and sister, so
the Becketts would have known, of course, even if I hadn't cried out in
surprise, "Brian!"
They took it for granted that Brian would have heard all about their son
Jim; so, touched by the pathos of his blindness--the lonely pathos (for
a blind man is as lonely as a daylight moon!) Mrs. Beckett almost ran to
him and took his hand.
"We're the Becketts, with your sister," she said. "Jimmy's father and
mother. I expect you didn't meet him when they were getting engaged to
each other at St. Raphael. But he loved your picture that he bought just
before the war. He used to say, if only you'd signed it, his whole life
might have been different. That was when he'd lost Mary, you see--and
he'd got hold of her name quite wrong. He thought it was Ommalee, and we
never knew a word about the engagement, or her real name or anything,
till the letter came to us at our hotel to-day. Then we hurried around
here, as quick as we could; and she promised to be our adopted daughter.
That means you will have to be our adopted son!"
I think Mrs. Beckett is too shy to like talking much at ordinary times.
She would rather let her big husband talk, and listen admiringly to him.
But this _wasn't_ an ordinary time. To see Brian stand at the door,
wistful and alone, gave her a pain in her heart, so she rushed to him,
and poured out all these kind words, which left him dazed.
"You are very good to me," he answered, too thoughtful of others'
feelings, as always, to blurt out--as most people would--"I don't
understand. Who are you, please?" Instead, his sightless but beautiful
eyes seemed to search the room, and he said, "Molly, you're here, aren't
you?"
Now perhaps you begin to understand why his coming, and Mrs. Beckett's
greeting of him, stopped me from telling the truth--if I would have told
it. I'm not sure if I would, in any case, Padre; but as it was I _could_
not. The question seemed settled. To have told the Becketts that I was
an adventuress--a repentant adventuress--and let them go out of my life
without Brian ever knowing they'd come into it was one thing. To
explain, to accuse myself before Brian, to make him despise the only
person he had to depend on, and so to spoil the world for him, was
another thing.
I accepted the fate I'd summoned like the genie of a lamp. "Yes, Brian,
I'm here," I answered. And I went to him, and took possession of the
hand Mrs. Beckett had left free. "I never told you about my romance. It
was so short. And--and one doesn't put the most sacred things in
letters. I loved a man, and he loved me. We met in France before the
war, and lost each other.
"Afterward he came back to fight. A few days ago he fell--just at the
time when his parents had hurried over from America to see him. I--I
couldn't resist writing them a letter, though they were strangers to me.
I----"
"That's not a word I like to hear on your lips--'strangers'," Mr.
Beckett broke in, "even though you're speaking of the past. We're all
one family now. You don't mind my saying that, Brian, or taking it for
granted you'll consent--or calling you Brian, do you?"
"Mind!" echoed Brian, with his sweet, young smile. "How could I mind?
It's like something in a story. It's a sad story--because the hero's
gone out of it--no, he _hasn't_ gone, really! It only seems so, before
you stop to think. I've learned enough about death to learn that. And I
can tell by both your voices you'll be friends worth having."
"Oh, you _are_ a dear boy!" exclaimed Mrs. Beckett. "God is good to give
you and your sister to us in our dark hour. I feel as if Jimmy were here
with us. I do believe he is! I know he'd like me to tell you what he did
with your picture, and what we've done with it since, his father and I."
Brian must have felt that it would be good for us all to talk of the
pictures, just then, not of this "Jimmy" who was still a mystery to
him. He caught up the subject and said that he didn't understand. What
picture was it of which they spoke? He generally signed his initials,
but they'd mentioned that this was unsigned----
"Don't you remember," I explained, "the sketch I sold for you to Mr.
Wyndham when we were tramping through France? You told me when you came
back from Paris that it wasn't quite finished. You'd meant to put on a
few more touches--and your signature. Well, 'Wyndham' was only the
middle name. I never told you much about that day. I was half ashamed,
because it was the day when my romance began and--broke. I hoped it
might begin again sometime, but--but--you shall hear the whole story
soon. Only--not now."
Even as I promised him, I promised myself to tell him nothing. I might
have to lie in deeds to Brian. I wouldn't lie in words. Mrs. Beckett
might give him her version of her son's romance--some day. Just at the
moment she was relating, almost happily, the story of the picture: and
it was for me, too.
Jim had had a beautiful frame made for Brian's cathedral sketch, and it
had been hung in the best place--over his desk--in the special sanctum
where the things he loved most were put. In starting for Europe his
father and mother had planned to stop only a short time in a Paris
hotel. They had meant to take a house, where Jim could join them
whenever he got a few days' leave: and as a surprise for him they had
brought over his favourite treasures from the "den." Among these was the
unsigned picture painted by the brother of _The Girl_. They had even
chosen the house, a small but charming old château to which Jim had
taken a fancy. It was rather close to the war zone in these days, but
that had not struck them as an obstacle. They were not afraid. They had
wired, before sailing, to a Paris agent, telling him to engage the
château if it was still to let furnished. On arriving the answer awaited
them: the place was theirs.
"We thought it would be such a joy to Jim," Mrs. Beckett said. "He fell
in love with that château before he came down with typhoid. I'll show
you a snapshot he took of it. He used to say he'd give anything to live
there. And crossing on the ship we talked every day of how we'd make a
'den' for him, full of his own things, and never breathe a word till he
opened the door of the room. We're in honour bound to take the house
now, whether or not we use it--without Jim. I don't know what we _shall_
do, I'm sure! All I know is, I feel as if it would kill me to turn round
and go home with our broken hearts."
"We've got new obligations right here, Jenny. You mustn't forget that,"
said Mr. Beckett. "Remember we've just adopted a daughter--and a son,
too. We must consult them about our movements."
"Oh, I hadn't forgotten!" the old lady cried. "They--they'll help us to
decide, of course. But just now I can't make myself feel as if one thing
was any better than another. If only we could think of something _Jim_
would have liked us to do! Something--patriotic--for France."
"Mary has seen Jim since we saw him, dear. Perhaps from talk they had
she'll have a suggestion to make."
"Oh no!" I cried. "I've no suggestion."
"And you, Brian?" the old man persisted.
Quickly I answered for my brother. "They never met! Brian couldn't know
what--Jim would have liked you to do."
"It's true, I can't know," said Brian. "But a thought has come into my
head. Shall I tell it to you?"
"Yes!" the Becketts answered in a breath. They gazed at him as if they
fancied him inspired by their son's spirit. No wonder, perhaps! Brian
_has_ an inspired look.
"Are you very rich?" he asked bluntly, as a child puts questions which
grown-ups veil.
"We're rich in money," answered the old man. "But I guess I never quite
realized till now, when we lost Jimmy, how poor you can be, when you're
only rich in what the world can give."
"I suppose you'll want to put up the finest monument for your son that
money can buy," Brian went on, as though he had wandered from his
subject. But I--knowing him, and his slow, dreamy way of getting to his
goal--knew that he was not astray. He was following some star which we
hadn't yet seen.
"We've had no time to think of a monument," said Mr. Beckett, with a
choke in his voice. "Of course we would wish it, if it could be done.
But Jim lies on German soil. We can't mark the place----"
"It doesn't much matter--to him--where his body lies," Brian went on.
"_He_ is not in German soil, or in No Man's Land. Wouldn't he like to
have a monument in _Everyman's Land_?"
"What do you mean?" breathed the little old lady. She realized now that
blind Brian wasn't speaking idly.
"Well, you see, France and Belgium together will be Everyman's Land
after the war, won't they?" Brian said.
"Every man who wants the world's true peace has fought in France and
Belgium, if he could fight. Every man who has fought, and every man who
wished to fight but couldn't, will want to see those lands that have
been martyred and burned, when they have risen like the Phoenix out of
their own ashes. That's why I call France and Belgium Everyman's Land.
You say your Jim spent some of his happiest days there, and now he's
given his life for the land he loved. Wouldn't you feel as if he went
with you, if you made a pilgrimage from town to town he knew in their
days of beauty--if you travelled and studied some scheme for helping to
make each one beautiful again after the war? If you did this in his name
and his honour, could he have a better memorial?"
"I guess God has let Jim speak through your lips, and tell us his wish,"
said Mr. Beckett. "What do you think, Jenny?"
"I think what you think," she echoed. "It's right the word should come
to us from the brother of Jim's love."