THE blinds were down at the vicarage. Prince, whose stealthy grace of
movement was that of the perfect parlor maid, walked with more than
usual delicacy. Her master had not slept in his bed for two nights.
Miss Edith was working in a Paris hospital, and news had come from
France that Mr. Tom was gone.
In the absence of Miss Edith, Prince felt herself to be the most
authoritative female in that diminished household; and she was much
concerned for her master, whom she adored. It was the nature of Prince
to adore. In her face was the look of stern beauty worn by nearly every
Englishwoman of her generation. It seemed but yesterday that she had
ordered a wedding dress she was never to wear, because “her boy,” a
lusty towheaded young sergeant of the Sussex Regiment, had gone to
sleep on the Somme.
Ever since the telegram had come from the War Office, the vicar had not
been himself. But his first act had been to go up to town for the day,
and comfort and advise the brave girl whose three bairns would never
see their father again. It had called for a great effort, for he was
stunned by the sense of loss. To a father, the first-born is a symbol.
And there is nothing to replace an eldest son in the heart of a lonely
man who lives in the memory of a great happiness. He had only to look
at gifted, rare-spirited Tom to see the mother, to watch the play of
her features, to behold the light of her eyes.
Of his four children he had never disguised the fact that Tom was the
fine flower. Like many men of rather abrupt mental limitation, the
vicar had, at bottom, a reverence for a good brain. This boy had been
given a talent, and many a time had the father amused himself with the
pious fancy that the brilliant barrister, of whom much was predicted,
would be the second Lord Chancellor of his name and blood.
On the third morning of the news, as the vicar sat at breakfast
solitary and without appetite, Prince brought him a letter. It bore a
service postmark. It was from Somewhere in France, and it said:
_1st Metropolitan Regiment._