At home, meanwhile, they were living in a whirl of conflicting rumours,
fears, hopes, which changed their faces with every edition of the
papers, but possessed one lowest common denominator in an intense and
ever-increasing anxiety.
Mr Dare wore a very grave face in these days; and as his wife
understood--to some extent at all events--the difficulties he had to
wrestle with in consequence of the total cessation of business with the
Continent, she found it no easy matter to keep as cheerful a heart as
she would have wished, but bravely did her best that way.
One quick glance at her husband’s face, when he came in of a night,
told her more than all the papers, and the news was never encouraging.
Every evening, the Colonel, possessed of a firm belief in the efficacy
of the commercial barometer as an index of the political outlook, came
in to gather John Dare’s latest observations of it. And he too could
tell with one glance at John Dare’s face how things were going.
When Mr Dare was late, as often happened, he generally found the
Colonel sitting there waiting for him and doing his best meanwhile to
cheer Mrs Dare. But, try as they all might, their cheerfulness was of a
gray autumnal character which foresaw wintry weather before any hope of
Spring.
From the mere business point of view the fact of Great Britain being
dragged into the mêlée could not make matters very much worse for Mr
Dare than they were. But that dreadful possibility entailed others of
so intimate a character that it was impossible to close one’s eyes to
them.
“I wish those two were safely home,” said Mrs Dare, busy with her
sewing one evening, as the Colonel, in Mr Dare’s easy chair, sat
waiting with her for its proper occupant’s arrival.
“I’m sure you needn’t worry about them, dear Mrs Dare,” said the
Colonel emphatically. “Ray knows his way about and they’ll be perfectly
all right. We may get a wire from them at any moment saying they’ll be
here in an hour.”
“I’m surprised we’ve had no word of any kind since Ray left.”
“I expect things are all upside down all over the Continent. We’ll hear
from them all right in time.”
Then Mr Dare came in and they saw by his face that the City barometer
was still at stormy.
“Rumours galore,” was his report, “and mostly disturbing. Sir Edward
Grey is doing everything in his power for peace, but the general
feeling is that the Kaiser means war, and the City is preparing for
it. Bank-rate is up to 4. It may be 8 to-morrow. Consols down to 70.
Everything is in suspense. No business doing.”
“And what do they say as to our being dragged in?” asked the Colonel
anxiously.
“General idea is that only a miracle can keep us out, and that miracles
aren’t common.”
“Any talk of mobilising?--fleet and army?”
“No orders yet, as far as one can learn, but there is little doubt word
has been sent round to be ready. I saw Guards marching through this
morning. In fact there is an undoubted sense of war in the air.”
“And how do they feel as to our preparedness, if it comes to that?”
At which Mr Dare shook his head. “Not a doubt as to our readiness at
sea. But on land----” he shrugged discomfortingly, “Well, the general
feeling is that what we have is good, but so small as to be of very
little account among the huge masses that may be engaged over there.
They say there may be ten million men fighting----”
“How awful!” said Mrs Dare. “Ten millions! And all with relatives of
one kind or another! Just think of the aftermath--the suffering and
misery! I am not a violent person, but, truly, there is no ill I could
not wish for the men who bring such a horror about.”
“They’ll suffer!” said the Colonel.
“We too,” said Mr Dare soberly. “And here is how it comes home to us.
If we’re drawn in there will be an urgent call for more men----”
“Quite right!” said the Colonel. “If you’d listened to advice we’d have
had ’em ready. Now we shall have to do the best we can with what we can
get.”
“The Territorials will be mobilised----”
“But they are surely for home defence,” said Mrs Dare.
“They will be needed at the front. Presumably the choice will be given
them.”
“And they’ll go,” said the Colonel. “They’re not half as bad as some
folks have been trying to make out, and this will buck them up to top
notch.”
“That means your Ray will be in it.”
“He wouldn’t be my Ray unless he was, sir.”
“And our Noel. He’s been at us for days past for permission to join,”
said Mrs Dare without enthusiasm.
“He’ll go London Scottish with Ray of course. Good lad!”
“He was up seeing about it to-day,” said Mr Dare. “And he’s hoping he
can get into the Second Battalion if they form one. He’s put down his
name for it anyway and I suppose he’ll have to go. I never knew him so
keen on anything in his life before.”
“Good lad!--The right sort! Does honour to his parents.”
“And Con is expecting to be called up,” said Mrs Dare.
“And I bet you Alma will want to be in it. Our two families are doing
their duty. Da-ash it! If all the others would come up to the scratch
as well there’d be no lack of fighting-men.”
“And suppose they none of them come back,” said Mrs Dare forebodingly.
“One never supposes such things, ma’am. If they go, they go to the duty
God has called them to. And if they never come back they’ll have done
their best for their King and their country, and that is the noblest
thing any man or woman can do.”
“I know, Colonel, but ... all the same, it would be very sore to lose
them.”
“It would be sorer still for Germany to ride rough-shod over England.
They’re great fighters, and if it comes it’ll be hot work. Thank God,
they’re not barbarians, however, and they’ll fight decently and respect
the rules of the game.”
But even in that thought Mrs Dare found but little comfort, and try as
she might she could not attain to the Colonel’s altruistic heights of
patriotism.
“It is different,” she said to herself. “After all, his two are not
bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, and that makes all the
difference in the world.”
“Where are they all to-night?” asked Mr Dare. For the thought that
before very long partings might come unconsciously distilled within him
a curious little desire to know they were still within reach. “Noel
came up to have lunch with me and to tell me about the London Scottish.
I understood he was coming straight home.”
“He came and told me about it,” said Mrs Dare. “It has given him a new
zest in life. He was on the links all afternoon, and then he insisted
on taking the girls into town to ‘When Knights were Bold.’”
“H’m!” said Mr Dare. “I must be out of touch with eighteen and a half.
I can’t say I feel like the theatre myself.”
“Young blood runs red,” said the Colonel. “The jump in it that makes
him want to go to the theatre will help him through tight places later
on.”
“Do you think it will be a long business, Colonel?” asked Mrs Dare, in
pursuance of her own thoughts.
“Hard to say, ma’am. Personally I should be inclined to say not. The
expense of all those men in the field will be so enormous,--to say
nothing of the upsetting of business and life generally. One or two
tremendous battles and it may be over. War is full of surprises. One
side or the other may crumple up unexpectedly and cry ‘enough.’ On the
other hand it is not easy to think of Germany doing that, after all her
bumptiousness. And I’d hate to think of France and Russia giving in.
Auntie Mitt is hard at work knitting winter socks and comforters, and
Balaclava helmets.”
“Goodness me! Does she think it will last as long as that?”
“She says she remembers hearing they were badly wanted in the
Crimea,--which was a fact. I’ve been hinting to her that she probably
remembers making them at that time, and, being a good Conservative,
instinct impels her to do as she did then.”
“Too bad!” smiled Mrs Dare. “She could hardly have knitted for the
Crimea.”
“I’m not so sure of that. She’s frightfully close and touchy about
her age. She’s wonderfully well-preserved, and she’s a good little
soul, but I do enjoy chaffing her. It’s a pleasure to see the prim and
extremely lady-like way in which she takes it. She always makes me feel
like a little boy at school again. You’ve no definite word from Con
yet?”
“He’s all ready packed to start at a moment’s notice, and is quite sure
he will have to go. Nothing more than that. It’s all very disturbing to
one’s peace of mind.”
“Not half as disturbing, ma’am, as if the Germans got across here. Let
us be thankful that if there is to be fighting it’ll be on the other
side of the water. Business is quite at a standstill, I suppose, Dare?”
“Mine is, and most other people’s. If the mere threat of war curdles
things up like this it’s hard to imagine what they’ll be like if it
actually comes.”
“It’ll be a case of everybody helping everybody else,” said the
Colonel, gallantly and meaningly, and on that note jumped up to go.
“I must run along and see how Auntie Mitt’s getting on with those
Balaclava helmets!” he said, and shook hands with them warmly, and
went.
X
The unsettled state of international politics affected the younger folk
much as it did their elders, only in a different way and to a less
extent.
It produced in them an excitement and effervescence of spirits which
left no room for broodings or forebodings. They closed their eyes to
the grimmer possibilities and saw only the picturesque and dramatic and
thrilling.
They were all most keenly interested in every move in the mighty
game, and somewhat impatient of the slow development of the intricate
situation. The number of evening papers that found their way into both
houses was astonishing, and extremely wasteful.
Their local weekly paper arranged for a telephonic news-service with a
London paper, and posted in its windows irregular bulletins, the more
startling the better. Whoever went into the village was expected to
bring back the latest rumours. Mrs Dare, when she went, was content to
carry the items of any importance in her mind. The Colonel, and Noel,
and Honor, and Victoria Luard invariably bought latest editions as
well, sometimes of half-a-dozen different papers, in the hope that one
or other would contain something illuminating which had escaped the
rest. And in the anxious search for that illuminating item they read
the same news over and over again in all the papers, till, as Noel
said, they “got fairly fed up with chewing the same bit till there
was no taste in it.” Yet the exercise seemed only to leave them the
hungrier for more startling later editions. They all, in fact, had a
pretty severe attack of news-fever, and it grew worse with every day
that passed and with all the thin and unsatisfying pabulum it fed upon.
Noel and the girls and young Gregor MacLean spent much time on the
links. There was no talk of going away for holidays this year, not at
all events while things were in their present unsettled condition.
The Luards had planned to spend September in Switzerland, at Saas-Fée
and Zermatt. Noel and Honor were to have gone with them, and Mr and Mrs
Dare had intended making a round of visits in Scotland.
Connal Dare and Alma Luard, if they could get off at the same time, had
been going to friends on Dartmoor not far from Postbridge. As for Miss
Mitten, she never would hear a word about going away. No place was as
comfortable as home, she averred,--she had everything there that she
wanted, so why should she make a change which could only be for the
worse?
But all plans had had to be given up, and the younger folk consoled
themselves with much golf and tennis, and flung themselves into these
things with the gusto of players whose time might be short.
But, among them all, bad as things looked, there was still--except
in the mind of the Colonel, and perhaps also of Mr Dare,--a strong
undercurrent of feeling that so incredible a catastrophe as a general
European war, in this year of grace 1914, was impossible. Things had
looked threatening before, time and again, and the clouds had rolled by
without breaking. The men at the head of affairs, Mr Asquith and Sir
Edward Grey, were eminently safe and experienced, and pre-eminently set
on peace. It was all mighty interesting, thrilling indeed at times,
though the thrills of the evening were not seldom found to have been
wasted when they eagerly scanned the more sedate morning papers. But it
would--they could not but believe--all end in smoke, as it had so often
done before.
And so the younger folk got all the thrills the papers could afford
them, and all the enjoyment out of life that was to be had under the
circumstances; and no one, from their merry talk and laughter, would
have imagined that just across the water issues so tremendous for the
future of the world were surely and quickly coming to grips.
Gregor MacLean lived with his widowed mother at White Lodge, on the
other side of Willstead Common. He was an only son, but, through the
good Scotch common-sense of his parents, had escaped the usual penalty
of only sons. He was in fact a genuinely good fellow, somewhat reserved
and unexpressive of his feelings, and in no way spoiled either by his
mother’s delight in him or the good-sized shoes he had stepped into at
his father’s death.
He was on the Stock Exchange, in his late father’s firm, Dymoke and
MacLean, of Draper’s Gardens. But the Stock Exchange was for the time
being dead, and as Gregor said he saved in every way,--money, gray
matter, and nervous energy--by stopping at home, he stopped at home and
enjoyed himself,--gauging the pulse of affairs by the price of Consols
and the Bank-rate in the evening and morning papers, and laying in
stores of health on the links, while yet there was time, against the
demands the future might make upon him.
The firm of Dymoke and MacLean was of long-standing and high repute.
It had a solid old connection which at the best of times did little
in the way of speculation, and never dreamed of realising when things
were at their worst. It did, occasionally, when the bottom had fallen
out of things generally, confer ponderously with the heads of the firm
and empower them to buy for it good old reliable stock which the less
fortunate had had to jettison, and sometimes it invested on a large
scale, as provision for younger sons and unmarried daughters. And so
the business was an eminently safe one and satisfactorily profitable,
and old John Dymoke could sit comfortably in his big swing-chair in
his office in Draper’s Gardens, no matter what wild storms swept the
Street outside, and young Gregor could spend his days on the links with
perfect equanimity, though the virus of possible war had thrown the
Exchanges of the world into convulsions such as they had not known for
generations.
Mr Dymoke played neither golf nor tennis. He loved Draper’s Gardens and
the society of his old cronies of the Exchange. Gregor MacLean took
great interest both in golf and tennis and in the play of Miss Honor
Dare, and looked upon Draper’s Gardens as one of the necessities of a
comfortable existence but not as a place to spend more time in than was
absolutely imperative.
And that is how he came to be spending profitable days on the links
while his less-pleasantly-situated fellows were worrying themselves
gray over the slowly unfolding developments of international politics.
Between him and Honor there existed an entente cordiale which Gregor
hoped in time to consolidate into a more comprehensive alliance. Honor
understood him very well,--far better than he understood her, and she
was not averse to an eventual acquiescence with his hopes and views
as to her future. But in the meantime--partly no doubt as the result
of her close intimacy with Victoria Luard--she was in no hurry to
surrender her entire freedom of action even for what most girls would
have considered the higher estate of an affiance with Gregor MacLean.
She liked him better than any of the other young men to whom her pretty
face and comradely ways proved so great an attraction. He was, as she
not infrequently told him, if anything too well endowed with this
world’s goods. So well that no incentive to arduous work was left him.
To which he would reply that you couldn’t judge of a fellow entirely by
his form at tennis or his handicap on the links. She should see him on
’Change, wrestling with beasts at Ephesus, and carrying fortunes on his
bare head.
At which Honor’s merry laugh would ring out and set him to
soul-searching for means of approving himself to her in larger and
loftier ways.
Between Noel Dare and Vic also there existed a distinct feeling of
something more than friendliness, which was not without its humorous
aspects both to themselves and their families.
They had known one another intimately for ten years. At the beginning,
when they were both about of an age--between eight and nine--Noel had
genially bullied her and Honor to his heart’s content, ordered them
about, pulled their pig-tails when he pleased, and called them kids,
and they had accepted his masterfulness as quite in the natural order
of things.
By the time they reached fourteen they were on a level, and Noel found
his powers of command over them gone. He might order, but they only
laughed and went their own way.
And now, at nineteen, their positions were reversed. Victoria had
developed into a young woman of advanced and very decided views, with
aims in life and immense energy in carrying them out. And Noel felt
himself little more than a schoolboy in her presence.
As to touching her hair!--it would have been a desecration! He never
dreamed of it,--not of actually doing it anyway. It was something even
to touch her hand. And he sombrely said to himself at times that she
was getting beyond him. And he doubted within himself, whether even
the most assiduous devotion to St Mary Axe could ever place him in the
position he aspired to regarding her.
They all four came clattering into the hall at Oakdene one afternoon,
after a splodgy round of the links, damp and bedraggled and thirsting
for tea. Auntie Mitt had it served in next to no time, and between
little sips at her own cup sat busily knitting and listening to their
wonderful flow of spirits, which found vent in a jargon that was still
utterly unintelligible to her, in spite of the amount of it to which in
her time she had listened.
But by the time they had finished their third cups they had fought the
battle all through again, had explained away all their failures to the
entire satisfaction of those chiefly concerned, had replumed themselves
on their more outstanding successes, and then, as the boys lit their
cigarettes with sighs of satisfaction, their minds came down again to
mundane affairs.
“Where’s Uncle Tony, Auntie Mitt?” asked Victoria.
“Sir Anthony is just coming up the drive, my dear,” said Auntie Mitt,
with a glance out of the window. “He went down to the village to see if
there was any news,” and Uncle Tony came in, paper in hand.
“Ah-ha!” said he, “Mudlarks!...”
“And as merry, sir,” said Gregor. “Damp but undaunted”....
“Dirty but not dispirited,” said Honor briskly.
“Defeated but defiant,” said Vic. “Your turn, No.”
“Oh, dash!” said Noel, who was not over-good at that kind of mental
gymnastics.
“My copyright!--since Victoria-who-should-by-rights-have-been-Balaclava
won’t allow me to say damn,” said the Colonel.
“Of course I won’t,--with Auntie Mitt, sitting there listening with all
her ears----”
“I heard it not infrequently before you were thought of, my dear,” said
Auntie Mitt, with her little bird-like uplook and smile. “It was, I
think, much more commonly used even in the best society than it is now.
I believe even the Duke himself”....
“Ah--he needed me to keep him in order. I wonder you didn’t do it
yourself, Auntie Mitt.”
“Oh,--my dear!”
“Any news, sir?” asked Gregor.
“Bank-rate 8 per cent----”
“Deuter-on-omy!”
“And the Stock Exchange closed till further notice.”
“Gee-willikins! Things are shaping badly then, sir!”
“Very badly, I fear. Russia and Germany are practically at war, though
no formal declaration has yet been made, I believe.”
“And how do we stand now, sir?” asked Noel eagerly.
“On the brink, my boy. Sir Edward Grey is still working his hardest for
peace. But, personally, I should say the chances are of the smallest.”
“I wonder where Lois and Ray have managed to get to,” said Honor
anxiously.
“You trust Ray, my dear. They’ll be all right. I just called in to
reassure your mother. I knew her first thought would be for them when
she heard the news.”
“But surely we ought to have heard from them before this----”
“Not under the circumstances. Nothing would pass into or out of Germany
the moment they began to mobilise,--no letters, no telegrams, certainly
no foreigners. But they would start at the latest on Monday. This is
Friday. They ought certainly to be well on their way by this time. But,
you see, they may have had to take some roundabout route,--perhaps off
the beaten track. We shall hear from them all right in time. They don’t
cause me the slightest anxiety.”
“Think of closing the Exchange! ... and eight per cent! That shows what
the big pots think of things anyway,” said Gregor, beating a soft
tattoo on the floor with his heels in his amazement. “Shows I was right
in stopping away too! Sight better here than mouching about down there!
I wonder when they’ll open shop again.”
“If we’re right into it--as we shall be,” said the Colonel, with
conviction, “it’s impossible to say how things will go on. We’ve never
had such a crisis before, you see, and I don’t suppose any living man
can foresee just how things will work out. Money will be very tight,
I expect. Provisions may go up beyond anything we’ve ever known. That
will depend on the fleet. If we can hold the seas----”
“Why, of course we can, sir. What’s our fleet for?” said Gregor.
“They have some ships too, I believe.”
“They have, and we’ll give them beans if they’ll give us half a
chance,” said Noel.
“It might be wise to lay in a stock of provisions,” suggested Miss
Mitten. “I remember during the--I mean, hearing--that food went to
extraordinary prices during the Crimean War.”
“Go it, Auntie Mitt! We’ll go up to the Army and Navy to-morrow and
clear them out,” laughed Vic. “This really sounds like war times.”
“You’d better load us up too, while you’re at it, Vic,” said Honor, “or
maybe we’ll be sitting by the roadside crying for a crust.”
“Wait a moment, you giddy young people,” said Uncle Tony, nodding his
gray head sagely at them. “Let us look at this matter for a moment.
Suppose everybody acts on that idea. What is going to be the result?”
“The bulls will clear the market and outsiders will go short,” said
Gregor.
“Exactly! And the outsiders would be in the proportion of a
hundred--perhaps a thousand--to one. I’ve no doubt some--perhaps even
many--will do as Auntie Mitt proposes. It will naturally suggest itself
to the provident housekeeper,”--with a conciliatory little bow to the
already conscience-stricken little lady,--“but the effect will be bad
all round. It will drive up prices unnecessarily. It will deplete
stocks. It will emphasise the gap between the rich and the poor.
Carried to extremes it might well lead to riot and revolution, for
starving men stick at nothing.”--Miss Mitten clasped her thin little
black-mittened hands as though she saw them coming and begged for
mercy, and her face was woe-begone. “Indeed, in such a case, I would
hold a man justified in storming any house which had provisioned itself
in such a way----”
Miss Mitten unclasped her hands and waved them at him in gentle
deprecation, saying almost with a sob, “I am sorry, Sir Anthony. I
stand rebuked. The matter had not presented itself to me in that light.
But I assure you I was thinking of you all rather than of myself, or
indeed of anybody else. I was in the wrong. I see it.”
“You never thought of yourself before anybody else in all your life,
my dear,” said the Colonel gallantly. “We know you were thinking only
of us. But all the same, as you see, it would be an unpatriotic thing
to do and we will set our faces against it. If prices go up--as they
will--we’ll pay ’em. If supplies run short we’ll do the best we can. We
can always fall back on porridge,”--which was Miss Mitten’s particular
detestation.
“It is said to be very sustaining,” she said meekly, at which he choked
violently through politely endeavouring to swallow a chuckle.
“How’ll we be off for men, sir?” asked Noel.
“Short as the dev--the deuce, my boy. Have you heard from your London
Scottish yet?”
“Not yet, sir. There’s hopes of a Second Battalion, but it’s not
decided yet. I shall go up again to-morrow----”
“I’ll go with you,” said Gregor, with sudden decision.
“And we’ll sit on their door-step till they make up their minds and
take us on. Golf and tennis are off, my children,”--with a nod at the
girls. “It’s pipes and sporrans and skean-dhus now, and ‘Up with the
Bonnets of Bonnie Dundee!’”
“Good lads! When the need is known they’ll all come flocking up. The
trouble is that you can’t make even volunteers into fighting-men
without training. We ought to have had you all at it years ago. Then
we’d be ready now.”
“We’ll do our best, and pick it all up as fast as we can. It’ll be
better business than footling about the links anyway,” said Noel.
“Rather!” said Gregor.
And the girls took no umbrage at that, but they seemed a trifle quieter
than usual.