Dr Connal Dare was striding along the passage leading to the general
room when he met old Jackson.
He and old Jackson met in that passage every morning, and always the
same thing occurred.
Old Jackson, with the fatigues of another night of hideous dreams
still heavy upon him, awaited Con’s coming with anxious face. As soon
as he saw him in the distance his dull face lightened with a look of
expectancy. And at sight of him Con’s face began to crinkle up amusedly
at the corners of the eyes.
“Doctor! Won’t you smile for me?” the old man asked, as they drew near
one another, and Con set his broad shoulders to the wall and laughed
out in spite of himself and the regularity of the proceeding.
The weary old eyes gazed up at him intently, and the woe-begone old
face lost some of its over-carefulness. A twisted grin flickered over
it, as if in spite of itself, and then he said, “Thank you, Doctor!
Sight o’ you does me a sight o’ good,” and shambled off re-inspirited,
while Con, with the crinkles still in the corners of his eyes,
continued his rounds.
But, though he had laughed as usual for old Jackson’s benefit, and
though the remains of the laugh lingered in the corners of his eyes,
he was feeling graver than he ever remembered feeling in his life
before. For he had just been reading, over his breakfast, the momentous
news that Great Britain, having received no reply to her ultimatum
respecting the neutrality of Belgium, had declared war on Germany. And
that was enough to make any man grave indeed.
He was on his way back from the women’s hospital wards, where he had
two or three cases which were causing him some anxiety, when one of the
attendants caught sight of him and came hurrying up.
“I’ve just taken a letter to your room, sir. Special, I think. I didn’t
know where you were.”
“Thank you, Barton! I’ll go along and get it,” and he knew what that
letter was likely to be.
And it was. A long official envelope with O.H.M.S. in peremptorily
solid black letters above the address ‘Dr Connal Dare, R.A.M.C.’
He ripped it open and found himself no more Dr Dare of Birch Grove
Asylum but Dr and Lieutenant Dare of the Royal Army Medical Corps,
under orders to report himself within twenty-four hours at Medical
Head-Quarters in London.
He read the orders quietly, and stood for a moment considering them and
himself, and the whole matter aloofly. His eyes wandered thoughtfully
round the room--over his books, his few pictures and photographs of the
home-folks. It was quite within the possibilities that he might never
see any of these things again. War was full of mischances, even in the
non-combatant arm.
He was all ready, kit packed, notes of his cases carefully written out.
He added a word or two to these and swung away to see the Chief, his
mind hard at work on another matter.
Two hours later, all very spick and span in his uniform, he had
deposited his baggage in the Luggage-Office at London Bridge, had
invaded St. Barnabas’s and interviewed the Matron, and had masterfully
talked her into breaking the rules, or at all events straining them to
such a point that the desire of his heart could creep through.
He had been one of her favoured boys when he was there and they were
on very friendly terms, and, as he explained to her with extreme
earnestness, it was, after all, only a technical breach and--it was
war-time. He tried to prove that they were all under martial law but
she only smiled at him. He might be. She was not.
Still, she was willing to admit that circumstances--such as a general
European War--altered cases. She had been young herself and she
understood fully how he felt. As a matter of duty she put it to him to
consider whether it was the best thing to do, and he proved to her,
with his most irresistible smile, that it was. And finally she sent an
attendant to find Nurse Luard.
Alma came in in a few minutes and became a radiant illumination at
sight of Con in his uniform--a radiance of sparkling eyes and tell-tale
cheeks.
“I was expecting you,” she said happily.
“You are to arrange your work on somebody else’s shoulders and come
out with me for the afternoon, Alma. Matron is not quite sure if it is
wisdom or foolishness----”
“We will prove it to be wisdom. I’ll be ready in ten minutes. Will you
wait?”--as she sailed away.
“I’ll wait ten minutes,” grinned Con.
“When do you expect to go?” asked the Matron.
“As soon as the men go. And the sooner they get across the better. We
ought to be in Belgium now. The Germans are hammering away at Liége,
and I doubt if the Belgians singlehanded can do much. They never struck
one as particularly martial.”
“Well, I hope you’ll come through it safely. It would be a terrible
thing for you both if ...” and she nodded gravely.
“No good forecasting troubles. The worst ones don’t come as a rule, and
it’s no good thinking about them. We’re under the Red Cross, and they
fight straight and respect it.”
“Shells and bullets are no respecters of persons, and in war one never
knows what may happen.”
“Anyway it will be a mighty satisfaction to know that we belong to one
another.”
“We must hope you are doing the right thing. It’s a very natural thing,
I acknowledge.”
“And the natural thing is the right thing as a rule, now isn’t it?”
“Sometimes,”--and Alma came in, her dark eyes dancing and her face
still flushed with the thought of the great adventure on which they
were bound.
The Matron shook hands with them both very warmly, and wished them
‘God-speed!’ very heartily, and then they were gliding away in a taxi
to Doctors’ Commons, and from there to the nearest Registrar’s Office,
and they came out of it a few minutes later man and wife.
“We’ll have a little wedding-feast at the Savoy under the guise of
lunch,” said Con gaily. “I had breakfast at eight. And then we’ll taxi
all the way home. I can’t possibly permit you to mingle with ordinary
people in ordinary trains yet. Besides, I want to kiss you all the way
down, and there’s nothing like a closed taxi----”
“Dear, dear! What experience you seem to have had!”
“Not a quarter enough, as you’ll see, Mrs Dare. Here we are! Now we’ll
get a table in the balcony and watch old Father Thames rolling down to
the sea.”
“The tide is coming in,” said Alma, as she drew off her gloves.
“Good omen! The rising tide!--and here’s the sun to add his
blessing,”--as the watery gray clouds up above parted and let a gleam
of sunshine through.
They had the most memorable little lunch of their lives there,--with
the turgid yellow-gray flood brimming below them, dotted here and
there with a great creeping water-beetle of a black barge;--and the
gray and black spans of the bridges, up-stream and down, looming in
and out of the picture in the wavering sunlight;--and the yellow trams
spinning to and fro like shuttles through the gray web of life;--and
the tall chimneys and the shot tower on the opposite bank, with the
ragged wharves at their feet;--and the Embankment gardens and trees and
sauntering mid-day crowds, all just as usual and manifesting no undue
concern about anything.
“And we’re actually at war with Germany at last,” said Con, as they sat
looking down on it all.
“I’m glad we’re taking it so quietly,” said Alma. “We mean business.”
Their very polite waiter attended punctiliously to all their wants,
acknowledging all orders with a grave inclination of the head and
never once opening his mouth. He might have been dumb for any evidence
they had to the contrary. Between courses he hovered about watchfully,
seemed interested in Con’s uniform, and distinctly appreciative of
Alma’s nurse’s costume and general appearance. Even Con’s very generous
tip he only acknowledged with a final silent bow.
When Alma commented on such refinement of taciturnity, Con suggested
that he was possibly a German looking forward without enjoyment to a
change of occupation which would be less to his taste.
They had a delightful run out to Willstead, and Con made best use of
his opportunities, having taken care to seat his wife directly behind
the driver.
All too quickly they were there, taking Mrs Dare Senior’s breath away
by the magnitude of their announcement.
“Mother--my wife!” was Con’s little way of breaking the news. “I have
to leave to-morrow morning so we decided to get married to-day.”
“Well!” gasped his mother, and then took Alma to her heart and kissed
her warmly.
“He never could have made a better choice, dear,” she said. “But it is
very sudden.... I hope it is wisely done.”
“We think it is, mother,” said Alma joyously. “Whatever happens we have
this, and it has made us very happy.”
“Have you seen the Colonel?”
“Not yet,” said Con. “Mothers come before Uncles. We’ll go along
presently and make him jump. Auntie Mitt will probably have a fit.”
“Have you had any lunch,--or did this great business make you forget
it?”
“We had our wedding breakfast at one o’clock in the balcony of the
Savoy,” said Alma. “It was delightful.”
“Then you’re ready for a cup of tea,” and she rang the bell and ordered
it in as quickly as it could be got ready.
“But won’t this mean your giving up your post, Alma?” asked Mrs Dare
thoughtfully, as soon as she had time to look at the matter all round.
“Not at present. Matron had to be told of course. But Con is one of her
old favourites, and she is to say nothing about it for a time. You see,
if the war amounts to anything and goes on long, they are sure to be
called on for nurses to go to the front and they’ll be short-handed----”
“And they couldn’t afford to dispense with the best nurse they’ve
got, on a mere technicality,” said Con. “And as soon as it’s all
over I’m to join old Jamieson in Harley Street, and we’ll set up
housekeeping--probably with him. He’s got room enough for four families
in that big house of his.”
“Well, well!” said Mrs Dare, and said no more, but her mother’s heart
prayed fervently that no whiff of the war-cloud might dim the bright
and hopeful outlook of these eager young lives.
They chatted quietly over their tea, of Lois and Ray, and of Noel and
young MacLean and their war-like cravings, and of Vic and Honor, and
all the other little family matters in which they were all interested.
“I’d love to see those boys in kilts,” said Alma.
“They don’t know yet if there will be a Second Battalion,” said Mrs
Dare. “But if they don’t get into the London Scottish they’ll join
something else. They are quite set on going.”
“It’s only natural,” said Con.
“All the same I can’t help hoping they may not have to go to the front.”
At which Con shook his head. “I’m afraid you must not count on that,
mother dear. One never knows what may happen in war, of course. But
everyone who knows says the Germans are mighty fighters, and they’ve
been preparing for this for many years. In fact some folks seem to
think their big war-machine may even be too perfect,--so very perfect
that if anything goes wrong with any part of it it will all tumble to
pieces.”
“I wish it would and smother that wretched Kaiser in the ruins,” said
Alma heartily.
“I don’t think it likely. They are very wonderful folks. In
organization, and scientific attainment generally, they have made us
all sit up and they beat us still. There is just one thing in this
matter in which we have the advantage over them.”
“Ships? Guns?” queried Alma.
“No,--greater than either,--the simple fact that we’re in the right and
they are utterly in the wrong. And that, you’ll find, will tell in the
long run. They are forcing on this war to serve their own selfish ends;
and we, thank God, have no axe of our own to grind in the matter. We’re
out to make an end of wars, if that is possible.”
“That is worth fighting for,” said his mother heartily.
“Ay! Worth dying for if necessary.... It will be very hot work, I
expect.... But we’ve got to win,--or go under. And that is unthinkable.
But the cost may be heavy.”
“Our thoughts ... and our prayers will be with you all the time,
my boy.... May God grant us all a safe deliverance!” said Mrs Dare
fervently.
“And that will help to buck us all up,” said Con cheerfully. “But we
mustn’t get morbid. Suppose we go over and break the good news to the
Colonel and Auntie Mitt, Mrs Connal Dare!”
“I’m ready. Do it gently, Con. Remember they are older than we are.”
“Good news never hurts. Come on!”
Noel and Gregor MacLean, while anxiously awaiting news from
Headquarters as to the possible formation of a Reserve Battalion,
were preparing themselves for the chance by developing their skill in
musketry at the private shooting-school on the heath not far away.
They went up every day and spent many pounds at the targets and then
at clay pigeons, and in addition set themselves rigorous route-marches
of ten and fifteen miles to get themselves and their feet into good
condition. And each night they came home thick with mud and hungry as
hunters, and well-satisfied that they were doing everything in their
power to fit themselves for the real thing when the hoped-for call
should come.
So Vic and Honor were thrown more than ever upon their own congenial
companionship.
They were inseparable, and the days not being long enough for adequate
expression of their feelings, they generally spent the nights together
also. And Mrs Dare and Auntie Mitt were growing accustomed to the
sudden announcements,--“Vic’s sleeping with me to-night, Mother,”
and,--“Auntie Mitt, Honor’s going to sleep here to-night,”--and
the older folk made no objection, since it pleased the girls and
alternately brightened each house in turn. The times were somewhat out
of joint and anything that tended towards mitigation of circumstances
was to be made the most of.
And so, when Con and Alma walked into Oakdene, they found the family
party still lingering over their tea-cups in the hall;--Miss Mitten’s
knitting-needles going like clock-work, the Colonel expatiating on the
monstrous perfidy of Germany in attacking Belgium, the girls nibbling
their final cakes and listening somewhat abstractedly, wondering no
doubt what those boys were doing to-day, and feeling that life--and
certainly golf--without them was distinctly thin and flavourless.
“Ah--ha!” said Con magniloquently, “Here are the tribes assembled
together. Colonel!”--with a punctilious military salute,--“Auntie
Mitt!--and you two little girls!--we have come to gather your views on
the subject of marriage. A worthy subject! Don’t all speak at once.”
“It is usually accounted an honourable estate,” said the Colonel,
beaming on them, while Miss Mitten peered up, bird-like, but knitted on
for dear life, and the girls looked anticipative.
“We thank you!” said Con with a comprehensive bow. “Then you will
permit me to introduce to you--Mrs Connal Dare,”--at which, as he swung
Alma gracefully forward by the hand, they all sprang to fullest life as
though pricked by an electric shock.
“Well--I’m da-asht!”
“Alma! My _dear_!”
“Con!--Is it true?”
“Oh, you dear, horribly mean things!”--
“To do us out of it all like that!”
“Horrid of them, but awfully jolly all the same!”
“You see,” said Con,--when Alma had kissed them all round, and he had
insisted on one also, to the immense gratification of the girls,--“This
is war-time, and I am off to-morrow, and from my earliest youth I have
been taught never to put off till to-morrow what I could do to-day. And
so,--well!”--with a wave of the hand towards Alma,--“There it is!... We
knew we had your approval, sir. We knew Auntie Mitt would graciously
accept the fait accompli. And we hoped from the bottom of our hearts
that Vic and Honor would in time forgive us and receive us back into
their favour. And--we’re very happy over it.”
There was no possible doubt about that, and the Colonel, who was the
only one who had any right to take exception to the matter, was far too
good a sportsman to cast any shadow of a shadow upon their happiness.
He had witnessed very many similar cases, and most of them had turned
out very happily--when they had had the chance. It was that possibility
only that added a touch of solemnity to his benediction,--
“Well, well! You’ve certainly given us a most delightful surprise, you
two. War, as I know by experience, is a mighty crystalliser of the
emotions, and essentially a promoter of prompt decisions. God grant you
all happiness, my dears!” and he kissed Alma as if she had been his
very daughter, and wrung Con’s hand warmly.
“You look well in khaki, my boy,” he said, with his eyes still
glistening.
“And feel well, sir. I am, I think, a man of peace, but the uniform
makes one feel distinctly soldierly, and if I find it absolutely
necessary to knock out a German or two I believe I could do it.”
“What with?” asked Vic, fingering his empty scabbard.
“Oh, with my fists if needs be. But I’m for binding not for wounding.
It would only be under a sense of the sternest necessity that I should
give that German a daud on the neb.”
“I think I shall be a nurse,” said Honor. “You do look spiffing, Alma.”
“Too late for this war, my child. ‘It’s a long long way to Tipperary,’
and this is to be the last war. Still there’s always plenty to do even
in peace-times.”
“Will you be going out too, Al?” asked Vic.
“I don’t know yet. There’s sure to be a call for nurses. Wouldn’t it be
delightful to go out and meet Con there?” and her face was radiant at
the thought.
Mrs Dare had made them promise to come back for dinner, so that Mr Dare
might have the chance of seeing them also. When, in due course, they
went across they found him just in from the City, and Con was struck
with the change these last ten days had made in him.
He made, indeed, for their benefit a brave assumption of cheerfulness
and gave them very hearty greeting, but pretended to be scandalised at
their escapade, and expressed the hope that the Colonel had done his
duty and told them what he thought about them.
They reassured him on that point and enquired for the latest news.
“Things are moving fast,” he said soberly. “John Burns and Lord Morley
leave the Cabinet. Government takes over all the railways. Jellicoe is
to command the Fleet, French the Army, and Kitchener is to be Minister
of War.”
“That’s good. He’ll stand no nonsense anyway.”
“The Germans are attacking Liége furiously. Everyone is amazed that the
Belgians can stand up against them for a day. But every hour they can
hold them is gain to us and France. We are both taken unawares, you
see. And the fact of their tremendous onslaught shows that they were
all ready,--more than ready. What the upshot of it all will be it’s
hard to say. Germany is a very big nut to crack.”
“And how are business matters, father?” asked Con quietly, between
themselves.
“Bad, Con. And likely to be worse. There is to be a big issue of
paper,--ten-shilling and one-pound notes, and Lloyd George appeals very
earnestly to people not to draw gold from the banks. He is doing all he
can. But business is at a standstill, and as to getting in any money
from the Continent--! That’s all gone, I’m afraid.”
“I’ve got a few hundreds saved. Would that be any use, sir?”
“You’re a married man now and your wife must be your first
consideration,” said his father with a grave smile, which, however,
conveyed to Con his appreciation of his desire to help. “And your
uncle-in-law has very generously offered me assistance if I need it. At
present I don’t. If things come to the worst I may perhaps make some
arrangement with him. You see it’s a case of the devil and the deep
sea. On the one hand contracts made which I’m expected to fill, and, on
the other, total stoppage of the wherewithal to fill them. And again
goods I’ve paid for here and shipped, and no payment forthcoming for
them from Germany and Austria.”
“There must be many in the same position. Won’t a state of war bar all
unpleasantness?”
“It’s hard to say. We’ve had no experience of such a state of things,
you see. No doubt there will have to be give and take all round and
some working arrangement come to. I think there’s a general disposition
that way. But it’s very trying business,” he said wearily.
“I’m sure it is, sir. I wish I could be of some help.”
“You have your own work cut out for you, my boy, and fine work. It will
be a trial to you to leave now. But I suppose you considered all that.”
“We did, sir. It is trying to have to part so soon, but it will be a
help to us both to feel that we belong to one another whatever comes.”
“I hope to God you’ll come through all right, Con. For all our sakes
take every care you can, and don’t run into any unnecessary dangers.”
“Trust me for that, sir.”
Then the Colonel and the girls came across “for coffee and smokes, and
to see how Mrs Con was bearing up,” as Vic said, and they all fell to
talk about the war and the future, and on the Colonel’s part to the
extraction of the latest news from the City.
“I hope you are not upset by these young people’s precipitancy,” said
Mrs Dare quietly to the Colonel, under cover of the general talk beyond.
“On the contrary, my dear--, let me see, what _is_ the exact
relationship between us now? My niece, who is my daughter as it were,
is now your daughter also. And your boy is my nephew-in-law. What does
that make me to you?”
“I give it up,” smiled Mrs Dare. “We will remain the best of friends.”
“This makes us even closer than that. However, as I was saying, I’m
entirely and absolutely pleased with them. They’ve done the natural
thing under the circumstances. I’ve seen the same thing happen many
times before, and it generally turns out well. There are always risks
in war, of course----”
“And as to that we can only leave them in God’s hands, and hope for the
best.”
“Amen to that, best of friends! My girl has at all events shown wisdom
in her choice of a mother. We will hope ... and--er--pray”--he added,
with a touch of the naïve shyness of a man who was in the habit of
keeping his inmost feelings very strictly to himself,--“for their
welfare and happiness.”
“Yes.... The times are very trying and will probably be more so, but
I’m inclined to think they may be the means of bringing out all that is
best in us all.”
“War does that ... as something of a set-off for the darker side of it.
For it also brings out the worst unfortunately.”
“Here are the boys,” said Mrs Dare, jumping up at the sound of heavy
boots on the path outside. “They generally come in together and they’re
always hungry. I’m the commissariat,” and she hastened away to see to
their provisioning.
“Hel-lo!” cried Noel, in a pair of old riding-breeches and puttees,
at sight of the assembly, while Gregor, similarly apparelled, looked
eagerly over his shoulder in hopes of an approving spark in Honor’s
eye. “Quick, Mac!--salute, ye spalpeen, or ye’ll be shot at dawn.
Here’s a blooming little Horficer!” and they both drew themselves up
and saluted Con in smartest possible military style.
“Why,” prattled Noel. “I’m blowed if it isn’t just old Con,--and Alma!
So you two have managed to hit the same day this time.”
“Yes, we’ve managed it for once, No,” said Con. “How are you, Mac?
Allow me to introduce you to my wife,” with a proprietorial wave
towards Alma.
“No!--really?” jerked Noel.
“Really and truly,” laughed Alma. “I hope it isn’t objectionable to you
in any way.”
“Lord, no! Quite the other way. If there’s two things I admire about
old Con they’re his uniform and his jolly old cheek. Think of him
going and getting you to marry him right away like that.”
“He’s off to-morrow morning, you see, so I thought it best to make sure
of him.”
“He’s really going? I wish we were.”
“How do things stand with you now, Mac?” asked Con. “Any nearer
bull’s-eye?”
“There’s rumours of a possible Second Battalion being formed, but
nothing definite. We’ve put our names down, and meanwhile we’re getting
ourselves into good shape. If they don’t buck up and do something
soon we shall try elsewhere. But we’d sooner be London Scottish than
anything else.”
“You see, the girls there think we’d look so well in kilts,” broke in
Noel.
“What on earth gave you any such impression as that, my child?” asked
Honor.
“Oh, we can see it in your eyes.”
“Ah,--little boys see what they want to see sometimes.”
“When we can. Can’t always, can we, Mac?”
“Come along, you hungry ones,” called Mrs Dare from the doorway, and
they sped away for a very necessary wash before eating.
Alma’s short leave expired at ten o’clock, and as Con had promised to
return her safely to the hospital by that hour, they had to set off in
such time as would allow a margin for contingencies.
Their good-byes were outwardly cheerful enough, and as exuberant
as high and hopeful spirits could make them. But, below all the
surface confidence and fortitude, not one of their hearts but was
saying to itself--“This is the beginning of partings,” and was
asking itself--“Shall we ever all meet again?” And the necessity for
smothering, as far as might be, the chill possibilities evoked by
these importunate voices, made the younger folk but the more outwardly
determined on most valiant gaiety.
“Meet you across there, maybe, old man,” said Noel.
“I’ll be on the look-out for you. Do my best for you in case of need.”
“Do be careful not to lose one another on the way home,” begged Vic,
with an assumption of anxiety. “You are very young, you see, and
naturally somewhat entêtés at the moment.”
“I’m inclined to think we really ought to go with them,” said Honor.
“They may wander away hand-in-hand, and never be heard of again. Get
your hat, Vic, and we’ll go.”
“Right-o!” said Noel. “We’re on. We’ll go along too to take care of
you.”
“Then we’ll stop at home,” said Honor resignedly. “We couldn’t think of
taking you out again after your hard day’s play.”
“To say nothing of the fact that your southern extremities are inches
thick with mud,” said Vic. “Everybody we met would think we’d taken to
walking out with the gardener’s boys----”
“Or the young butcherlings. Yes, we’re sorry, dears,”--to Con and Alma,
“but under the circumstances I’m afraid you’ll have to find your way by
yourselves.”
“We’ll manage somehow,” said Con, and in their good-byes to the older
folk there were suspiciously shining eyes and lingering hand-grips and
convulsive kissings which told their own tales.
“The beginning of partings!”... “Shall we ever all meet again?” ... and
hearts were heavy though faces smiled.
“God bless you both and keep you from all harm!” was Mrs. Dare’s last
word, and with that in their hearts they ran across to say good-bye to
Auntie Mitt, who said exactly the same words and made no assumption of
anything but gloomiest forebodings as to the future.
As to the Colonel, when they had actually gone, he blew his nose
like a trumpet-blast, till his moustache bristled white against the
dark-redness of his face, and he turned back into the room with a
fervent,--“Damn the Kaiser and all his works!... I trust you will
excuse me, best of friends!”
“I will excuse you,” said Mrs Dare. “It is terrible for one man to have
such power for ill in his hands.”