Mrs Dare was sitting by the fire in the parlour at Oakdene, knitting
long deep thoughts into a Balaclava helmet. On the other side of the
hearth sat Auntie Mitt, similarly occupied on a body-belt, which, being
more straightforward work, suited her better. Both their faces were
very grave, and they had not spoken a word for close on half an hour.
There was so little to speak about and so much to think about.
The news from the front was not good. It did not bear discussion. The
Germans were still pressing furiously on towards Paris. Their losses
had been enormous and ours had been terribly heavy though slight in
comparison with theirs. But life seemed the very last thing worth
their consideration. So long as they won the bloody game nothing else
mattered, and they were fouling the game with every tricky manœuvre and
abominable brutality their twisted minds could contrive.
It was a time indeed for anxious thought on the part of all who had any
stake out there, and Mrs Dare’s heart ached with fears for Con. If he
were still alive he must be somewhere in the hands of these pitiless
savages, and according to the papers they spared none. They even seemed
to go out of their way and beyond human nature in the pursuit of that
gospel of frightfulness which the Kaiser openly preached.
Her heart had been wrung over Belgium and Northern France. What chance
had any man of coming alive out of such a welter of crashing deaths?
At times her faith in the goodness of God and the ultimate triumph
of Right seemed to her overborne by the high-piled horrors of the
morning’s news. How--could--God--permit--such--doings?
And when she was in that low state of spiritual health it was always a
comfort to her to hear the Colonel’s cheerful voice at the door, and to
set eyes on his grave but always confident face.
Her husband was so sorely tried in these days that even she--helpless
and almost hopeless as she felt herself at times--had to play the part
of faithful helpmeet as best she might.
The moratorium had indeed relieved him of the heaviest of the pressure
for the time being, but his business was practically killed and the
future weighed on him almost beyond bearing.
To both of them the Colonel played cheerful Providence, and did his
utmost to dissipate their clouds.
“My dear Mrs Mother,” he would adjure her. “Have we not gone through
just such times before----”
“Never quite so dark--nor coming so close home to one.”
“That has been your happy fortune. But to thousands of others they
have come close home in just this same way. Always in the end we pull
through;--ay, even when we’ve had less justification than we have now.
If there’s a righteous God overlooking this matter--and you’re not
going to tell me you doubt it----”
“No, I’m not. But I’m sometimes sorely put to it when I think of it
all,--the horrors--the hideous----”
“Don’t think of them. Think of the way our lads are behaving out there.
They’re simply grand. And the way they’re toeing the line here is just
as fine. And the Colonies!--and Ireland! By Gad, ma’am, we’re living in
noble times! And we’ll see grander times yet. We’re--going--to--win!
Tough work first, maybe, but win we shall, as sure as God’s God.”
And his faith in his country and in the Higher Powers never failed to
cheer her into renewed hope.
To John Dare he was equally helpful.
“Cheer up, John,” he would exhort. “There’s a lot of life and work in
you yet----”
“I feel sometimes as if I’d like to go to sleep and never wake up
again.”
“I know. I’ve been there, but I’m glad now that I thought better of it
and waked up as usual. Things’ll pull round all right. Darkest hour
before the dawn, you know.”
“That’s the trouble. It’s all dark and I see no dawn.”
“It’s there all the same, man. Thousands of other men feeling just
same, but you’ll all come up smiling again in the end.”
But he was harder to beguile of his morbidity than his wife. And,
indeed, with a carefully-built business crumbled to nothing at a
stroke, and five-and-fifty years behind him, it was not easy to regard
the future with much confidence. It was not to be wondered at that
he was terribly depressed, and at times a little irritable. Life was
touching him on the raw, and he found it hard to bear.
“Well, we’ll have tea,” said Auntie Mitt, breaking the half-hour’s
silence and ringing the bell. “I hoped Sir Anthony would be in by this
time. Perhaps he will bring us some good news from town.”
“I’ve almost lost the expectation of hearing good news,” said Mrs Dare.
“It would be a refreshing novelty to hear something cheerful again.”
“We must never lose hope, my dear. While there’s life,--you know.”
“That’s just it. I can’t help fearing he’s dead all this time----”
“Who, my dear? Sir Anthony?”
“I was thinking of Con. He’s in my thoughts all the time.”
“Sir Anthony seems to feel certain he will be all right. If--if the
worst had happened, he says, we should certainly have heard before
this.”
But Mrs Dare shook her head. “I don’t know. This war seems different
from any other war. They do such dreadful things. They seem to respect
nobody.”
“They are certainly behaving very badly, if one can believe all the
papers say. I sometimes think they exaggerate a little, you know,--make
the worst of things and the best, just as they think it will please
people. The papers are very different from what I remember them.”
“They have changed a bit in the last seventy years or so, haven’t they,
Auntie Mitt?” said the Colonel, who had come quietly in behind the maid
with the tea-tray.
“Oh--Sir Anthony! Seventy years! They have changed terribly in the last
twenty years.”
“Of course they have. When you and I first knew them---- Thanks!” as
she thrust a cup of tea at him.
“Any good news?” asked Mrs Dare.
“In the papers--none. Confidentially, I hear that the tide is about to
turn. They’re not to get to Paris anyway.”
“I’m glad of that. It would have been hateful. They would have crowed
so. And Paris has suffered from them before. What is going to happen?”
“Oh, having drawn them on, now we’re going to roll them back.”
“Wouldn’t it have been better to keep them out?”
“Yes, if we could have done so, but we couldn’t. They were too strong
for us. But we’ve been getting stronger every day and now we’re going
to turn and rend them.”
“I’m not blood-thirsty by nature, but truly I’ve come to the point of
longing to see them rent in pieces. It is very horrible, I know, but I
can’t help it.”
“It’s very human, Mrs Mother. We’ll rend ’em in pieces for you all
right, but it’ll take time and some doing.”
“And terrible loss,” she said with a sigh.
“No gain without loss, and their losses have been awful. There never
has been anything like it. How long they can stand it, I don’t know.”
“I’ve given up caring for their losses in thinking of our own. I’m
growing inhuman.”
“Not a bit! Couldn’t--no matter how hard you tried. Now who’s this, I
wonder. Some of Auntie Mitt’s old tabbies, I expect. I’ll bolt.”
But the door opened and disclosed the maid’s face all alight with
excitement as she announced with a jerk, “Please, ma’am,--Sir
Anthony,--Mr and Mrs Luard!” and Ray and Lois walked in.
The Colonel rushed at them with a shout. Mrs Dare jumped up. And Auntie
Mitt almost upset the tea-table into the fire-place.
“Well, well, well!--Mr and Mrs Luard! My dear,”--as he kissed Lois
heartily,--“This is a great day for us! There,--go to your mother.
She’s been aching for you. Ray, my dear boy, you’re a champion. How
did you get here? Where have you come from? How are you?”--All which
incoherencies testified his feelings better than many set speeches.
“I suppose you never got the wire I sent from Montreux, sir?” asked Ray.
“Never got a thing, my boy. But Rhenius got home and told us you were
wanting money and I’ve been doing my best to get some sent out, but so
far it’s been impossible. How did you manage?”
So they unfolded the idyl of their great adventure over many cups of
tea; each supplementing the other with suddenly remembered intimate
little details, the one taking up the running whenever the other ran
dry, or out of breath, or stood in need of sustenance.
“We spent the night on the boat,” concluded Lois, “with eight hundred
others. It was an awful pack and we had to sleep anywhere----”
“She slept on a bench on deck, and I lay under the bench, and every
bone of me’s sore----”
“So are mine,” said Lois, “and it was none too warm----”
“Fortunately it didn’t rain, and we managed to get some hot tea early
in the morning which bucked us up a bit. But it’s not an experience I’d
care to repeat--not just that part of it, I mean.”
“Now tell us all the news,” begged Lois. “We’ve been in the wilderness
for a month and we know practically nothing except that we’re at war.
How’s everybody? And how are things going?”
All that would obviously take much telling, and Auntie Mitt, foreseeing
a considerably enlarged party for dinner, disappeared quietly to look
after the commissariat.
The wanderers were mightily astonished at the tale of the last month’s
happenings. They rejoiced at Alma’s marriage, but were greatly
disturbed at Con’s disappearance. Having as yet been told nothing of
the savage brutalities in vogue among the Germans, they were, however,
hopeful that he would turn up again all right in time.
“It is terrible for Alma, all the same. We must go up and see her, as
soon as possible, Ray.”
“We’ll go to-morrow, and give her a surprise.”
A foretouch of future shadows fell on them when they heard of Noel and
Gregor MacLean having joined the London Scottish.
“What about the First Battalion, sir?” Ray asked at once.
“Mobilised for Foreign Service, my boy.”
“Where are they?--Head-Quarters?”
“Watford.”
“There’ll be some papers waiting here for me, I suppose.”
“You’ll find them all in your room.”
“I must go up to-morrow first thing. Did you tell them why I hadn’t
answered, sir?”
“Yes, I called at Head-Quarters and saw Colonel Malcolm. He said it
would be all right, and he would keep your place open as long as
possible. They’ll be glad to see you, even if you’re a bit late.”
“You really feel you must go, Ray?” asked Mrs Dare anxiously, full of
thought for Lois and remembering Con.
“Yes, mother dear. I must go. We have talked it all out, and Lois feels
as I do about it. It is evident that we’re going to need every man we
can put into the field, and if there are any shirkers they ought to be
shot.”
“It will be hard to part with him,” said Lois bravely. “But he cannot
stop when all the rest are going.”
Mrs Dare picked up her knitting and went quietly on with her work. Her
heart was overfull. This monster of War was taking them one by one.
What if none of them ever came back? What terrible gaps it would make
in their lives! God help them all!
The Colonel’s hand dropped gently on Lois’s and patted it softly in
token of his high approval.
And presently Ray slipped away to look over his equipment and pack his
kit. To make sure that everything was in order he put on his uniform,
and when he went down to them again it was as First Lieutenant Luard of
G Company of the London Scottish, and very fine and large he looked as
he came striding into the room.
“I think everything’s all right,” he said. “If anyone sees anything
amissing, kindly mention it.”
And Lois looked on him with shining eyes and a flush of pride in her
face. But in her heart she was saying, “He is splendid, splendid,--but
suppose it only leads to his death.”
Such thoughts, however, were for private consumption only, and her face
was all in order as she commented with quiet approval on this detail
and that, and asked in matronly fashion if he was sure all his buttons
were stitched on tight.
She liked him so much in his fine feathers that he consented to keep
them on. “For,” she said to herself, “to-morrow he will be gone and I
would like to think of him like that.”
Vic and Honor came in only in time for dinner and could hardly believe
their eyes. They loaded Lois with reproaches for her hole-and-corner
wedding and commented adversely on her German frock, which they advised
her to burn forthwith, or as soon as she could procure something decent
enough to be walked with, and she promised to attend to their wishes in
town in the morning.
The Colonel had sent word to the Red House for Mr Dare to come over
if he came in, and presently he appeared, so worried-looking and
dispirited that Lois’s heart was touched and troubled about him. But
he brightened up at sight of her and Ray, and gave them very hearty
greeting. The lack of news concerning them had been an addition to
his load. The sight of them now, alive and well, lightened it to that
extent.
He brought the cheering news of a heavy defeat of the Austrians by the
Russians at Lemberg, but had nothing encouraging to report from France.
There we were still falling back and there was talk of the Government
removing itself from Paris to Bordeaux, which was not reassuring. It
sounded so fatally like 1870.
“Wise, all the same,” said the Colonel confidently. “Every additional
step the Germans take from their base is a possible added risk for
them. But I heard better news than that, Dare. We think they’ve come
far enough and now we’re going to call a halt. And maybe we’ll even
drive them back.”
Over dinner, the great adventure had all to be gone through again, and
the girls did their best to convince Lois that she was not properly
married and certainly ought to go through the ceremony once more to
make quite sure, for her own satisfaction and theirs.
“Think how awful it would be,” said Vic portentously, “if in ten years’
time you found it was invalid, and Ray could just shake you off with a
simple ‘Good-day, Madam!’”
“Horrible!” laughed Ray. “Don’t you worry yourself thin over it,
Balaclava. I’ve seen to it that she can’t get rid of me, no matter how
she wants to. Everything is quite all right, my child. Trust me for
that.”
And Lois, smiling confidently, was yet praying in her inmost heart,
“God spare him to come back to me! It may be that when he goes I may
never see him again.”
They were still deep in talk when the boys came swinging in about
nine o’clock, and at sight of the uniform they drew themselves up and
saluted smartly.
“Three paces in front and three in the rear!” said Noel, and they
marched solemnly past Ray before dropping their hands. “And if a simple
private may be permitted to address his superior officer,--where the
dickens have you two dropped from--a Zeppelin?”
“No, only the Folkestone boat----” and, after a brief outline of their
wanderings abroad, they fell into talk of regimental matters.
“Maybe they’ll put you back into the Second Battalion,” suggested
Gregor, and Lois’s heart beat hopefully.
“Oh, will they, my boy? Not if I know it. The Colonel knows all about
it and he’s holding my post for me.”
“Lucky beggar!” said Noel enviously. “I wish we were off to the front.
Greg and I are as fit as any man in the First, and I’ll bet you we’d
knock spots off most of them in the shooting line, eh, Greg?”
“And what are you playing at all day?”
“Oh, mouching about Head-Quarters while the Hossifers change their
minds as to what we should do. There’s a fearful lot of mouching about
in this business.”
“Worse than Throgmorton Street,” said Gregor.
“To-day we did a route march to Richmond Park. Jolly hot it was too,
and some of the fellows had about as much as they could stick. Greg and
I didn’t turn a hair. By the way,”--to the girls,--“you remember us
telling you of the old lady who comes out on to her balcony every time
we go out Putney way, and waves a black cardboard cat to us for luck?
She was there again to-day, waving away like a jolly old windmill, and
we gave her a cheer that did her heart good, I bet.”
“Dear old thing!” said Honor. “Perhaps she’s got someone in the
battalion.”
“I don’t know. But she’s undoubtedly gone on us.”
“I don’t see why,” said Vic critically. “Any news of uniforms yet?”
“On the contrary,” laughed Gregor, with quiet enjoyment. “Some of the
fellows in the First Battalion, who couldn’t go abroad for one reason
or another and so have been put back into the Second, have had to give
up theirs to fellows in the First who were short, and they’re as mad
as bears at having to tramp in civvies. Dear knows when we’ll all get
fitted out.”
“Oh well,” chimed in Noel, “I’d sooner wear my own things than go about
like a convict in blue serge, as some of Kitchener’s poor beggars have
to.”
“Yes, they do look rotten.”
“Feel rotten, too, you bet. If they put me in convict dress I’d feel
like chucking the whole thing.”
“Kilt before country!” suggested Vic ironically.
“Not a bit. Kill’t for one’s country, if you like, so long as
it’s in a kilt. But I can tell you it makes a difference to your
feelings--padding along like an out-of-work procession, with every kind
of coat and cap that ever was made. Makes one feel like a rotten old
jumble sale.”
“You’ll get your togs in time,” said Ray. “The great thing is to have
the man that’s to go inside them fit and well.”
“Well, we’re all that anyway. We’ve been route-marching ourselves and
potting clay-pigeons for a month past.”
Mr and Mrs Dare were noticeably quiet. She, because, in spite of
herself, her heart was depressed at all this close approximation of the
Juggernaut of War. It was impossible to close her mind to the fears
that beat blindly at it. Con gone already--possibly gone for good. Ray
going,--he might well never come back. Noel and Gregor longing to
go,--they would jump at any chance that offered. They too might never
come back, and she had fathomed Gregor’s feeling for Honor, from the
shy anxious glances he cast at her whenever opportunity offered. About
Noel and Vic she was not so sure; their manner towards one another
puzzled her. But already she forecasted all the boys lying dead and all
the girls left broken-hearted.
Mr Dare had his own reasons for withdrawing into his shell. Business,
of course, for one thing. And for another,--Noel.