not understand it. The sun is shining brightly, but he sits
very cold in his chair. He shivers. He is very glad to see his
wife coming to him through the open window. She is a dear old
lady, and is dressed brightly, as becomes one who has been to a
wedding. Her face beams to match her gown. She is really quite
a happy woman again, for it is several years since any deep
sorrow struck her; and that is a long time. No one, you know,
understands the Colonel as she does, no one can soothe him and
bring him out of his imaginings as she can. He hastens to her.
He is no longer cold. That is her great reward for all she does
for him.
‘I have come back, John,’ she says, smiling tranquilly on him.
‘It hasn’t seemed very long, has it?’
‘No, not long, Ellen. Had you a nice walk?’
She continues to smile, but she is watching him closely. ‘I
haven’t been for a walk. Don’t you remember where I told you I
was going, John?’
‘Yes, it was to a wedding.’
Rather tremulously, ‘You haven’t forgotten whose wedding, have
you?’
‘Tell me, Ellen.’ He is no longer troubled. He knows that Ellen
will tell him.
‘I have been seeing Barbara married, John.’
‘Yes, it was Barbara’s wedding. They wouldn’t----Ellen, why
wasn’t I there?’
Like one telling him amusing gossip, ‘I thought you might be a
little troubled if you went, John. Sometimes your mind--not
often, but sometimes if you are agitated--and then you think
you see--people who aren’t here any longer. Oh dear, oh dear,
help me with these bonnet strings.’
‘Yes, I know. I’m all right when you are with me, Ellen. Funny,
isn’t it?’
She raises her shoulders in a laugh. ‘It is funny, John. I ran
back to you, John. I was thinking of you all the time--even
more than of Billy boy.’
The Colonel is very gay. ‘Tell me all about it, Ellen. Did
Billy boy lose the ring? We always said he would lose the ring.’
She looks straight into his eyes. ‘You have forgotten again,
John. Barbara isn’t married to Billy boy.’
He draws himself up. ‘Not marry Billy! I’ll see about that.’
She presses him into his chair. ‘Sit down, dear, and I’ll tell
you something again. It is nothing to trouble you, because your
soldiering is done, John; and greatly done. My dear, there is
war again, and our old land is in it. Such a war as my soldier
never knew.’
He rises. He is a stern old man. ‘A war! That’s it, is it?
So now I know! Why wasn’t I told? Why haven’t I my marching
orders? I’m not too old yet.’
‘Yes, John, you are too old, and all you can do now is to sit
here and--and take care of me. You knew all about it quite
clearly this morning. We stood together upstairs by the window
listening to the aircraft guns.’
‘I remember! I thought it was a thunderstorm. Dering told me he
heard nothing.’
‘Dering?’
‘Our gardener, you know.’ His voice becomes husky. ‘Haven’t I
been talking with him, Ellen?’
‘It is a long time since we had a gardener, John.’
‘Is it? So it is! A war! That is why there is no more cricket
on the green.’
‘They have all gone to the war, John.’
‘That’s it; even the little shavers.’ He whispers, ‘Why isn’t
Billy boy fighting, Ellen?’
‘Oh, John!’
‘Is Billy boy dead?’ She nods. ‘Was he killed in action? Tell
me, tell me!’ She nods again. ‘Good for Billy boy. I knew Billy
boy was all right. Don’t cry, Ellen. I’ll take care of you.
All’s well with Billy boy.’
‘Yes, I know, John.’
He hesitates before speaking again. ‘Ellen, who is the soldier?
He comes here. He is a captain.’
‘He is a very gallant man, John. It is he who was married to
Barbara to-day.’
Bitterly, ‘She has soon forgotten.’
His wife shakes her brave head. ‘She hasn’t forgotten, dear.
And it’s nearly three years now since Billy died.’
‘So long! We have a medal he got, haven’t we?’
‘No, John; he died before he could win any medals.’
The Colonel moves about, ‘Karl will be sorry. They were very
fond of each other, those two boys, Ellen.’
‘Karl fought against us, John. He died in the same engagement.
They may even have killed each other.’
‘They hadn’t known, Ellen.’
She says with thin lips, ‘I daresay they knew.’
‘Billy boy and Karl!’
She tells him some more gossip. ‘John, I had Barbara married
from here because she has no people of her own. I think Billy
would have liked it.’
‘That was the thing to do, Ellen. Nice of you. I remember
everything now. It’s Dering she has married. He was once my
gardener!’
‘The world is all being re-made, dear. He is worthy of her.’
He lets this pass. He has remembered something almost as
surprising. ‘Ellen, is Barbara a nurse?’
‘Yes, John, and one of the staidest and most serene. Who would
have thought it of the merry madcap of other days! They are
coming here, John, to say good-bye to you. They have only
a few days’ leave. She is in France, too, you know. She was
married in her nurse’s uniform.’
‘Was she? She told me to-day that--no, it couldn’t have been
to-day.’
‘You have been fancying you saw them, I suppose.’ She grows
tremulous again. ‘You will be nice to them, John, won’t you,
and wish them luck? They have their trials before them.’
He says eagerly, ‘Tell me what to do, Ellen.’
‘Don’t say anything about Billy boy, John.’
‘No no, let’s pretend.’
‘And I wouldn’t talk about the garden, John; just in case he is
a little touchy about that.’
The Colonel is beginning to fancy himself as a tactician. ‘Not
a word!’
She knows what is the way to put him on his mettle. ‘You see,
I’m sure I would make a mess of it, so I’m trusting to you,
John.’
He is very pleased. ‘Leave it all to me, Ellen. I’ll be
frightfully sly. You just watch me.’
She goes to the window and calls to the married couple. Captain
Dering, in khaki, is a fine soldierly figure. Barbara, in her
Red Cross uniform, is quiet and resourceful. An artful old boy
greets them. ‘Congratulations, Barbara. No, no, none of your
handshaking; you don’t get past an old soldier in that way.
Excuse me, young man.’ He kisses Barbara and looks at his wife
to make sure that she is admiring him. ‘And to you, Captain
Dering--you have won a prize.’
A gallant gentleman answers, ‘I know it; I’ll try to show I
know it.’
The Colonel is perturbed. ‘I haven’t given Barbara a wedding
present, Ellen. I should like----’
Barbara breaks in, ‘Indeed you have, dear, and a lovely one.
You haven’t forgotten?’
Granny signs to the Colonel and he immediately says, with
remarkable cunning, ‘Oh--that! I was just quizzing you,
Barbara. I hope you will be as happy, dear, staid Barbara, as
if you had married----’ He sees that he has nearly given away
the situation. He looks triumphantly at granny as much as to
say, ‘Observe me; I’m not going to say a word about him.’
Granny comes to his aid. ‘Perhaps Captain Dering has some
little things to do: and you, too, Barbara. They are leaving in
an hour, John.’
For a moment the Colonel is again in danger. ‘If you would
like to take Barbara into the garden, Captain Dering----’ He
recovers himself instantly. ‘No, not the garden, you wouldn’t
know your way about in the garden.’
‘Wouldn’t I, Colonel?’ the captain says, smiling.
The answer is quite decisive. ‘No, certainly not. I’ll show it
you some day.’ He makes gleeful signs to granny. ‘But there is
a nice meadow just beyond the shrubbery. Barbara knows the
way; she often went there with----’ He checks himself. Granny
signs to them to go, and Barbara kisses both the Colonel’s
hands. ‘The Captain will be jealous, you know,’ he says,
twinkling.
‘Let me, dear,’ says Barbara, arranging his cushions
professionally.
Granny nods. ‘She is much better at it than I am now, John.’
The Colonel has one last piece of advice to give. ‘I wouldn’t
go down by the stream, Barbara--not to the pool where the alder
is. There’s--there’s not a good view there, sir; and a boy--a
boy I knew, he often--nobody in particular--just a boy who used
to come about the house--he is not here now--he is on duty. I
don’t think you should go to the alder pool, Barbara.’
‘We won’t go there, dear.’ She and her husband go out, and the
Colonel scarcely misses them, he is so eager to hear what his
wife thinks of him.
‘Did I do all right, Ellen?’
‘Splendidly. I was proud of you.’
He exults. ‘I put them completely off the scent! They haven’t a
notion! I can be very sly, you know, at times. Ellen, I think I
should like to have that alder tree cut down. There is no boy
now, you see.’
‘I would leave it alone, John. There will be boys again. Shall
I read to you; you like that, don’t you?’
‘Yes, read to me--something funny, if you please. About Sam
Weller! No, I expect Sam has gone to the wars. Read about
Mr. Pickwick. He is very amusing. I feel sure that if he had
tried to catch the bull-trout he would have fallen in. Just as
Barbara did this morning.’
‘Barbara?’
‘She is down at the alder pool. Billy is there with that nice
German boy. The noise they make, shouting and laughing!’
She gets from its shelf the best book for war-time. ‘Which bit
shall I read?’
‘About Mr. Pickwick going into the lady’s bedroom by mistake.’
‘Yes, dear, though you almost know it by heart. You see, you
have begun to laugh already.’
‘You are laughing too, Ellen. I can’t help it!’
She begins to read; they are both chuckling.
A WELL-REMEMBERED VOICE
Out of the darkness comes the voice of a woman speaking to her dead son.
‘But that was against your wish, was it not? Was that against your
wish? Would you prefer me not to ask that question?’
The room is so dark that we cannot see her. All we know is that she is
one of four shapes gathered round a small table. Beyond the darkness
is a great ingle-nook, in which is seated on a settle a man of fifty.
Him we can discern fitfully by the light of the fire. It is not
sufficiently bright to enable him to read, but an evening paper lies on
his knee. He seems wistful and meek. He is paying no attention to the
party round the table. When he hears their voices it is only as empty
sounds.
The mother continues. ‘Perhaps I am putting the question in the wrong
way. Are you not able to tell us any more?’
A man’s voice breaks in. ‘There was a distinct movement that time, but
it is so irregular.’
‘I thought so, but please don’t talk. Do you want to tell us more? Is
it that you can’t hear me distinctly? He seems to want to tell us more,
but something prevents him.’
‘In any case, Mrs. Don, it is extraordinary. This is the first séance I
have ever taken part in, but I must believe now.’
‘Of course, Major, these are the simplest manifestations. They are only
the first step. But if we are to go on, the less we talk the better.
Shall we go on? It is not agitating you too much, Laura?’
A girl answers. ‘There was a moment when I--but I wish I was braver.
I think it is partly the darkness. I suppose we can’t have a little
light?’
‘Certainly we can, dear. Darkness is quite unnecessary, but I think it
helps one to concentrate.’
The Major lights a lamp, and though it casts shadows we see now that
the room is an artist’s studio. The silent figure in the ingle-nook is
the artist. Mrs. Don is his wife, the two men are Major Armitage and
an older friend, Mr. Rogers. The girl is Laura Bell. These four are
sitting round the table, their hands touching: they are endeavouring to
commune with one who has ‘crossed the gulf.’
The Major and Mr. Rogers are but passing shadows in the play, and even
nice Laura is only to flit across its few pages for a moment on her
way to happier things. We scarcely notice them in the presence of Mrs.
Don, the gracious, the beautiful, the sympathetic, whose magnetic force
and charm are such that we wish to sit at her feet at once. She is
intellectual, but with a disarming smile, religious, but so charitable,
masterful, and yet loved of all. None is perfect, and there must be a
flaw in her somewhere, but to find it would necessitate such a rummage
among her many adornments as there is now no time for. Perhaps we may
come upon it accidentally in the course of the play.
She is younger than Mr. Don, who, despite her efforts for many years to
cover his deficiencies, is a man of no great account in a household
where the bigger personality of his wife swallows him like an Aaron’s
rod. Mr. Don’s deficiencies! She used to try very hard, or fairly hard,
to conceal them from Dick; but Dick knew. His mother was his chum. All
the lovely things which happened in that house in the days when Dick
was alive were between him and her; those two shut the door softly on
old Don, always anxious not to hurt his feelings, and then ran into
each other’s arms.
In the better light Mr. Don is now able to read his paper if he
chooses. If he has forgotten the party at the table, they have equally
forgotten him.
MRS. DON. ‘You have not gone away, have you? We must be patient. Are
you still there?’
ROGERS. ‘I think I felt a movement.’
MRS. DON. ‘Don’t talk, please. Are you still there?’
The table moves.
‘Yes! It is your mother who is speaking; do you understand
that?’
The table moves.
‘Yes. What shall I ask him now?’
ROGERS. ‘We leave it to you, Mrs. Don.’
MRS. DON. ‘Have you any message you want to send us? Yes. Is it
important? Yes. Are we to spell it out in the usual way? Yes. Is the
first letter of the first word A? Is it B?’
She continues through the alphabet to L, when the table
responds. Similarly she finds that the second letter is O.
‘Is the word _Love_? Yes. But I don’t understand that movement.
You are not displeased with us, are you? No. Does the second
word begin with A?--with B? Yes.’
The second word is spelt out _Bade_ and the third _Me_.
‘Love Bade Me----If it is a quotation, I believe I know it! Is
the fourth word _Welcome_? Yes.’
LAURA. ‘Love Bade Me Welcome.’
MRS. DON. ‘That movement again! Don’t you want me to go on?’
LAURA. ‘Let us stop.’
MRS. DON. ‘Not unless he wishes it. Why are those words so important?
Does the message end there? Is any one working against you? Some one
antagonistic? Yes. Not one of ourselves surely? No. Is it any one we
know? Yes. Can I get the name in the usual way? Yes. Is the first
letter of this person’s name A?--B?----’
It proves to be F. One begins to notice a quaint peculiarity of
Mrs. Don’s. She is so accustomed to homage that she expects a
prompt response even from the shades.
‘Is the second letter A?’
The table moves.
‘FA. Fa----?’
She is suddenly enlightened.
‘Is the word Father? Yes.’
They all turn and look for the first time at Mr. Don. He has
heard, and rises apologetically.
MR. DON, distressed, ‘I had no intention----Should I go away, Grace?’
She answers sweetly without a trace of the annoyance she must
surely feel.
MRS. DON. ‘Perhaps you had better, Robert.’
ROGERS. ‘I suppose it is because he is an unbeliever? He is not openly
antagonistic, is he?’
MRS. DON, sadly enough, ‘I am afraid he is.’
They tend to discuss the criminal as if he was not present.
MAJOR. ‘But he must admit that we do get messages.’
MRS. DON, reluctantly, ‘He says we think we do. He says they would not
want to communicate with us if they had such trivial things to say.’
ROGERS. ‘But we are only on the threshold, Don. This is just a
beginning.’
LAURA. ‘Didn’t you hear, Mr. Don--“Love Bade Me Welcome”?’
MR. DON. ‘Does that strike you as important, Laura?’
LAURA. ‘He said it was.’
MRS. DON. ‘It might be very important to him, though we don’t
understand why.’
She speaks gently, but there is an obstinacy in him, despite
his meekness.
MR. DON. ‘I didn’t mean to be antagonistic, Grace. I thought. I wasn’t
thinking of it at all.’
MRS. DON. ‘Not thinking of Dick, Robert? And it was only five months
ago!’
MR. DON, who is somehow, without meaning it, always in the wrong, ‘I’ll
go.’
ROGERS. ‘A boy wouldn’t turn his father out. Ask him.’
MR. DON, forlornly, ‘As to that--as to that----’
MRS. DON. ‘I will ask him if you wish me to, Robert.’
MR. DON. ‘No, don’t.’
ROGERS. ‘It can’t worry you as you are a disbeliever.’
MR. DON. ‘No, but--I shouldn’t like you to think that he sent me away.’
ROGERS. ‘He won’t. Will he, Mrs. Don?’
MR. DON, knowing what her silence implies, ‘You see, Dick and I were
not very--no quarrel or anything of that sort--but I, I didn’t much
matter to Dick. I’m too old, perhaps.’
MRS. DON, gently, ‘I won’t ask him, Robert, if you would prefer me not
to.’
MR. DON. ‘I’ll go.’
MRS. DON. ‘I’m afraid it is too late now.’ She turns away from earthly
things. ‘Do you want me to break off?’
The table moves.
‘Yes. Do you send me your love, Dick? Yes. And to Laura?
Yes.’ She raises her eyes to Don, and hesitates. ‘Shall I ask
him----?’
MR. DON. ‘No, no, don’t.’
ROGERS. ‘It would be all right, Don.’
MR. DON. ‘I don’t know.’
They leave the table.
LAURA, a little agitated, ‘May I go to my room, Mrs. Don? I feel
I--should like to be alone.’
MRS. DON. ‘Yes, yes, Laura dear. I shall come in and see you.’
Laura bids them good-night and goes. She likes Mr. Don, she
strokes his hand when he holds it out to her, but she can’t
help saying, ‘Oh, Mr. Don, how could you?’
ROGERS. ‘I think we must all want to be alone after such an evening. I
shall say good-night, Mrs. Don.’
MAJOR. ‘Same here. I go your way, Rogers, but you will find me a silent
companion. One doesn’t want to talk ordinary things to-night. Rather
not. Thanks, awfully.’
ROGERS. ‘Good-night, Don. It’s a pity, you know; a bit hard on your
wife.’
MR. DON. ‘Good-night, Rogers. Good-night, Major.’
The husband and wife, left together, have not much to say to
each other. He is depressed because he has spoilt things for
her. She is not angry. She knows that he can’t help being as
he is, and that there are fine spaces in her mind where his
thoughts can never walk with hers. But she would forgive him
seventy times seven because he is her husband. She is standing
looking at a case of fishing-rods against the wall. There is a
Jock Scott still sticking in one of them. Mr. Don says, as if
somehow they were evidence against him:
‘Dick’s fishing-rods.’
She says forgivingly, ‘I hope you don’t mind my keeping them in
the studio, Robert. They are sacred things to _me_.’
‘That’s all right, Grace.’
‘I think I shall go to Laura now.’
‘Yes,’ in his inexpressive way.
‘Poor child!’
‘I’m afraid I hurt her.’
‘Dick wouldn’t have liked it--but Dick’s gone.’ She looks a
little wonderingly at him. After all these years, she can
sometimes wonder a little still. ‘I suppose you will resume
your evening paper!’
He answers quietly, but with the noble doggedness which is the
reason why we write this chapter in his life. ‘Why not, Grace?’
She considers, for she is so sure that she must know the answer
better than he. ‘I suppose it is just that a son is so much
more to a mother than to a father.’
‘I daresay.’
A little gust of passion shakes her. ‘How you can read about
the war nowadays!’
He says firmly to her--he has had to say it a good many times
to himself, ‘I’m not going to give in.’ But he adds, ‘I am
so sorry I was in the way, Grace. I wasn’t scouting you, or
anything of that sort. It’s just that I can’t believe in it.’
‘Ah, Robert, you would believe if Dick had been to you what he
was to me.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘In a sense you may be glad that you don’t miss him in the way
I do.’
‘Yes, perhaps.’
‘Good-night, Robert.’
‘Good-night, dear.’
He is alone now. He stands fingering the fishing-rods tenderly,
then wanders back into the ingle-nook. In the room we could
scarcely see him, for it has gone slowly dark there, a grey
darkness, as if the lamp, though still burning, was becoming
unable to shed light. Through the greyness we see him very
well beyond it in the glow of the fire. He sits on the settle
and tries to read his paper. He breaks down. He is a pitiful
lonely man.
In the silence something happens. A well-remembered voice says,
‘Father.’ Mr. Don looks into the greyness from which this
voice comes, and he sees his son. We see no one, but we are
to understand that, to Mr. Don, Dick is standing there in his
habit as he lived. He goes to his boy.
‘Dick!’
‘I have come to sit with you for a bit, father.’
It is the gay, young, careless voice.
‘It’s you, Dick; it’s you!’
‘It’s me all right, father. I say, don’t be startled, or
anything of that kind. We don’t like that.’
‘My boy!’
Evidently Dick is the taller, for Mr. Don has to look up to
him. He puts his hands on the boy’s shoulders.
‘How am I looking, father?’
‘You haven’t altered, Dick.’
‘Rather not. It’s jolly to see the old studio again!’ In a
cajoling voice, ‘I say, father, don’t fuss. Let us be our
ordinary selves, won’t you?’
‘I’ll try, I’ll try. You didn’t say you had come to sit with
_me_, Dick? Not with _me_!’
‘Rather!’
‘But your mother----’
‘It’s you I want.’
‘Me?’
‘We can only come to one, you see.’
‘Then why me?’
‘That’s the reason.’ He is evidently moving about, looking
curiously at old acquaintances. ‘Hello, here’s your old jacket,
greasier than ever!’
‘Me? But, Dick, it is as if you had forgotten. It was your
mother who was everything to you. It can’t be you if you have
forgotten that. I used to feel so out of it; but, of course,
you didn’t know.’
‘I didn’t know it till lately, father; but heaps of things that
I didn’t know once are clear to me now. I didn’t know that you
were the one who would miss me most; but I know now.’
Though the voice is as boyish as ever, there is a new note
in it of which his father is aware. Dick may not have grown
much wiser, but whatever he does know now he seems to know for
certain.
‘_Me_ miss you most? Dick, I try to paint just as before. I
go to the club. Dick, I have been to a dinner-party. I said I
wouldn’t give in.’
‘We like that.’
‘But, my boy----’
Mr. Don’s arms have gone out to him again. Dick evidently
wriggles away from them. He speaks coaxingly.
‘I say, father, let’s get away from that sort of thing.’
‘That is so like you, Dick! I’ll do anything you ask.’
‘Then keep a bright face.’
‘I’ve tried to.’
‘Good man! I say, put on your old greasy; you are looking so
beastly clean.’
The old greasy is the jacket, and Mr. Don obediently gets into
it.
‘Anything you like. No, that’s the wrong sleeve. Thanks, Dick.’
They are in the ingle-nook now, and the mischievous boy catches
his father by the shoulders.
‘Here, let me shove you into your old seat.’
Mr. Don is propelled on to the settle.
‘How’s that, umpire!’
‘Dick,’ smiling, ‘that’s just how you used to butt me into it
long ago!’
Dick is probably standing with his back to the fire, chuckling.
‘When I was a kid.’
‘With the palette in my hand.’
‘Or sticking to your trousers.’
‘The mess we made of ourselves, Dick.’
‘I sneaked behind the settle and climbed up it.’
‘Till you fell off.’
‘On top of you and the palette.’
It is good fun for a father and son; and the crafty boy has
succeeded in making the father laugh. But soon,
‘Ah, Dick.’
The son frowns. He is not going to stand any nonsense.
‘Now then, behave! What did I say about that face?’
Mr. Don smiles at once, obediently.
‘That’s better. I’ll sit here.’
We see from his father’s face which is smiling with difficulty
that Dick has plopped into the big chair on the other side of
the ingle-nook. His legs are probably dangling over one of its
arms.
Rather sharply, ‘Got your pipe?’
‘I don’t--I don’t seem to care to smoke nowadays, Dick.’
‘Rot! Just because I am dead! You that pretend to be plucky!
I won’t have it, you know. You get your pipe, and look slippy
about it.’
‘Yes, Dick,’ the old man says obediently. He fills his pipe
from a jar on the mantelshelf. We may be sure that Dick is
watching closely to see that he lights it properly.
‘Now, then, burn your thumb with the match--you always did, you
know. That’s the style. You’ve forgotten to cock your head to
the side. Not so bad. That’s you. Like it?’
‘It’s rather nice, Dick. Dick, you and me by the fire!’
‘Yes, but sit still. How often we might have been like this,
father, and weren’t.’
‘Ah!’
‘Face. How is Fido?’
‘Never a dog missed her master more.’
‘Oh,’ frowning. ‘She doesn’t want to go and sit on my grave, or
any of that tosh, does she? As if I were there!’
‘No, no,’ hastily; ‘she goes ratting, Dick.’
‘Good old Fido!’
‘Dick, here’s a good one. We oughtn’t to keep a dog at all
because we are on rations now; but what do you think Fido ate
yesterday?’
‘Let me guess. The joint?’
‘Almost worse than that. She ate all the cook’s meat tickets.’
They laugh together, but when Dick says light-heartedly, ‘That
dog will be the death of me,’ his father shivers. Dick does not
notice this; his eyes have drawn him to the fishing-rods.
‘Hullo!’
‘Yes, those are your old fishing-rods.’
‘Here’s the little hickory! Do you remember, father, how I got
the seven-pounder on a burn-trout cast? No, you weren’t there.
That was a day. It was really only six and three-quarters. I
put a stone in its mouth the second time we weighed it!’
‘You loved fishing, Dick.’
‘Didn’t I? Why weren’t you oftener with me? I’ll tell you a
funny thing. When I went a-soldiering I used to pray--just
standing up, you know--that I shouldn’t lose my right arm,
because it would be so awkward for casting.’ He cogitates as he
returns to the ingle-nook. ‘Somehow I never thought I should be
killed. Lots of fellows thought that about themselves, but I
never did. It was quite a surprise to me.’
‘Oh, Dick!’