"There are more women than those in Belgium who are being swept over by
the chariots of war and trampled on by marching feet," the Duchess of
Darte said to a group of her women friends on a certain afternoon.
The group had met to work and some one had touched on a woeful little
servant-maid drama which had painfully disclosed itself in her
household. A small, plain kitchen maid had "walked out" in triumphant
ecstasy with a soldier who, a few weeks after bidding her good-bye, had
been killed in Belgium. She had been brought home to her employer's
house by a policeman who had dragged her out of the Serpentine. An old
story had become a modern one. In her childish ignorance and terror of
her plight she had seen no other way, but she had not had courage to
face more than very shallow water, with the result of finding herself
merely sticking in the mud and wailing aloud.
"The policeman was a kind-hearted, sensible fellow," said the relator of
the incident. "He had a family of his own and what he said was 'She
looked such a poor little drowned rat of a thing I couldn't make up my
mind to run her in, ma'am. This 'ere war's responsible for a lot more
than what the newspapers tell about. Young chaps in uniform having to
brace up and perhaps lying awake in the night thinking over what the
evening papers said--and young women they've been sweet-heartin'
with--they get wild, in a way, and cling to each other and feel
desperate--and he talks and she cries--and he may have his head blown
off in a week's time. And who wonders that there's trouble.' Do you know
he actually told me that there were a number of girls he was keeping a
watch on. He said he'd begun to recognise a certain look in their eyes
when they walked alone in the park. He said it was a 'stark, frightened
look.' I didn't know what he meant, but it gave me a shudder."
"I think I know," said the Duchess. "Poor, wretched children! There
ought to be a sort of moratorium in the matter of social laws. The old
rules don't hold. We are facing new conditions. This is a thing for
women to take in hand, practically, as they are taking in hand other
work. It must be done absolutely without prejudice. There is no time to
lecture or condemn or even deplore. There is only time to try to heal
wounds and quiet maddening pain and save life."
Lady Lothwell took the subject up.
"In the country places and villages, where the new army is swarming to
be billeted, the clergymen and their wives are greatly agitated. Even in
times of peace one's vicar's wife tells one stories in shocked whispers
of 'immorality'--though the rustic mind does not seem to regard it as
particularly immoral. An illegal baby is generally accepted with simple
resignation or merely a little fretful complaint even in quite decent
cottages. It is called--rather prettily, I think--'a love child' and the
nicer the grandparents are, the better they treat it. Mrs. Gracey, the
wife of our rector at Mowbray Wells told me a few days ago that she and
her husband were quite in despair over the excited, almost lawless,
holiday air of the village girls. There are so many young men about and
uniforms have what she calls 'such a dreadful effect.' Giddy and
unreliable young women are wandering about the lanes and fields with
stranger sweethearts at all hours. Even girls who have been good
Sunday-school scholars are becoming insubordinate. She did not in the
least mean to be improperly humorous--in fact she was quite tragic when
she said that the rector felt that he ought to marry, on the spot, every
rambling couple he met. He had already performed the ceremony in a
number of cases when he felt it was almost criminally rash and idiotic,
or would have been in time of peace."
"That was what I meant by speaking of the women who were being swept
over by the chariot of war," said the Duchess. "It involves issues the
women who can think must hold in their minds and treat judicially. One
cannot moralise and be shocked before an advancing tidal wave. It has
always been part of the unreason and frenzy of times of war. When Death
is near, Life fights hard for itself. It does not care who or what it
strikes."
* * * * *
The tidal wave swept on and the uninitiated who formed the mass of
humanity in every country in the world, reading with feverish anxiety
almost hourly newspaper extras every day, tried to hide a secret fear
that no one knew what was really happening or could trust to the
absolute truth of any spoken or published statement. The exultant hope
of to-day was dashed to-morrow. The despair of the morning was lightened
by gleams of hope before night closed, and was darkened and lightened
again and again. Great cities and towns aroused themselves from a
half-somnolent belief in security. Village by village England awakened
to what she faced in common with an amazed and half incredulous world.
The amazement and incredulity were founded upon a certain mistaken
belief in a world predominance of the laws of decency and civilisation.
The statement of piety and morality that the world in question was a
bad one, filled with crime, had somehow so far been accepted with a
guileless reservation in the matter of a ruling majority whose lapses
from virtue were at least not openly vaunted treachery, blows struck at
any unprepared back presenting itself, merciless attacks on innocence
and weakness, and savage gluttings of lust, of fury, with exultant pæans
of self-glorification and praise of a justly applauding God. Before such
novelty of onslaught the British mind had breathless moments of feeling
itself stupid and incapably aghast. But after its first deep draughts of
the cup of staggering the nation braced up a really muscular back and
stood upon hard, stout legs and firm feet, immovable and fixed on solid
British earth.
Incompetent raw troops gathered from fields, shops and desks, half
trained, half clad, half armed, according to pessimistic report, fared
forth across the narrow Channel and did strangely competent things--this
being man's way when in dire moments needs must be. Riff-raff exalted
itself and also died competently enough. The apparently aimless male
offspring of the so-called useless rich and great died competently
enough with the rest. The Roll of Honour raked fore and aft. The
youngsters who had tangoed best and had shone in _cabarets_ were swept
away as grass by scythes.
"Will any one be left?" white Robin shuddered, clinging to Donal in the
wood at night. "Every day there are new ones. Almost every one who has
gone! Kathryn says that no one--_no one_ will ever come back!"
"Hush--sh! Hush--sh!" whispered Donal. "Hush--sh! little lovely love!"
And his arms closed so tightly around her that she could for a few
moments scarcely breathe.
The Duchess had much work for her to do and was glad to see that the
girl looked well and untired. When she was at home in Eaton Square her
grace was even more strict about the walks and country holidays than she
had been when she was away.
"Health and strength were never so much needed," she said. "We must keep
our bodies in readiness for any test or strain."
This notwithstanding, there was at last a morning when Robin looked as
though she had not slept well. It was so unusual a thing that the
Duchess spoke of it.
"I hope you have not been sitting up late at your work?" she said.
"No. Thank you," Robin answered. "I went to bed last night at ten
o'clock."
The Duchess looked at her seriously. Never before had she seen her with
eyes whose misted heaviness suggested tears. Was it possible that there
seemed something at once strained and quivering about her mouth--as if
she were making an effort to force the muscles to hold it still.
"I hope you would tell me if you had a headache. You must, you know, my
dear."
Robin's slight movement nearer to her had the air of being almost
involuntary--as if it were impelled by an uncontrollable yearning to be
a little near _something_--some one. The strained and quivering look was
even more noticeable and her lifted eyes singularly expressed something
she was trying to hold back.
"Thank you--indeed!" she said. "But it isn't headache. It is--things I
could not help thinking about in the night."
The Duchess took her hand and patted it with firm gentleness.
"You mustn't, my dear. You must try hard _not_ to do it. We shall be of
no use if we let our minds go. We must try to force ourselves into a
sort of deafness and blindness in certain directions. I am trying--with
all my might."
"I know I must," Robin answered not too steadily. "I must--more than
most people. I'm not brave and strong. I'm weak and cowardly--cowardly."
Her breath caught itself and she went on quickly, "Work helps more than
anything else. I want to _work_ all the time. Please may I begin the
letters now?"
She was bending over her desk when Lord Coombe came in earlier than was
his custom. The perfection of his dress, his smooth creaselessness and
quiet harmony of color and line seemed actually to add to the aged look
of his face. His fine rigidity was worn and sallowed. After his greeting
phrases he stood for a space quite silent while the Duchess watched him
as if waiting.
"He has gone?" she said presently. She spoke in quite a low voice, but
it reached Robin's desk.
"Yes. At dawn. The suddenness and secrecy of these goings add to the
poignancy of them. I saw him but he did not see me. I found out the hour
and made an effort. He is not my boy, but I wanted to _look_ at him. It
was perhaps for the last time. Good God! What a crime!"
He spoke low himself and rather quickly and with a new tone in his
voice--as if he had been wrenched and was in pain.
"I am not in a heroic mood. I was only sick and furious when I watched
them go by. They were a handsome, clean-built lot. But he stood out--the
finest among them. His mere beauty and strength brought hideous
thoughts into one's mind--thoughts of German deviltries born of hell."
Robin was looking at her hand which had stopped writing. She could not
keep it still. She must get up and go to her own rooms. Would her knees
shake under her like that when she tried to stand on her feet? The low
talking went on and she scarcely heard what was said. She and Donal had
always known this was coming; they had known it even the first day they
had talked together in the Garden. The knowledge had been the spectre
always waiting hidden at some turn in the path ahead. That was why they
had been so frightened and desperate and hurried. They had clung
together and shut their eyes and caught at the few hours--the few
heavenly hours. He had said it would come suddenly. But she had not
thought it would be as sudden as this. Last night a soldier had brought
a few wild, passionate blotted lines to her. Yes, they had been blotted
and blistered. She pushed her chair back and began to rise from it.
There had been a few seconds of dead silence. Lord Coombe had been
standing thinking and biting his lip. "He is gone!" he said. "_Gone!_"
They did not notice Robin as she left the room. Outside the door she
stood in the hall and looked up the staircase piteously. It looked so
long and steep that she felt it was like a path up a mountain. But she
moved towards the bottom step and began to climb stair by stair--stair
by stair--dragging at the rail of the balustrade.
When she reached her room she went in and shut the door. She fell down
upon the floor and sat there. Long ago his mother had taken him away
from her. Now the War had taken him. The spectre stood straight in the
path before her.
"It was such a short time," she said, shaking. "And he is gone. And the
fairy wood is there still--and the ferns!--All the nights--always!"
And what happened next was not a thing to be written about--though at
the time the same thing was perhaps at that very hour happening in
houses all over England.