A PEAL OF BELLS
By the time that a certain note of a few lines, written outside a Field
Hospital window in France, had reached a certain Base Hospital, many
miles away, Robert Black was able to open his own mail, for a fortnight
had gone by. He was so fortunate as to have two other letters in this
mail, a happening which of itself would have made the rainy day much
less dismal. But to find this particular handwriting upon the third
envelope was enough to flood the ward with light--for him, though to
some others, near him, who had had no letters, it remained a sombre
place, as before.
He kept this third letter unopened till the morning dressings were
over, the carts of surgical supplies had ceased to move through the
ward, and the surgeons and nurses had left behind them patients soothed
and made comfortable and ready for the late morning nap which followed
naturally upon the pain and fatigue of the dressings. Then, when his
neighbours in the beds on either side were no longer observant, Black
drew out the single sheet, feeling an instant sense of disappointment
that the lines were so few. Then--he read them, and his regret was
changed in an instant to a joy so profound that he could only lie
drawing deep breaths of emotion, as he stared out of a near-by window
at tossing tree tops dripping with rain, against the sky of lead. The
sky for him had opened, and let through a sea of glory.
Again and again, after a little, his eager eyes re-read the words, so
few, yet so full of meaning. Among them certain lines stood out:
I know, at last, that you are right. I don’t understand it yet--but
I believe it. Somebody does hear--and it is possible to speak to
Him---- You were right when you said that I would find it all around
me here---- It took this dear, wise boy to make it real to me--as you
made it real to him---- So--it has come through you, after all----
God keep you safe, Robert Black--I pray for it on my knees.
JANE.
It was well for him that this stimulus came when it did, for within
twenty-four hours arrived another message of the sort which is not good
for convalescents. Cary Ray sent a scrawl of a letter from some post
upon the Front, which was three weeks in getting through, so that the
news it contained was already old. Black read it, and then turned upon
his pillow and hid his face in his arm. When his fellow patients saw
that face again, though it was composed, and the Chaplain’s manner was
as they had known it all along, not a man but understood that he had
had a heavy blow. By and by he asked for his writing tablet and pen,
and they saw him slowly write a short letter. These were the words he
wrote:
MY DEAR MR. AND MRS. LOCKHART:
I wish that this word I send you might be the first to reach you,
that you might receive the news of your boy from the hand of a
friend. But whether the official word comes first or not, you will be
glad to have me tell you all I know--which comes to me through Cary
Ray, and which he says has been absolutely verified.
Tom’s division was one sent forward to replace the remnant of two
British and French divisions which had been long in the field. The
men went into position to hold the line under the hottest possible
machine-gun fire. Tom’s battalion lost all its officers except
himself and a second lieutenant, and these two were forced to take
command. They succeeded in holding the position for many hours and
until relief came, thus saving the day in that sector, and causing
the final retirement of the enemy. The second lieutenant, Fisher,
himself severely wounded, told Cary Ray that “Lockhart was a regular
bull-dog for hanging on, nothing could make him turn back. His men
would go anywhere he told them to, for he always went with them--and
went first.” When he fell it was under a rain of gunfire, and there
could not have been an instant’s survival.
Though you have prayed many prayers for your boy, and they have
been answered differently from the way in which you would have had
them, I believe your faith in God is no less than before. When Tom
and his father meet again, some day, and talk it over, it will all
be clear to that father why his boy went home ahead of him. But Tom
knows--_now_; I’m very sure of that.
So, dear friends, you have a glorious memory to comfort you. The gold
star you will wear will be the highest honour that can come to you.
Nothing that Tom could have accomplished in a long life of effort
could so crown that life with imperishable beauty, or so make it
immortal. I rejoice with you, for the lad was my dear friend, and I
can never forget him.
Faithfully yours,
ROBERT BLACK.
Late that night, when all was quiet in the ward, he wrote this same
news to Jane. But at the end of his letter came other words, of such
joy and thanksgiving as a man can write only when his heart is very
full.
What you tell me of yourself goes to my deepest heart, as you must
well know. I knew it would come--it had to come. What it means to me
I can tell you only when I see you, face to face. The thought of that
hour shakes me through and through.
On the 11th of November, at half after ten in the morning, Jane was in
one of the larger towns which had been swept by devastating fires at
one time or another throughout the entire period of the war. She had
been sent with a certain Brigadier General who had been under her care
at the Field Hospital, and who had obtained for her a short leave that
she might accompany him and see for herself something of this famous
region. At the time of their arrival shells had again unexpectedly
begun pouring in upon the town, though the rumour of the coming
armistice was persistent, and even the hour was given.
“I can’t let you go any nearer,” General Lewiston said to Jane, as his
car approached the town, and halted at his order, “much as I want you
to be there when the guns cease firing. They’re evidently going to keep
it as hot here as they know how, up to the very last minute.”
“Oh, but you must let me stay,” Jane begged. “I’m not in the least
afraid, and I’d give all I possess to be exactly there, when the hour
comes.”
“I’ll leave you here, in care of Lieutenant Ferguson, and send back for
you when it’s over,” the General offered.
“Please, take me in with you. I’ve been under fire, before. We were
bombed three times in hospital, you know.”
“Yes, but this is different, Miss Ray. I’m responsible for you now.”
“Not a bit, General. It’s my responsibility, if I ask it--as I do.”
He couldn’t resist her, or that sweet sturdiness of hers which made her
seem unlike the women for whom a man had to be “responsible.” So he
bade his chauffeur drive on. Thus it came about that Jane had her wish
and was actually in this most noteworthy of French towns when, at the
close of that last hour of roaring guns and bursting shells, it all
came to an end, as one graphic account put it, “as though God Himself
had dropped a wet blanket over the crackling flames of hell.”
So, after that first breathless stillness which succeeded upon the
din, Jane heard that which she could never afterward forget--nor could
any other who heard it. From the high tower which had come through
scatheless above the otherwise ruined cathedral, rang out a great peal
of bells. The cathedral doors were opened, and hundreds of soldiers
surged in. Jane saw them go, and called General Lewiston’s attention.
“Mayn’t we follow?” she urged, and the officer nodded. They got out
of the car and crossed the space and went in at the great battered
doors in the roofless walls which still stood to protect the sacred
enclosure. As they went in they heard the notes of “Praise God from
whom all blessings flow,” break from a young tenor in the very centre
of the crowd, and heard it taken up and grow and swell till it seemed
to lift above the broken walls to the very sky. And then they saw the
wonderful thing which followed. If, before this hour, Jane by her
own experience had not been brought to her knees, surely she must
have fallen upon them now--as she did, with the General beside her on
one side and the Lieutenant on the other, both with bared heads. For
all those men before her, British and French and Mohammedan and Jew,
had now dropped to their knees, and led by an unknown man with a Red
Triangle on his sleeve who had lifted his arms to them as a signal were
devoutly saying together the words of the Lord’s Prayer. Such a deep,
whole-hearted sound it was which came from all those brawny throats
as Jane had never heard before. She had heard men cheer--she had
heard them sing--she had never heard men pray together, regardless of
sect or creed, as she heard them now. And suddenly she realized what
she had never understood before, that it is not one man here or there
who believes that it is of use to say “Our Father,” but that it is
the great, all but universal cry from every heart in time of stress.
The armistice was signed, the guns had ceased--it was the first deep
instinct of these men of every creed to speak their gratitude to high
Heaven.
There was singing again then--glorious singing of national anthems,
British and French and American. Jane’s voice joined the General’s and
the Lieutenant’s and the three looked at one another. The General’s
eyes were wet, and the Lieutenant’s lips were trembling, while Jane
frankly wiped the streaming tears away as she smiled into the two
faces, which smiled understandingly back. And presently they were out
and away again, and the General was saying to Jane, “I’m glad you had
your way, Miss Ray, since you didn’t get hurt, for you’ve seen to-day
what must almost have paid you for all you have spent since you came
over.”
“I’m paid a thousand times,” she answered, and so she felt about it.
Things happened rapidly now. There was plenty of work still for
the hospitals, but it was of a different sort. No longer did the
ambulances bring to Jane the freshly wounded. She was sent back to a
Base Hospital, where were the cases which needed long care before they
could be discharged. She had had more than one letter from Robert Black
urging her to keep in close touch with him, before the one came which
said that he was soon to be sent home. He asked if it would be possible
for her to get leave and come to London, where the final days of his
convalescence were to be spent. He was walking about now, he said,
and--what it would be to walk down certain streets with her! He added
other statements calculated to have their effect upon her, if only to
make her understand how very much he wanted to see her.
It was not easy to bring about, but at length she obtained a four days’
leave, and through the influence of Doctor Leaver secured the difficult
permission to cross the Channel on one of the crowded boats. An early
December night saw her making the crossing, the wind and spray stinging
her face into brilliant colour, her big coat-collar turned well up
about her throat, her eyes set straight ahead toward the English coast.
It was almost sixteen months since she had left England on her way to
France--sixteen months of the hardest work she had ever dreamed of
doing--and the happiest. Not one hard hour would she take back--not one!
Dover, and many delayed hours to London, with post-war conditions,
crowded trains, upset schedules--and always the wounded and crippled
everywhere, that she might not for a minute forget. Then, at last,
Charing Cross Station, and the lights of the great city, no longer
obscured because of enemy air-raids. As Jane came out upon the street
she drew a deep breath of content. She had been several times in
London, and knew her way about. It was not far to the house where she
was expected, but she had not been met because it had been impossible
to know beforehand just when she might get in. The days of making
careful consultation of railway schedules and then wiring an expectant
friend the hour and minute of one’s intended arrival were long gone
by--and had not yet come again.
She was keyed to a high pitch of expectation during every moment of
that walk. She was so near now--so near! She was actually in the same
great city. It was almost unbelievable, but it was true. There was a
chance--it couldn’t be more than the millionth part of one, but it was
a chance--that at any moment she might turn a corner and see coming
toward her the tall figure which she had last seen a year ago in
August. How would he look? What would he say? Would he be--different?
Oh, he must be different! He couldn’t have been through it all and not
have suffered some change. But--she knew as well as she knew anything
in the world that in the way that mattered most to her he would not be
different, he would be absolutely the same. As for herself, was she not
different too? And was she not--absolutely the same? Oh, no--oh, no!
With the development of her experience and the growth of her sacrifice
had not the thing within her heart and spirit which was his become a
thousand times more his? No doubt of that. Then--might not that which
he had for her have been augmented too? The thought was one she had
to put away from her. Enough, if he could but give her so much of his
heart as he had given before. That of itself, she thought, would be all
that she could bear--to-day.
The old green door with the shining brass knocker she so well
remembered came into view as she turned into the quaint little street
not far from Westminster Abbey where lived her English friend. On the
first of her visits to England, in search of rare objects for her shop,
she had met Miss Stoughton, an Englishwoman in the late thirties,
who had an established reputation as a connoisseur and collector of
rare antiques. Business dealings with this woman had resulted in a
permanent friendship between the two. Miss Stoughton was separated
from her family, all of whom were strongly opposed to her independent
establishment in business, a departure from all the family traditions
of birth and education. She had chosen nevertheless to live her own
life, and when the Great War came to England she had a well developed
business experience to back her in giving her services to her country.
At the moment when Jane came to her she had just returned to the little
house, after a long period of absence.
The green door opened at the first fall of the knocker, and the tall
Englishwoman herself welcomed Jane with hearty hospitality.
“My dear--this is most awfully jolly--to see you again! How well you
are looking! A trifle thin, perhaps--and no wonder--but such a fine
colour! Come in--come in! The house is still a bit upset, you know, but
you won’t mind that.”
“It doesn’t look upset,” Jane commented, after one glance about the
little drawing room, where a bright fire burned on the diminutive
hearth, and a tea-table beside it offered refreshment, as if it had
been waiting for the guest. “It looks just as I remember it--the
prettiest room I ever saw in England.”
“Oh, my dear Jane--you are the same extravagant admirer of my simple
things. But I always appreciated your praise of them, for you are not
only a connoisseur but an artist. And you have put aside all that to
do this nursing! Do sit down and tell me all about it, while we have
tea. But first----” she interrupted herself with a gesture--“let me not
fail to give my message--a most important message. Morning, noon, and
night for three days now, have I been besieged by a tall Scotsman in
uniform with the cross of a regimental chaplain. He had what I may call
a determined chin, and the finest pair of black eyes I ever saw. It
seems he also is expecting you, but he fears you may in some way find
it difficult to reach him, or may lose an instant of time in doing so.
He is likely to receive orders to sail for the States at any time; and
I gather from his quite evident anxiety that if he should be forced to
leave without having seen Miss Ray it would be to him a calamity.”
“It would be one to me too,” Jane answered, with a rising colour but a
steady meeting of her friend’s quizzical look. “How, please, can I let
him know?”
“A messenger waits within call,” Miss Stoughton assured her, gaily.
“Our war-time telephone service is still frightfully crippled, so
we provide ourselves with substitutes. A small boy is ready to run
post-haste through the streets of London to carry the news of your
arrival to”--she picked up a card lying upon a priceless small table
of an unbelievable antiquity of which Jane had long envied her the
possession, and read the name with distinctness--“‘_Mr. Robert
McPherson Black._’ A very good name, my dear, and one which well fits
the man. I should judge he is accustomed to have his own way in most
things, at the same time that an undoubted spirit of kindness looks out
of that somewhat worn face of his. I will despatch the messenger at
once. Shall we make an appointment for the evening, or are you prepared
to see your friend within the hour? He will most certainly return with
the boy who goes for him--if he is not already on his way, on the
chance of finding you.”
Jane came close to her hostess, and laid her hands upon her shoulders.
“Dear Miss Stoughton,” she said, “I’m sure you understand. If military
orders weren’t such startling things and likely to arrive sooner than
one expects them, I would put Mr. Black off until evening and just have
the visit with you I so much want. But----”
“I do perfectly well understand,” replied Miss Stoughton, decidedly,
“and I should be most awfully cross with you if you put off that very
fine man an hour longer than necessary. He has two service chevrons
and two wound stripes on his arm, and he walks with a cane; I should
not be in the least surprised if within his blouse he wears concealed
some sort of decoration. In any case he deserves every consideration. A
chaplain with wounds has done something besides read the prayer book to
his men behind the lines.”
She left the room and sent off her messenger. Returning she led Jane up
the short staircase to the tiniest and most attractive of English guest
rooms.
“You see, though I am not married nor intend to be,” she said, with the
smile which made her somewhat plain but noteworthy face charming to
her guest, “I can quite understand that you would like a look in the
mirror before the Chaplain arrives. You have always reminded me of some
smooth-winged bird, but the smoothest winged of birds will preen itself
a good bit, and you shall do the same. Then come down, and we’ll be
having tea when the knocker claps. After that--I have an engagement at
my work-rooms--oh, yes, indeed I have! There is still much to be done
for our soldiers and yours, you know.”
Jane would have been more--or less--than woman if she had not welcomed
the chance to remove all possible traces of her journey before the
sounding of that knocker. She made haste, but none too much, for Miss
Stoughton’s predictions were truer than could have been expected of
one who must walk with a cane. As the last hairpin slipped into place
the knocker fell, and Jane caught one quick breath before she ran to
complete the freshening of every feather in those “smooth wings” of
hers.
“He’s here, Jane dear,” Miss Stoughton presently announced, as she
followed her knock into the little guest room. “I don’t consider myself
at all susceptible to bachelor attractions, but I will admit that I
like this man’s face and his nice manner--and--quite everything about
him. I’m going to slip out now, and let you come down to find him
alone.”
“Oh, please stay and have tea with us first, Miss Stoughton--please do!”
“I am convinced of your sincerity and truthfulness,” replied Miss
Stoughton, “in all ordinary matters. I should not hesitate to buy from
you any rare curio in the world on your word of honour alone that it
was authentic. But when you urge me to stay by my fireside and have tea
with you and a Scottish-American chaplain whom you have not seen for
considerably more than a year, I have my doubts, my dear, of your good
faith. I’ll see that the kettle is boiling for you, and you, as you
Americans say, must ‘do the rest.’”
Jane laughed, her eyes glowing. “Oh, you’re such a friend,” she
whispered. “But please don’t stay away long. I want you to know Mr.
Black--indeed I do. And I’m so happy to have your home to meet him in.”
“My home is yours--and his--while you stay.” And Miss Stoughton went
away, beaming with kindness--and experiencing a touch of envy. What
must it be, she thought, to look as Jane was looking--so fresh and
lovely in spite of her years of business life and these months of work
and heavy care--and then go down to meet the eyes of such a man as this
who waited below for her? Miss Stoughton walked very fast as she went
through the crowded streets; it was best to hurry to her work, and not
to think too long on what might be taking place in that little drawing
room of hers.
Jane came down so quietly that Robert Black would not have heard her
if he had not been on the watch. When she caught sight of him he was
standing waiting for her, leaning upon the stout cane without which he
could not yet wholly support himself. Her heart, at sight of the thin
yet strong and undaunted look of his face, the whole soldierly pose of
him in his uniform, gave one quick throb of mingled joy and pain, and
then went on beating wildly. It couldn’t be real--it couldn’t--that
after all both had been through they had met again--that they were both
here, in this little London drawing room. Yet it _was_ real--oh, thank
God, it _was_ real!
It was dark outside, but lamplight and firelight shone on both faces as
the two pairs of eyes looked into each other.
“It _is_ you,” said Robert Black, after a moment, while he still held
Jane’s hand. “I can’t quite believe it--but it is you. Will you mind if
I look at you very hard, for a little, to make myself sure?”
“I’m not so sure it is you,” Jane said. She couldn’t quite return that
eager gaze, but she could take stock of his appearance, none the less,
as a woman may. “You must have been through very, very much.”
“Not more than you. You are not changed at all, in one way; but in
another way--you are. It is the change that I expected, but--it takes
hold of me, just the same. You have seen--what you have seen.”
“Yes. And you have done--what you have done,” she answered.
“We have very much to tell each other, haven’t we? And so little time,
at the longest, to tell it in--till we meet back home. I’m sorry to
be going first, again, but I have no choice. I wanted to wait for my
regiment, but--I suspect Red’s friend Doctor Leaver of having a hand in
these rigid orders to get out of the country.”
“Aren’t the wounds doing well?” she asked him, with the nurse’s
straightforwardness which was so natural to her now.
“The wounds are all right, but they left a bit of trouble behind. It’s
nothing--only a matter of time. The sea voyage alone will undoubtedly
work wonders. Have you any idea when you will be coming?”
“Within a month or two, I imagine.”
“Really?” His eyes lighted. “But--Jane--I can’t wait even till then to
hear all that you can tell me of yourself.”
“Come and sit down. And--may I give you tea?”
She laughed as she said it, and he laughed with her, a note of sheer
joy at the absurdity of stopping to drink tea, when the time was so
short.
“Miss Stoughton will expect us to take it,” he admitted. “It’s
unthinkable that we shouldn’t bother about it. Can’t we pour it away
somewhere, where it will do no harm? On the fire?”
“And risk putting it out? I can never remember how small an English
fireplace is, in a house of this size, till I see one again. Really, I
don’t think it would do you any hurt to take the tea. You’re not wholly
strong yet.” And she quickly made and poured it.
“Anything to get it over,” he agreed, and took the cup from her hand,
drank, and set it down. “Now!” he said, and sat down beside her.
“Jane, I can’t believe it, yet. I’ve been haunting Charing Cross
Station for days. I wanted to see you get off the train. I wanted to
see you before you saw me, so I could look--and look--and look at you.
It’s been so long to wait.... Well!” He quite evidently laid sudden and
firm restraint on his own emotions--he didn’t mean to let himself get
out of hand. “Tell me all about it. You can’t know how I want to hear.”
“What will you have first?”
“Begin at the beginning. Tell me--everything you must know I want to
know about you. How it began--what came first--and what followed.
And--most of all--where you are now.”
They never knew how the hours passed--three hours--while they sat
before the fire in the little London drawing room and lived again the
year and more that had separated them. But when at last Robert Black,
looking in amazement at the watch upon his wrist, rose to go, he was in
possession of that knowledge of Jane’s experience which had transformed
him from a convalescent to a well man--or so it seemed.
He took both her hands in his, and stood looking down at her.
“I’m very certain that my ship doesn’t sail before Monday,” he said,
“or I shouldn’t take the chance I am taking. Jane--I haven’t said a
word of what is nearest my heart. I have a strange fancy that I want to
say that word--to-morrow. Do you remember that to-morrow is----”
“Sunday. Indeed I do remember it. I have thought, ever since I knew
that I was coming, that if I could just--be in London on a Sunday--with
you----”
His smile was like sunshine. “We’ll go to a service together. Will you
trust me to choose the place?”
“I want you to.”
“I’ll come for you in the morning,” he said. Then he lifted first
one of her hands to his lips and then the other, said, “Good-night!”
and was gone, with a military sort of abruptness that was rather an
emphasis of his former self than a change from it.
It was easy to know what he had to say to her, that he had chosen to
defer until the following day. It had been in all his manner to her;
there was no need that he should tell her it was coming; it was a most
characteristic postponement and a highly significant one. Why, since
he could choose it, should he not select the great Day of the week on
which to say the words which he was not less eager to speak than she to
hear? That he should do so could but show her how sacred an event it
was to him, nor fail to make it quite as sacred to her.