This was when we were out in the road.
As we went along, in a silence full of gloomy remorse, we met the
postman. He said:
"Here's the letters for the Moat," and passed on hastily. He was a bit
late.
When we came to look through the letters, which were nearly all for
Albert's uncle, we found there was a post-card that had got stuck in a
magazine wrapper. Alice pulled it out. It was addressed to Mrs.
Simpkins. We honorably only looked at the address, although it is
allowed by the rules of honorableness to read post-cards that come to
your house if you like, even if they are not for you.
After a heated discussion, Alice and Oswald said they were not afraid,
whoever was, and they retraced their steps, Alice holding the post-card
right way up, so that we should not look at the lettery part of it, but
only the address.
With quickly beating heart, but outwardly unmoved, they walked up to the
white cottage door.
It opened with a bang when we knocked.
"Well?" Mrs. Simpkins said, and I think she said it what people in books
call "sourly."
Oswald said, "We are very, very sorry we spoiled your turnips, and we
will ask my father to try and make it up to you some other way."
She muttered something about not wanting to be beholden to anybody.
"We came back," Oswald went on, with his always unruffled politeness,
"because the postman gave us a post-card in mistake with our letters,
and it is addressed to you."
"We haven't read it," Alice said, quickly. I think she needn't have said
that. Of course we hadn't. But perhaps girls know better than we do
what women are likely to think you capable of.
The soldier's mother took the post-card (she snatched it really, but
"took" is a kinder word, considering everything) and she looked at the
address a long time. Then she turned it over and read what was on the
back. Then she drew her breath in as far as it would go, and caught hold
of the door-post. Her face got awful. It was like the wax face of a dead
king I saw once at Madame Tussaud's.
Alice understood. She caught hold of the soldier's mother's hand and
said:
"Oh _no_--it's _not_ your boy Bill!"
And the woman said nothing, but shoved the post-card into Alice's hand,
and we both read it--and it _was_ her boy Bill.
Alice gave her back the card. She had held on to the woman's hand all
the time, and now she squeezed the hand, and held it against her face.
But she could not say a word because she was crying so. The soldier's
mother took the card again and she pushed Alice away, but it was not an
unkind push, and she went in and shut the door; and as Alice and Oswald
went down the road Oswald looked back, and one of the windows of the
cottage had a white blind. Afterwards the other windows had too. There
were no blinds really to the cottage. It was aprons and things she had
pinned up.
Alice cried most the morning, and so did the other girls. We wanted to
do something for the soldier's mother, but you can do nothing when
people's sons are shot. It is the most dreadful thing to want to do
something for people who are unhappy, and not to know what to do.
It was Noel who thought of what we _could_ do at last.
He said, "I suppose they don't put up tombstones to soldiers when they
die in war. But there--I mean--"