They clambered up, and over, to a piece of grassy courtyard, and passed
on to an inner court, under the black shadow of the high walls.
“What's the time?” said Noel.
“Half-past ten.”
“Already! Let's sit here in the dark, and watch for the moon.”
They sat down close together. Noel's face still had on it that strange
look of waiting; and Morland sat obedient, with his hand on her heart,
and his own heart beating almost to suffocation. They sat, still as
mice, and the moon crept up. It laid a first vague greyness on the high
wall, which spread slowly down, and brightened till the lichen and the
grasses up there were visible; then crept on, silvering the dark above
their heads. Noel pulled his sleeve, and whispered: “See!” There
came the white owl, soft as a snowflake, drifting across in that
unearthly light, as if flying to the moon. And just then the top of the
moon itself looked over the wall, a shaving of silvery gold. It grew,
became a bright spread fan, then balanced there, full and round, the
colour of pale honey.
“Ours!” Noel whispered.
2
From the side of the road Noel listened till the sound of the car was
lost in the folds of the valley. She did not cry, but passed her hands
over her face, and began to walk home, keeping to the shadow of the
trees. How many years had been added to her age in those six hours since
the telegram came! Several times in that mile and a half she stepped
into a patch of brighter moonlight, to take out and kiss a little
photograph, then slip it back next her heart, heedless that so warm a
place must destroy any effigy. She felt not the faintest compunction
for the recklessness of her love—it was her only comfort against the
crushing loneliness of the night. It kept her up, made her walk on with
a sort of pride, as if she had got the best of Fate. He was hers for
ever now, in spite of anything that could be done. She did not even
think what she would say when she got in. She came to the avenue, and
passed up it still in a sort of dream. Her uncle was standing before the
porch; she could hear his mutterings. She moved out of the shadow of the
trees, went straight up to him, and, looking in his perturbed face, said
calmly:
“Cyril asked me to say good-bye to you all, Uncle. Good night!”
“But, I say, Nollie look here you!”
She had passed on. She went up to her room. There, by the door, her aunt
was standing, and would have kissed her. She drew back:
“No, Auntie. Not to-night!” And, slipping by, she locked her door.
Bob and Thirza Pierson, meeting in their own room, looked at each other
askance. Relief at their niece's safe return was confused by other
emotions. Bob Pierson expressed his first:
“Phew! I was beginning to think we should w have to drag the river.
What girls are coming to!”
“It's the war, Bob.”
“I didn't like her face, old girl. I don't know what it was, but I
didn't like her face.”
Neither did Thirza, but she would not admit it, and encourage Bob to
take it to heart. He took things so hardly, and with such a noise!
She only said: “Poor young things! I suppose it will be a relief to
Edward!”
“I love Nollie!” said Bob Pierson suddenly. “She's an
affectionate creature. D-nit, I'm sorry about this. It's not so bad
for young Morland; he's got the excitement—though I shouldn't like
to be leaving Nollie, if I were young again. Thank God, neither of our
boys is engaged. By George! when I think of them out there, and
myself here, I feel as if the top of my head would come off. And those
politician chaps spouting away in every country—how they can have the
cheek!”
Thirza looked at him anxiously.
“And no dinner!” he said suddenly. “What d'you think they've
been doing with themselves?”
“Holding each other's hands, poor dears! D'you know what time it
is, Bob? Nearly one o'clock.”
“Well, all I can say is, I've had a wretched evening. Get to bed,
old girl. You'll be fit for nothing.”
He was soon asleep, but Thirza lay awake, not exactly worrying, for that
was not her nature, but seeing Noel's face, pale, languid, passionate,
possessed by memory.
VI 1
Noel reached her father's house next day late in the afternoon. There
was a letter in the hall for her. She tore it open, and read:
“MY DARLING LOVE,
“I got back all right, and am posting this at once to tell you we
shall pass through London, and go from Charing Cross, I expect about
nine o'clock to-night. I shall look out for you, there, in case you
are up in time. Every minute I think of you, and of last night. Oh!
Noel!
“Your devoted lover,
“C.”
She looked at the wrist-watch which, like every other little patriot,
she possessed. Past seven! If she waited, Gratian or her father would
seize on her.
“Take my things up, Dinah. I've got a headache from travelling;
I'm going to walk it off. Perhaps I shan't be in till past nine or
so. Give my love to them all.”
“Oh, Miss Noel, you can't,—”
But Noel was gone. She walked towards Charing Cross; and, to kill time,
went into a restaurant and had that simple repast, coffee and a bun,
which those in love would always take if Society did not forcibly feed
them on other things. Food was ridiculous to her. She sat there in the
midst of a perfect hive of creatures eating hideously. The place was
shaped like a modern prison, having tiers of gallery round an open
space, and in the air was the smell of viands and the clatter of plates
and the music of a band. Men in khaki everywhere, and Noel glanced from
form to form to see if by chance one might be that which represented,
for her, Life and the British Army. At half-past eight she went out
and made her way: through the crowd, still mechanically searching
“khaki” for what she wanted; and it was perhaps fortunate that
there was about her face and walk something which touched people. At the
station she went up to an old porter, and, putting a shilling into
his astonished hand, asked him to find out for her whence Morland's
regiment would start. He came back presently, and said:
“Come with me, miss.”
Noel went. He was rather lame, had grey whiskers, and a ghostly thin
resemblance to her uncle Bob, which perhaps had been the reason why she
had chosen him. 64
“Brother goin' out, miss?”
Noel nodded.
“Ah! It's a crool war. I shan't be sorry when it's over. Goin'
out and comin' in, we see some sad sights 'ere. Wonderful spirit
they've got, too. I never look at the clock now but what I think:
'There you go, slow-coach! I'd like to set you on to the day the
boys come back!' When I puts a bag in: 'Another for 'ell' I
thinks. And so it is, miss, from all I can 'ear. I've got a son out
there meself. It's 'ere they'll come along. You stand quiet and
keep a lookout, and you'll get a few minutes with him when he's done
with 'is men. I wouldn't move, if I were you; he'll come to you,
all right—can't miss you, there.' And, looking at her face, he
thought: 'Astonishin' what a lot o' brothers go. Wot oh! Poor
little missy! A little lady, too. Wonderful collected she is. It's
'ard!'.rdquo; And trying to find something consoling to say, he
mumbled out: “You couldn't be in a better place for seen'im off.
Good night, miss; anything else I can do for you?”
“No, thank you; you're very kind.”
He looked back once or twice at her blue-clad figure standing very
still. He had left her against a little oasis of piled-up empty
milk-cans, far down the platform where a few civilians in similar case
were scattered. The trainway was empty as yet. In the grey immensity of
the station and the turmoil of its noise, she felt neither lonely nor
conscious of others waiting; too absorbed in the one thought of seeing
him and touching him again. The empty train began backing in, stopped,
and telescoped with a series of little clattering bangs, backed on
again, and subsided to rest. Noel turned her eyes towards the station
arch ways. Already she felt tremulous, as though the regiment were
sending before it the vibration of its march.
She had not as yet seen a troop-train start, and vague images of brave
array, of a flag fluttering, and the stir of drums, beset her. Suddenly
she saw a brown swirling mass down there at the very edge, out of which
a thin brown trickle emerged towards her; no sound of music, no waved
flag. She had a longing to rush down to the barrier, but remembering
the words of the porter, stayed where she was, with her hands tightly
squeezed together. The trickle became a stream, a flood, the head of
which began to reach her. With a turbulence of voices, sunburnt men,
burdened up to the nose, passed, with rifles jutting at all angles; she
strained her eyes, staring into that stream as one might into a walking
wood, to isolate a single tree. Her head reeled with the strain of it,
and the effort to catch his voice among the hubbub of all those cheery,
common, happy-go-lucky sounds. Some who saw her clucked their tongues,
some went by silent, others seemed to scan her as though she might be
what they were looking for. And ever the stream and the hubbub
melted into the train, and yet came pouring on. And still she waited
motionless, with an awful fear. How could he ever find her, or she him?
Then she saw that others of those waiting had found their men. And the
longing to rush up and down the platform almost overcame her; but still
she waited. And suddenly she saw him with two other officer boys, close
to the carriages, coming slowly down towards her. She stood with her
eyes fixed on his face; they passed, and she nearly cried out. Then he
turned, broke away from the other two, and came straight to her. He
had seen her before she had seen him. He was very flushed, had a little
fixed frown between his blue eyes and a set jaw. They stood looking
at each other, their hands hard gripped; all the emotion of last night
welling up within them, so that to speak would have been to break down.
The milk-cans formed a kind of shelter, and they stood so close together
that none could see their faces. Noel was the first to master her power
of speech; her words came out, dainty as ever, through trembling lips:
“Write to me as much as ever you can, Cyril. I'm going to be a nurse
at once. And the first leave you get, I shall come to you—don't
forget.”
“Forget! Move a little back, darling; they can't see us here. Kiss
me!” She moved back, thrust her face forward so that he need not
stoop, and put her lips up to his. Then, feeling that she might swoon
and fall over among the cans, she withdrew her mouth, leaving her
forehead against his lips. He murmured:
“Was it all right when you got in last night?”
“Yes; I said good-bye for you.”
“Oh! Noel—I've been afraid—I oughtn't—I oughtn't—”
“Yes, yes; nothing can take you from me now.”
“You have got pluck. More than!”
Along whistle sounded. Morland grasped her hands convulsively:
“Good-bye, my little wife! Don't fret. Goodbye! I must go. God bless
you, Noel!”
“I love you.”
They looked at each other, just another moment, then she took her hands
from his and stood back in the shadow of the milk-cans, rigid, following
him with her eyes till he was lost in the train.
Every carriage window was full of those brown figures and red-brown
faces, hands were waving vaguely, voices calling vaguely, here and
there one cheered; someone leaning far out started to sing: “If auld
acquaintance—” But Noel stood quite still in the shadow of the
milk-cans, her lips drawn in, her hands hard clenched in front of her;
and young Morland at his window gazed back at her.
2
How she came to be sitting in Trafalgar Square she did not know. Tears
had formed a mist between her and all that seething, summer-evening
crowd. Her eyes mechanically followed the wandering search-lights, those
new milky ways, quartering the heavens and leading nowhere. All was
wonderfully beautiful, the sky a deep dark blue, the moonlight
whitening the spire of St. Martin's, and everywhere endowing the great
blacked-out buildings with dream-life. Even the lions had come to life,
and stared out over this moonlit desert of little human figures too
small to be worth the stretching out of a paw. She sat there, aching
dreadfully, as if the longing of every bereaved heart in all the town
had settled in her. She felt it tonight a thousand times worse; for last
night she had been drugged on the new sensation of love triumphantly
fulfilled. Now she felt as if life had placed her in the corner of a
huge silent room, blown out the flame of joy, and locked the door.
A little dry sob came from her. The hay-fields and Cyril, with shirt
unbuttoned at the neck, pitching hay and gazing at her while she dabbled
her fork in the thin leavings. The bright river, and their boat grounded
on the shallows, and the swallows flitting over them. And that long
dance, with the feel of his hand between her shoulder-blades! Memories
so sweet and sharp that she almost cried out. She saw again their dark
grassy courtyard in the Abbey, and the white owl flying over them. The
white owl! Flying there again to-night, with no lovers on the grass
below! She could only picture Cyril now as a brown atom in that swirling
brown flood of men, flowing to a huge brown sea. Those cruel minutes on
the platform, when she had searched and searched the walking wood for
her, one tree, seemed to have burned themselves into her eyes. Cyril
was lost, she could not single him out, all blurred among those thousand
other shapes. And suddenly she thought: 'And I—I'm lost to him;
he's never seen me at home, never seen me in London; he won't be
able to imagine me. It's all in the past, only the past—for both of
us. Is there anybody so unhappy?' And the town's voices-wheels, and
passing feet, whistles, talk, laughter—seemed to answer callously:
'Not one.' She looked at her wrist-watch; like his, it had luminous
hands: 'Half-past ten' was greenishly imprinted there. She got up in
dismay. They would think she was lost, or run over, or something silly!
She could not find an empty taxi, and began to walk, uncertain of her
way at night. At last she stopped a policeman, and said:
“Which is the way towards Bloomsbury, please? I can't find a
taxi.” The man looked at her, and took time to think it over; then he
said:
“They're linin' up for the theatres,” and looked at her again.
Something seemed to move in his mechanism:
“I'm goin' that way, miss. If you like, you can step along with
me.” Noel stepped along.
“The streets aren't what they ought to be,” the policeman said.
“What with the darkness, and the war turning the girls heads—you'd
be surprised the number of them that comes out. It's the soldiers, of
course.”
Noel felt her cheeks burning.
“I daresay you wouldn't have noticed it,” the policeman went
on: “but this war's a funny thing. The streets are gayer and more
crowded at night than I've ever seen them; it's a fair picnic all
the time. What we're goin' to settle down to when peace comes, I
don't know. I suppose you find it quiet enough up your way, miss?”
“Yes,” said Noel; “quite quiet.”
“No soldiers up in Bloomsbury. You got anyone in the Army, miss?”
Noel nodded.
“Ah! It's anxious times for ladies. What with the Zeps, and their
brothers and all in France, it's 'arassin'. I've lost a brother
meself, and I've got a boy out there in the Garden of Eden; his mother
carries on dreadful about him. What we shall think of it when it's all
over, I can't tell. These Huns are a wicked tough lot!”
Noel looked at him; a tall man, regular and orderly, with one of those
perfectly decent faces so often seen in the London police.
“I'm sorry you've lost someone,” she said. “I haven't lost
anyone very near, yet.”
“Well, let's 'ope you won't, miss. These times make you feel for
others, an' that's something. I've noticed a great change in folks
you'd never think would feel for anyone. And yet I've seen some
wicked things too; we do, in the police. Some of these English wives
of aliens, and 'armless little German bakers, an' Austrians, and
what-not: they get a crool time. It's their misfortune, not their
fault, that's what I think; and the way they get served—well, it
makes you ashamed o' bein' English sometimes—it does straight:
And the women are the worst. I said to my wife only last night, I
said: 'They call themselves Christians,' I said, 'but for all the
charity that's in 'em they might as well be Huns.' She couldn't
see it-not she!' Well, why do they drop bombs?' she says.
'What!' I said, 'those English wives and bakers drop bombs?
Don't be silly,' I said. 'They're as innocent as we.' It's
the innocent that gets punished for the guilty. 'But they're all
spies,' she says. 'Oh!' I said, 'old lady! Now really! At your
time of life!' But there it is; you can't get a woman to see reason.
It's readin' the papers. I often think they must be written by
women—beggin' your pardon, miss—but reely, the 'ysterics and the
'atred—they're a fair knockout. D'you find much hatred in your
household, miss?”
Noel shook her head. “No; my father's a clergyman, you see.”
“Ah!” said the policeman. And in the glance he bestowed on her could
be seen an added respect.
“Of course,” he went on, “you're bound to have a sense of
justice against these Huns; some of their ways of goin' on have been
above the limit. But what I always think is—of course I don't say
these things—no use to make yourself unpopular—but to meself I often
think: Take 'em man for man, and you'd find 'em much the same
as we are, I daresay. It's the vicious way they're brought up, of
actin' in the mass, that's made 'em such a crool lot. I see a good
bit of crowds in my profession, and I've a very low opinion of
them. Crowds are the most blunderin' blighted things that ever was.
They're like an angry woman with a bandage over her eyes, an' you
can't have anything more dangerous than that. These Germans, it seems,
are always in a crowd. They get a state o' mind read out to them by
Bill Kaser and all that bloody-minded lot, an' they never stop to
think for themselves.”
“I suppose they'd be shot if they did,” said Noel.
“Well, there is that,” said the policeman reflectively. “They've
brought discipline to an 'igh pitch, no doubt. An' if you ask
me,”—he lowered his voice till it was almost lost in his chin-strap,
“we'll be runnin' 'em a good second 'ere, before long. The
things we 'ave to protect now are gettin' beyond a joke. There's
the City against lights, there's the streets against darkness,
there's the aliens, there's the aliens' shops, there's the
Belgians, there's the British wives, there's the soldiers against
the women, there's the women against the soldiers, there's the Peace
Party, there's 'orses against croolty, there's a Cabinet Minister
every now an' then; and now we've got these Conchies. And, mind you,
they haven't raised our pay; no war wages in the police. So far as I
can see, there's only one good result of the war—the burglaries are
off. But there again, you wait a bit and see if we don't have a prize
crop of 'm, or my name's not 'Arris.”
“You must have an awfully exciting life!” said Noel.
The policeman looked down at her sideways, without lowering his face, as
only a policeman can, and said indulgently:
“We're used to it, you see; there's no excitement in what
you're used to. They find that in the trenches, I'm told. Take our
seamen—there's lots of 'em been blown up over and over again, and
there they go and sign on again next day. That's where the Germans
make their mistake! England in war-time! I think a lot, you know, on my
go; you can't 'elp it—the mind will work—an' the more I think,
the more I see the fightin' spirit in the people. We don't make a
fuss about it like Bill Kaser. But you watch a little shopman, one o'
those fellows who's had his house bombed; you watch the way he looks
at the mess—sort of disgusted. You watch his face, and you see he's
got his teeth into it. You watch one of our Tommies on 'is crutches,
with the sweat pourin' off his forehead an' 'is eyes all strainy,
stumpin' along—that gives you an idea! I pity these Peace fellows,
reely I pity them; they don't know what they're up against. I expect
there's times when you wish you was a man, don't you, miss? I'm
sure there's times when I feel I'd like to go in the trenches.
That's the worst o' my job; you can't be a human bein'—not in
the full sense of the word. You mustn't let your passions rise, you
mustn't drink, you mustn't talk; it's a narrow walk o' life.
Well, here you are, miss; your Square's the next turnin' to the
right. Good night and thank you for your conversation.”
Noel held out her hand. “Good night!” she said.
The policeman took her hand with a queer, flattered embarrassment.
“Good night, miss,” he said again. “I see you've got a trouble;
and I'm sure I hope it'll turn out for the best.”
Noel gave his huge hand a squeeze; her eyes had filled with tears, and
she turned quickly up towards the Square, where a dark figure was coming
towards her, in whom she recognised her father. His face was worn and
harassed; he walked irresolutely, like a man who has lost something.
“Nollie!” he said. “Thank God!” In his voice was an infinite
relief. “My child, where have you been?”
“It's all right, Daddy. Cyril has just gone to the front. I've
been seeing him off from Charing Cross.”
Pierson slipped his arm round her. They entered the house without
speaking....
3
By the rail of his transport, as far—about two feet—as he could get
from anyone, Cyril Morland stood watching Calais, a dream city, brighten
out of the heat and grow solid. He could hear the guns already, the
voice of his new life-talking in the distance. It came with its strange
excitement into a being held by soft and marvellous memories, by one
long vision of Noel and the moonlit grass, under the dark Abbey wall.
This moment of passage from wonder to wonder was quite too much for a
boy unused to introspection, and he stood staring stupidly at Calais,
while the thunder of his new life came rolling in on that passionate
moonlit dream.
VII
After the emotions of those last three days Pierson woke with the
feeling a ship must have when it makes landfall. Such reliefs are
natural, and as a rule delusive; for events are as much the parents of
the future as they were the children of the past. To be at home with
both his girls, and resting—for his holiday would not be over for ten
days—was like old times. Now George was going on so well Gratian would
be herself again; now Cyril Morland was gone Noel would lose that sudden
youthful love fever. Perhaps in two or three days if George continued to
progress, one might go off with Noel somewhere for one's last week. In
the meantime the old house, wherein was gathered so much remembrance
of happiness and pain, was just as restful as anywhere else, and the
companionship of his girls would be as sweet as on any of their past
rambling holidays in Wales or Ireland. And that first morning of perfect
idleness—for no one knew he was back in London—pottering, and
playing the piano in the homely drawing-room where nothing to speak of
was changed since his wife's day, was very pleasant. He had not yet
seen the girls, for Noel did not come down to breakfast, and Gratian was
with George.
Discovery that there was still a barrier between him and them came but
slowly in the next two days. He would not acknowledge it, yet it was
there, in their voices, in their movements—rather an absence of
something old than the presence of something new. It was as if each had
said to him: “We love you, but you are not in our secrets—and you
must not be, for you would try to destroy them.” They showed no fear
of him, but seemed to be pushing him unconsciously away, lest he should
restrain or alter what was very dear to them. They were both fond of
him, but their natures had set foot on definitely diverging paths. The
closer the affection, the more watchful they were against interference
by that affection. Noel had a look on her face, half dazed, half
proud, which touched, yet vexed him. What had he done to forfeit her
confidence—surely she must see how natural and right his opposition
had been! He made one great effort to show the real sympathy he felt
for her. But she only said: “I can't talk of Cyril, Daddy; I simply
can't!” And he, who easily shrank into his shell, could not but
acquiesce in her reserve.
With Gratian it was different. He knew that an encounter was before him;
a struggle between him and her husband—for characteristically he set
the change in her, the defection of her faith, down to George, not to
spontaneous thought and feeling in herself. He dreaded and yet looked
forward to this encounter. It came on the third day, when Laird was up,
lying on that very sofa where Pierson had sat listening to Gratian's
confession of disbelief. Except for putting in his head to say good
morning, he had not yet seen his son-in-law: The young doctor could
not look fragile, the build of his face, with that law and those heavy
cheekbones was too much against it, but there was about him enough of
the look of having come through a hard fight to give Pierson's heart a
squeeze.
“Well, George,” he said, “you gave us a dreadful fright! I thank
God's mercy.” With that half-mechanical phrase he had flung an
unconscious challenge. Laird looked up whimsically.
“So you really think God merciful, sir?”
“Don't let us argue, George; you're not strong enough.”
“Oh! I'm pining for something to bite on.”
Pierson looked at Gratian, and said softly:
“God's mercy is infinite, and you know it is.”
Laird also looked at Gratian, before he answered:
“God's mercy is surely the amount of mercy man has succeeded in
arriving at. How much that is, this war tells you, sir.”
Pierson flushed. “I don't follow you,” he said painfully. “How
can you say such things, when you yourself are only just—No; I refuse
to argue, George; I refuse.”
Laird stretched out his hand to his wife, who came to him, and stood
clasping it with her own. “Well, I'm going to argue,” he said;
“I'm simply bursting with it. I challenge you, sir, to show me
where there's any sign of altruistic pity, except in man. Mother love
doesn't count—mother and child are too much one.”
The curious smile had come already, on both their faces.
“My dear George, is not man the highest work of God, and mercy the
highest quality in man?”
“Not a bit. If geological time be taken as twenty-four hours, man's
existence on earth so far equals just two seconds of it; after a few
more seconds, when man has been frozen off the earth, geological time
will stretch for as long again, before the earth bumps into something,
and becomes nebula once more. God's hands haven't been particularly
full, sir, have they—two seconds out of twenty-four hours—if man
is His pet concern? And as to mercy being the highest quality in, man,
that's only a modern fashion of talking. Man's highest quality is
the sense of proportion, for that's what keeps him alive; and mercy,
logically pursued, would kill him off. It's a sort of a luxury or
by-product.”
“George! You can have no music in your soul! Science is such a little
thing, if you could only see.”
“Show me a bigger, sir.”
“Faith.”
“In what?”
“In what has been revealed to us.”
“Ah! There it is again! By whom—how?
“By God Himself—through our Lord.”
A faint flush rose in Laird's yellow face, and his eyes brightened.
“Christ,” he said; “if He existed, which some people, as you know,
doubt, was a very beautiful character; there have been others. But to
ask us to believe in His supernaturalness or divinity at this time of
day is to ask us to walk through the world blindfold. And that's what
you do, don't you?”
Again Pierson looked at his daughter's face. She was standing quite
still, with her eyes fixed on her husband. Somehow he was aware that all
these words of the sick man's were for her benefit. Anger, and a sort
of despair rose within him, and he said painfully:
“I cannot explain. There are things that I can't make clear, because
you are wilfully blind to all that I believe in. For what do you imagine
we are fighting this great war, if it is not to reestablish the belief
in love as the guiding principle of life?”
Laird shook his head. “We are fighting to redress a balance, which was
in danger of being lost.”
“The balance of power?”
“Heavens!—no! The balance of philosophy.”
Pierson smiled. “That sounds very clever, George; but again, I don't
follow you.”
“The balance between the sayings: 'Might is Right,' and 'Right
is Might.' They're both half-truth, but the first was beating the
other out of the field. All the rest of it is cant, you know. And by the
way, sir, your Church is solid for punishment of the evildoer. Where's
mercy there? Either its God is not merciful, or else it doesn't
believe in its God.”
“Just punishment does not preclude mercy, George.”
“It does in Nature.”
“Ah! Nature, George—always Nature. God transcends Nature.”
“Then why does He give it a free rein? A man too fond of drink, or
women—how much mercy does he get from Nature? His overindulgence
brings its exact equivalent of penalty; let him pray to God as much as
he likes—unless he alters his ways he gets no mercy. If he does alter
his ways, he gets no mercy either; he just gets Nature's due reward.
We English who have neglected brain and education—how much mercy
are we getting in this war? Mercy's a man-made ornament, disease,
or luxury—call it what you will. Except that, I've nothing to say
against it. On the contrary, I am all for it.”
Once more Pierson looked at his daughter. Something in her face hurt
him—the silent intensity with which she was hanging on her husband's
words, the eager search of her eyes. And he turned to the door, saying:
“This is bad for you, George.”
He saw Gratian put her hand on her husband's forehead, and
thought—jealously: 'How can I save my poor girl from this
infidelity? Are my twenty years of care to go for nothing, against this
modern spirit?'
Down in his study, the words went through his mind: “Holy, holy, holy,
Merciful and Mighty!” And going to the little piano in the corner, he
opened it, and began playing the hymn. He played it softly on the shabby
keys of this thirty-year old friend, which had been with him since
College days; and sang it softly in his worn voice.
A sound made him look up. Gratian had come in. She put her hand on his
shoulder, and said:
“I know it hurts you, Dad. But we've got to find out for ourselves,
haven't we? All the time you and George were talking, I felt that you
didn't see that it's I who've changed. It's not what he
thinks, but what I've come to think of my own accord. I wish you'd
understand that I've got a mind of my own, Dad.”
Pierson looked up with amazement.
“Of course you have a mind.”
Gratian shook her head. “No, you thought my mind was yours; and now
you think it's George's. But it's my own. When you were my age
weren't you trying hard to find the truth yourself, and differing from
your father?”
Pierson did not answer. He could not remember. It was like stirring
a stick amongst a drift of last year's leaves, to awaken but a dry
rustling, a vague sense of unsubstantiality. Searched? No doubt he had
searched, but the process had brought him nothing. Knowledge was all
smoke! Emotional faith alone was truth—reality!
“Ah, Gracie!” he said, “search if you must, but where will you
find bottom? The well is too deep for us. You will come back to God, my
child, when you're tired out; the only rest is there.”
“I don't want to rest. Some people search all their lives, and die
searching. Why shouldn't I.
“You will be most unhappy, my child.”
“If I'm unhappy, Dad, it'll be because the world's unhappy. I
don't believe it ought to be; I think it only is, because it shuts its
eyes.”
Pierson got up. “You think I shut my eyes?”
Gratian nodded.
“If I do, it is because there is no other way to happiness.”
“Are you happy; Dad?”
“As happy as my nature will let me be. I miss your mother. If I lose
you and Noel—”
“Oh, but we won't let you!”
Pierson smiled. “My dear,” he said, “I think I have!”
VIII 1
Some wag, with a bit of chalk, had written the word “Peace” on three
successive doors of a little street opposite Buckingham Palace.
It caught the eye of Jimmy Fort, limping home to his rooms from a very
late discussion at his Club, and twisted his lean shaven lips into a
sort of smile. He was one of those rolling-stone Englishmen, whose early
lives are spent in all parts of the world, and in all kinds of physical
conflict—a man like a hickory stick, tall, thin, bolt-upright, knotty,
hard as nails, with a curved fighting back to his head and a straight
fighting front to his brown face. His was the type which becomes, in
a generation or so, typically Colonial or American; but no one could
possibly have taken Jimmy Fort for anything but an Englishman. Though
he was nearly forty, there was still something of the boy in his face,
something frank and curly-headed, gallant and full of steam, and his
small steady grey eyes looked out on life with a sort of combative
humour. He was still in uniform, though they had given him up as a bad
job after keeping him nine months trying to mend a wounded leg which
would never be sound again; and he was now in the War Office in
connection with horses, about which he knew. He did not like it, having
lived too long with all sorts and conditions of men who were neither
English nor official, a combination which he found trying. His life
indeed, just now, bored him to distraction, and he would ten times
rather have been back in France. This was why he found the word
“Peace” so exceptionally tantalising.
Reaching his rooms, he threw off his tunic, to whose stiff regularity he
still had a rooted aversion; and, pulling out a pipe, filled it and sat
down at his window.
Moonshine could not cool the hot town, and it seemed sleeping
badly—the seven million sleepers in their million homes. Sound
lingered on, never quite ceased; the stale odours clung in the narrow
street below, though a little wind was creeping about to sweeten the
air. 'Curse the war!' he thought. 'What wouldn't I give to be
sleeping out, instead of in this damned city!' They who slept in the
open, neglecting morality, would certainly have the best of it tonight,
for no more dew was falling than fell into Jimmy Fort's heart to cool
the fret of that ceaseless thought: 'The war! The cursed war!' In
the unending rows of little grey houses, in huge caravanserais, and
the mansions of the great, in villas, and high slum tenements; in the
government offices, and factories, and railway stations where they
worked all night; in the long hospitals where they lay in rows; in the
camp prisons of the interned; in bar racks, work-houses, palaces—no
head, sleeping or waking, would be free of that thought: 'The cursed
war!' A spire caught his eye, rising ghostly over the roofs. Ah!
churches alone, void of the human soul, would be unconscious! But
for the rest, even sleep would not free them! Here a mother would be
whispering the name of her boy; there a merchant would snore and dream
he was drowning, weighted with gold; and a wife would be turning to
stretch out her arms to-no one; and a wounded soldier wake out of a
dream trench with sweat on his brow; and a newsvendor in his garret
mutter hoarsely. By thousands the bereaved would be tossing, stifling
their moans; by thousands the ruined would be gazing into the dark
future; and housewives struggling with sums; and soldiers sleeping
like logs—for to morrow they died; and children dreaming of them; and
prostitutes lying in stale wonder at the busyness of their lives; and
journalists sleeping the sleep of the just. And over them all, in the
moonlight that thought 'The cursed war!' flapped its black wings,
like an old crow! “If Christ were real,” he mused, “He'd reach
that moon down, and go chalking 'Peace' with it on every door of
every house, all over Europe. But Christ's not real, and Hindenburg
and Harmsworth are!” As real they were as two great bulls he had once
seen in South Africa, fighting. He seemed to hear again the stamp and
snort and crash of those thick skulls, to see the beasts recoiling and
driving at each other, and the little red eyes of them. And pulling a
letter out of his pocket, he read it again by the light of the moon:
“15, Camelot Mansions,
“St. John's Wood.
“DEAR MR. FORT, “I came across your Club address to-night, looking
at some old letters. Did you know that I was in London? I left Steenbok
when my husband died, five years ago. I've had a simply terrific time
since. While the German South West campaign was on I was nursing out
there, but came back about a year ago to lend a hand here. It would be
awfully nice to meet you again, if by any chance you are in England.
I'm working in a V. A. D. hospital in these parts, but my evenings are
usually free. Do you remember that moonlit night at grape harvest? The
nights here aren't scented quite like that. Listerine! Oh! This war!
“With all good remembrances,
“LEILA LYNCH.”
A terrific time! If he did not mistake, Leila Lynch had always had a
terrific time. And he smiled, seeing again the stoep of an old Dutch
house at High Constantia, and a woman sitting there under the white
flowers of a sweet-scented creeper—a pretty woman, with eyes which
could put a spell on you, a woman he would have got entangled with if
he had not cut and run for it! Ten years ago, and here she was again,
refreshing him out of the past. He sniffed the fragrance of the little
letter. How everybody always managed to work into a letter what they
were doing in the war! If he answered her he would be sure to say:
“Since I got lamed, I've been at the War Office, working on
remounts, and a dull job it is!” Leila Lynch! Women didn't get
younger, and he suspected her of being older than himself. But he
remembered agreeably her white shoulders and that turn of her neck when
she looked at you with those big grey eyes of hers. Only a five-day
acquaintanceship, but they had crowded much into it as one did in a
strange land. The episode had been a green and dangerous spot, like one
of those bright mossy bits of bog when you were snipe-shooting, to set
foot on which was to let you down up to the neck, at least. Well, there
was none of that danger now, for her husband was dead-poor chap! It
would be nice, in these dismal days, when nobody spent any time whatever
except in the service of the country, to improve his powers of service
by a few hours' recreation in her society. 'What humbugs we are!'
he thought: 'To read the newspapers and the speeches you'd believe
everybody thought of nothing but how to get killed for the sake of the
future. Drunk on verbiage! What heads and mouths we shall all have when
we wake up some fine morning with Peace shining in at the window! Ah! If
only we could; and enjoy ourselves again!' And he gazed at the moon.
She was dipping already, reeling away into the dawn. Water carts and
street sweepers had come out into the glimmer; sparrows twittered in the
eaves. The city was raising a strange unknown face to the grey light,
shuttered and deserted as Babylon. Jimmy Fort tapped out his pipe,
sighed, and got into bed.
2
Coming off duty at that very moment, Leila Lynch decided to have her
hour's walk before she went home. She was in charge of two wards, and
as a rule took the day watches; but some slight upset had given her this
extra spell. She was, therefore, at her worst, or perhaps at her best,
after eighteen hours in hospital. Her cheeks were pale, and about her
eyes were little lines, normally in hiding. There was in this face a
puzzling blend of the soft and hard, for the eyes, the rather full lips,
and pale cheeks, were naturally soft; but they were hardened by
the self-containment which grows on women who have to face life for
themselves, and, conscious of beauty, intend to keep it, in spite of
age. Her figure was contradictory, also; its soft modelling a little too
rigidified by stays. In this desert of the dawn she let her long
blue overcoat flap loose, and swung her hat on a finger, so that
her light-brown, touched-up hair took the morning breeze with fluffy
freedom. Though she could not see herself, she appreciated her
appearance, swaying along like that, past lonely trees and houses. A
pity there was no one to see her in that round of Regent's Park, which
took her the best part of an hour, walking in meditation, enjoying the
colour coming back into the world, as if especially for her.
There was character in Leila Lynch, and she had lived an interesting
life from a certain point of view. In her girlhood she had fluttered the
hearts of many besides Cousin Edward Pierson, and at eighteen had made
a passionate love match with a good-looking young Indian civilian, named
Fane. They had loved each other to a standstill in twelve months. Then
had begun five years of petulance, boredom, and growing cynicism, with
increasing spells of Simla, and voyages home for her health which was
really harmed by the heat. All had culminated, of course, in another
passion for a rifleman called Lynch. Divorce had followed, remarriage,
and then the Boer War, in which he had been badly wounded. She had gone
out and nursed him back to half his robust health, and, at twenty-eight,
taken up life with him on an up-country farm in Cape Colony. This middle
period had lasted ten years, between the lonely farm and an old Dutch
house at High Constantia. Lynch was not a bad fellow, but, like most
soldiers of the old Army, had been quite carefully divested of an
aesthetic sense. And it was Leila's misfortune to have moments when
aesthetic sense seemed necessary. She had struggled to overcome this
weakness, and that other weakness of hers—a liking for men's
admiration; but there had certainly been intervals when she had not
properly succeeded. Her acquaintance with Jimmy Fort had occurred during
one of these intervals, and when he went back to England so abruptly,
she had been feeling very tenderly towards him. She still remembered him
with a certain pleasure. Before Lynch died, these “intervals” had
been interrupted by a spell of returning warmth for the invalided man to
whom she had joined her life under the romantic conditions of divorce.
He had failed, of course, as a farmer, and his death left her with
nothing but her own settled income of a hundred and fifty pounds a
year. Faced by the prospect of having almost to make her living, at
thirty-eight, she felt but momentary dismay—for she had real pluck.
Like many who have played with amateur theatricals, she fancied herself
as an actress; but, after much effort, found that only her voice and
the perfect preservation of her legs were appreciated by the discerning
managers and public of South Africa; and for three chequered years she
made face against fortune with the help of them, under an assumed name.
What she did—keeping a certain bloom of refinement, was far better
than the achievements of many more respectable ladies in her shoes. At
least she never bemoaned her “reduced circumstances,” and if her
life was irregular and had at least three episodes, it was very human.
She bravely took the rough with the smooth, never lost the power of
enjoying herself, and grew in sympathy with the hardships of others. But
she became deadly tired. When the war broke out, remembering that
she was a good nurse, she took her real name again and a change of
occupation. For one who liked to please men, and to be pleased by them,
there was a certain attraction about that life in war-time; and after
two years of it she could still appreciate the way her Tommies turned
their heads to look at her when she passed their beds. But in a hard
school she had learned perfect self-control; and though the sour and
puritanical perceived her attraction, they knew her to be forty-three.
Besides, the soldiers liked her; and there was little trouble in her
wards. The war moved her in simple ways; for she was patriotic in the
direct fashion of her class. Her father had been a sailor, her husbands
an official and a soldier; the issue for her was uncomplicated by any
abstract meditation. The Country before everything! And though she had
tended during those two years so many young wrecked bodies, she had
taken it as all in the a day's work, lavishing her sympathy on the
individual, without much general sense of pity and waste. Yes, she had
worked really hard, had “done her bit”; but of late she had felt
rising within her the old vague craving for “life,” for pleasure,
for something more than the mere negative admiration bestowed on her
by her “Tommies.” Those old letters—to look them through them had
been a sure sign of this vague craving—had sharpened to poignancy the
feeling that life was slipping away from her while she was still comely.
She had been long out of England, and so hard-worked since she came back
that there were not many threads she could pick up suddenly. Two letters
out of that little budget of the past, with a far cry between them, had
awakened within her certain sentimental longings.
“DEAR LADY OF THE STARRY FLOWERS,
“Exiturus (sic) to saluto! The tender carries you this message of
good-bye. Simply speaking, I hate leaving South Africa. And of all my
memories, the last will live the longest. Grape harvest at Constantia,
and you singing: 'If I could be the falling dew: If ever you and your
husband come to England, do let me know, that I may try and repay a
little the happiest five days I've spent out here.
“Your very faithful servant,
“TIMMY FORT.”
She remembered a very brown face, a tall slim figure, and something
gallant about the whole of him. What was he like after ten years?
Grizzled, married, with a large family? An odious thing—Time! And
Cousin Edward's little yellow letter.
Good heavens! Twenty-six years ago—before he was a parson, or married
or anything! Such a good partner, really musical; a queer, dear fellow,
devoted, absentminded, easily shocked, yet with flame burning in him
somewhere.
'DEAR LEILA,
“After our last dance I went straight off'—I couldn't go in. I
went down to the river, and walked along the bank; it was beautiful, all
grey and hazy, and the trees whispered, and the cows looked holy; and I
walked along and thought of you. And a farmer took me for a lunatic, in
my dress clothes. Dear Leila, you were so pretty last night, and I did
love our dances. I hope you are not tired, and that I shall see you soon
again:
“Your affectionate cousin,
“EDWARD PIERSON.”
And then he had gone and become a parson, and married, and been a
widower fifteen years. She remembered the death of his wife, just before
she left for South Africa, at that period of disgrace when she had so
shocked her family by her divorce. Poor Edward—quite the nicest of her
cousins! The only one she would care to see again. He would be very old
and terribly good and proper, by now.
Her wheel of Regent's Park was coming full circle, and the sun was up
behind the houses, but still no sound of traffic stirred. She stopped
before a flower-bed where was some heliotrope, and took a long,
luxurious sniff: She could not resist plucking a sprig, too, and holding
it to her nose. A sudden want of love had run through every nerve and
fibre of her; she shivered, standing there with her eyes half closed,
above the pale violet blossom. Then, noting by her wrist-watch that it
was four o'clock, she hurried on, to get to her bed, for she would
have to be on duty again at noon. Oh! the war! She was tired! If only it
were over, and one could live!...
Somewhere by Twickenham the moon had floated down; somewhere up from
Kentish Town the sun came soaring; wheels rolled again, and the seven
million sleepers in their million houses woke from morning sleep to that
same thought....
IX
Edward Pierson, dreaming over an egg at breakfast, opened a letter in a
handwriting which he did not recognise.
“V. A. D. Hospital,
“Mulberry Road, St. John's Wood N. W.
“DEAR COUSIN EDWARD,
“Do you remember me, or have I gone too far into the shades of night?
I was Leila Pierson once upon a time, and I often think of you and
wonder what you are like now, and what your girls are like. I have been
here nearly a year, working for our wounded, and for a year before that
was nursing in South Africa. My husband died five years ago out there.
Though we haven't met for I dare not think how long, I should awfully
like to see you again. Would you care to come some day and look over my
hospital? I have two wards under me; our men are rather dears.
“Your forgotten but still affectionate cousin
“LEILA LYNCH.”
“P. S. I came across a little letter you once wrote me; it brought
back old days.”
No! He had not forgotten. There was a reminder in the house. And he
looked up at Noel sitting opposite. How like the eyes were! And
he thought: 'I wonder what Leila has become. One mustn't be
uncharitable. That man is dead; she has been nursing two years. She must
be greatly changed; I should certainly like to see her. I will go!'
Again he looked at Noel. Only yesterday she had renewed her request to
be allowed to begin her training as a nurse.
“I'm going to see a hospital to-day, Nollie,” he said; “if you
like, I'll make enquiries. I'm afraid it'll mean you have to begin
by washing up.”
“I know; anything, so long as I do begin.”
“Very well; I'll see about it.” And he went back to his egg.
Noel's voice roused him. “Do you feel the war much, Daddy? Does
it hurt you here?” She had put her hand on her heart. “Perhaps it
doesn't, because you live half in the next world, don't you?”
The words: “God forbid,” sprang to Pierson's lips; he did not
speak them, but put his egg-spoon down, hurt and bewildered. What did
the child mean? Not feel the war! He smiled.
“I hope I'm able to help people sometimes, Nollie,” and was
conscious that he had answered his own thoughts, not her words. He
finished his breakfast quickly, and very soon went out. He crossed the
Square, and passed East, down two crowded streets to his church. In the
traffic of those streets, all slipshod and confused, his black-clothed
figure and grave face, with its Vandyk beard, had a curious remote
appearance, like a moving remnant of a past civilisation. He went in
by the side door. Only five days he had been away, but they had been so
full of emotion that the empty familiar building seemed almost strange
to him. He had come there unconsciously, groping for anchorage and
guidance in this sudden change of relationship between him and his
daughters. He stood by the pale brazen eagle, staring into the chancel.
The choir were wanting new hymn-books—he must not forget to order
them! His eyes sought the stained-glass window he had put in to the
memory of his wife. The sun, too high to slant, was burnishing its base,
till it glowed of a deep sherry colour. “In the next world!”
What strange words of Noel's! His eyes caught the glimmer of the
organ-pipes; and, mounting to the loft, he began to play soft chords
wandering into each other. He finished, and stood gazing down. This
space within high walls, under high vaulted roof, where light was toned
to a perpetual twilight, broken here and there by a little glow of
colour from glass and flowers, metal, and dark wood, was his home,
his charge, his refuge. Nothing moved down there, and yet—was not
emptiness mysteriously living, the closed-in air imprinted in strange
sort, as though the drone of music and voices in prayer and praise clung
there still? Had not sanctity a presence? Outside, a barrel-organ drove
its tune along; a wagon staggered on the paved street, and the driver
shouted to his horses; some distant guns boomed out in practice, and the
rolling of wheels on wheels formed a net of sound. But those invading
noises were transmuted to a mere murmuring in here; only the silence and
the twilight were real to Pierson, standing there, a little black figure
in a great empty space.
When he left the church, it was still rather early to go to Leila's
hospital; and, having ordered the new hymn-books, he called in at the
house of a parishioner whose son had been killed in France. He found her
in her kitchen; an oldish woman who lived by charing. She wiped a seat
for the Vicar.
“I was just makin' meself a cup o' tea, sir.”
“Ah! What a comfort tea is, Mrs. Soles!” And he sat down, so that
she should feel “at home.”
“Yes; it gives me 'eart-burn; I take eight or ten cups a day, now.
I take 'em strong, too. I don't seem able to get on without it. I
'ope the young ladies are well, sir?”
“Very well, thank you. Miss Noel is going to begin nursing, too.”
“Deary-me! She's very young; but all the young gells are doin'
something these days. I've got a niece in munitions-makin' a pretty
penny she is. I've been meanin' to tell you—I don't come to
church now; since my son was killed, I don't seem to 'ave the
'eart to go anywhere—'aven't been to a picture-palace these
three months. Any excitement starts me cryin'.”
“I know; but you'd find rest in church.”
Mrs. Soles shook her head, and the small twisted bob of her discoloured
hair wobbled vaguely.
“I can't take any recreation,” she said. “I'd rather sit
'ere, or be at work. My son was a real son to me. This tea's the
only thing that does me any good. I can make you a fresh cup in a
minute.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Soles, but I must be getting on. We must all look
forward to meeting our beloved again, in God's mercy. And one of these
days soon I shall be seeing you in church, shan't I.”
Mrs. Soles shifted her weight from one slippered foot to the other.
“Well! let's 'ope so,” she said. “But I dunno when I shall
'ave the spirit. Good day, sir, and thank you kindly for calling,
I'm sure.”
Pierson walked away with a very faint smile. Poor queer old soul!—she
was no older than himself, but he thought of her as ancient—cut off
from her son, like so many—so many; and how good and patient! The
melody of an anthem began running in his head. His fingers moved on the
air beside him, and he stood still, waiting for an omnibus to take him
to St. John's Wood. A thousand people went by while he was waiting,
but he did not notice them, thinking of that anthem, of his daughters,
and the mercy of God; and on the top of his 'bus, when it came along,
he looked lonely and apart, though the man beside him was so fat that
there was hardly any seat left to sit on. Getting down at Lord's
Cricket-ground, he asked his way of a lady in a nurse's dress.
“If you'll come with me,” she said, “I'm just going there.”
“Oh! Do you happen to know a Mrs. Lynch who nurses”
“I am Mrs. Lynch. Why, you're Edward Pierson!”
He looked into her face, which he had not yet observed.
“Leila!” he said.
“Yes, Leila! How awfully nice of you to come, Edward!”
They continued to stand, searching each for the other's youth, till
she murmured:
“In spite of your beard, I should have known you anywhere!” But she
thought: 'Poor Edward! He is old, and monk-like!'
And Pierson, in answer, murmured:
“You're very little changed, Leila! We haven't, seen each other
since my youngest girl was born. She's just a little like you.” But
he thought: 'My Nollie! So much more dewy; poor Leila!'
They walked on, talking of his daughters, till they reached the
hospital.
“If you'll wait here a minute, I'll take you over my wards.”
She had left him in a bare hall, holding his hat in one hand and
touching his gold cross with the other; but she soon came hack, and a
little warmth crept about his heart. How works of mercy suited women!
She looked so different, so much softer, beneath the white coif, with a
white apron over the bluish frock.
At the change in his face, a little warmth crept about Leila, too, just
where the bib of her apron stopped; and her eyes slid round at him while
they went towards what had once been a billiard-room.
“My men are dears,” she said; “they love to be talked to.”
Under a skylight six beds jutted out from a green distempered wall,
opposite to six beds jutting out from another green distempered wall,
and from each bed a face was turned towards them young faces, with but
little expression in them. A nurse, at the far end, looked round, and
went on with her work. The sight of the ward was no more new to Pierson
than to anyone else in these days. It was so familiar, indeed, that it
had practically no significance. He stood by the first bed, and Leila
stood alongside. The man smiled up when she spoke, and did not smile
when he spoke, and that again was familiar to him. They passed from bed
to bed, with exactly the same result, till she was called away, and he
sat down by a young soldier with a long, very narrow head and face, and
a heavily bandaged shoulder. Touching the bandage reverently, Pierson
said:
“Well, my dear fellow-still bad?”
“Ah!” replied the soldier. “Shrapnel wound: It's cut the flesh
properly.”
“But not the spirit, I can see!”
The young soldier gave him a quaint look, as much as to say: “Not
'arf bad!” and a gramophone close to the last bed began to play:
“God bless Daddy at the war!”
“Are you fond of music?”
“I like it well enough. Passes the time.”
“I'm afraid the time hangs heavy in hospital.”
“Yes; it hangs a bit 'eavy; it's just 'orspital life. I've
been wounded before, you see. It's better than bein' out there. I
expect I'll lose the proper use o' this arm. I don't worry; I'll
get my discharge.”
“You've got some good nurses here.”
“Yes; I like Mrs. Lynch; she's the lady I like.”
“My cousin.”
“I see you come in together. I see everything 'ere. I think a lot,
too. Passes the time.”
“Do they let you smoke?”
“Oh, yes! They let us smoke.”
“Have one of mine?”
The young soldier smiled for the first time. “Thank you; I've got
plenty.”
The nurse came by, and smiled at Pierson.
“He's one of our blase ones; been in before, haven't you,
Simson?”
Pierson looked at the young man, whose long, narrow face; where one
sandy-lashed eyelid drooped just a little, seemed armoured with a sort
of limited omniscience. The gramophone had whirred and grunted into
“Sidi Brahim.” The nurse passed on.
“'Seedy Abram,'.rdquo; said the young soldier. “The Frenchies
sing it; they takes it up one after the other, ye know.”
“Ah!” murmured Pierson; “it's pretty.” And his fingers drummed
on the counterpane, for the tune was new to him. Something seemed
to move in the young man's face, as if a blind had been drawn up a
little.
“I don't mind France,” he said abruptly; “I don't mind the
shells and that; but I can't stick the mud. There's a lot o'
wounded die in the mud; can't get up—smothered.” His unwounded arm
made a restless movement. “I was nearly smothered myself. Just managed
to keep me nose up.”
Pierson shuddered. “Thank God you did!”
“Yes; I didn't like that. I told Mrs. Lynch about that one day when
I had the fever. She's a nice lady; she's seen a lot of us boys:
That mud's not right, you know.” And again his unwounded arm made
that restless movement; while the gramophone struck up: “The boys in
brown.” The movement of the arm affected Pierson horribly; he rose
and, touching the bandaged shoulder, said:
“Good-bye; I hope you'll soon be quite recovered.”
The young soldier's lips twisted in the semblance of a smile; his
drooped eyelid seemed to try and raise itself.
“Good day, sir,” he said; “and thank you.”
Pierson went back to the hall. The sunlight fell in a pool just inside
the open door, and an uncontrollable impulse made him move into it, so
that it warmed him up to the waist. The mud! How ugly life was! Life and
Death! Both ugly! Poor boys! Poor boys!
A voice behind him said:
“Oh! There you are, Edward! Would you like to see the other ward, or
shall I show you our kitchen?”
Pierson took her hand impulsively. “You're doing a noble work,
Leila. I wanted to ask you: Could you arrange for Noel to come and get
trained here? She wants to begin at once. The fact is, a boy she is
attracted to has just gone out to the Front.”
“Ah!” murmured Leila, and her eyes looked very soft. “Poor child!
We shall be wanting an extra hand next week. I'll see if she could
come now. I'll speak to our Matron, and let you know to-night.” She
squeezed his hand hard.
“Dear Edward, I'm so glad to see you again. You're the first of
our family I've seen for sixteen years. I wonder if you'd bring
Noel to have supper at my flat to-night—Just nothing to eat, you know!
It's a tiny place. There's a Captain Fort coming; a nice man.”
Pierson accepted, and as he walked away he thought: 'Dear Leila! I
believe it was Providence. She wants sympathy. She wants to feel the
past is the past. How good women are!'
And the sun, blazing suddenly out of a cloud, shone on his black figure
and the little gold cross, in the middle of Portland Place.
X
Men, even if they are not artistic, who have been in strange places
and known many nooks of the world, get the scenic habit, become open
to pictorial sensation. It was as a picture or series of pictures that
Jimmy Fort ever afterwards remembered his first supper at Leila's. He
happened to have been all day in the open, motoring about to horse farms
under a hot sun; and Leila's hock cup possessed a bland and subtle
strength. The scenic sense derived therefrom had a certain poignancy,
the more so because the tall child whom he met there did not drink it,
and her father seemed but to wet his lips, so that Leila and he had
all the rest. Rather a wonderful little scene it made in his mind,
very warm, glowing, yet with a strange dark sharpness to it, which came
perhaps from the black walls.
The flat had belonged to an artist who was at the war. It was but a
pocket dwelling on the third floor. The two windows of the little square
sitting-room looked out on some trees and a church. But Leila, who hated
dining by daylight, had soon drawn curtains of a deep blue over them.
The picture which Fort remembered was this: A little four-square table
of dark wood, with a Chinese mat of vivid blue in the centre, whereon
stood a silver lustre bowl of clove carnations; some greenish glasses
with hock cup in them; on his left, Leila in a low lilac frock, her neck
and shoulders very white, her face a little powdered, her eyes large,
her lips smiling; opposite him a black-clothed padre with a little
gold cross, over whose thin darkish face, with its grave pointed beard,
passed little gentle smiles, but whose deep sunk grey eyes were burnt
and bright; on his right, a girl in a high grey frock, almost white,
just hollowed at the neck, with full sleeves to the elbow, so that her
slim arms escaped; her short fair hair a little tumbled; her big grey
eyes grave; her full lips shaping with a strange daintiness round
every word—and they not many; brilliant red shades over golden lights
dotting the black walls; a blue divan; a little black piano flush with
the wall; a dark polished floor; four Japanese prints; a white ceiling.
He was conscious that his own khaki spoiled something as curious and
rare as some old Chinese tea-chest. He even remembered what they ate;
lobster; cold pigeon pie; asparagus; St. Ivel cheese; raspberries and
cream. He did not remember half so well what they talked of, except that
he himself told them stories of the Boer War, in which he had served
in the Yeomanry, and while he was telling them, the girl, like a child
listening to a fairy-tale, never moved her eyes from his face. He
remembered that after supper they all smoked cigarettes, even the tall
child, after the padre had said to her mildly, “My dear!” and she
had answered: “I simply must, Daddy, just one.” He remembered Leila
brewing Turkish coffee—very good, and how beautiful her white arms
looked, hovering about the cups. He remembered her making the padre sit
down at the piano, and play to them. And she and the girl on the divan
together, side by side, a strange contrast; with just as strange a
likeness to each other. He always remembered how fine and rare that
music sounded in the little room, flooding him with a dreamy beatitude.
Then—he remembered—Leila sang, the padre standing-by; and the tall
child on the divan bending forward over her knees, with her chin on her
hands. He remembered rather vividly how Leila turned her neck and looked
up, now at the padre, now at himself; and, all through, the delightful
sense of colour and warmth, a sort of glamour over all the evening; and
the lingering pressure of Leila's hand when he said good-bye and they
went away, for they all went together. He remembered talking a great
deal to the padre in the cab, about the public school they had both been
at, and thinking: 'It's a good padre—this!' He remembered how
their taxi took them to an old Square which he did not know, where the
garden trees looked densely black in the starshine. He remembered that
a man outside the house had engaged the padre in earnest talk, while the
tall child and himself stood in the open doorway, where the hall beyond
was dark. Very exactly he remembered the little conversation which then
took place between them, while they waited for her father.
“Is it very horrid in the trenches, Captain Fort?”
“Yes, Miss Pierson; it is very horrid, as a rule.”
“Is it dangerous all the time?”
“Pretty well.”
“Do officers run more risks than the men?”
“Not unless there's an attack.”
“Are there attacks very often?”
It had seemed to him so strangely primitive a little catechism, that he
had smiled. And, though it was so dark, she had seen that smile, for her
face went proud and close all of a sudden. He had cursed himself, and
said gently:
“Have you a brother out there?”
She shook her head.
“But someone?”
“Yes.”
Someone! He had heard that answer with a little shock. This child—this
fairy princess of a child already to have someone! He wondered if she
went about asking everyone these questions, with that someone in her
thoughts. Poor child! And quickly he said:
“After all, look at me! I was out there a year, and here I am with
only half a game leg; times were a lot worse, then, too. I often wish I
were back there. Anything's better than London and the War Office.”
But just then he saw the padre coming, and took her hand. “Good night,
Miss Pierson. Don't worry. That does no good, and there isn't half
the risk you think.”
Her hand stirred, squeezed his gratefully, as a child's would squeeze.
“Good night,” she murmured; “thank you awfully.”
And, in the dark cab again, he remembered thinking: 'Fancy that child!
A jolly lucky boy, out there! Too bad! Poor little fairy princess!'