I am so pleased that it has come about, my dearest Madge,” said Mrs
Harland. “I always hoped that Julian would take a fancy--I mean that
you--that you would come to think tenderly of Julian. It was the one
hope of my life. What should I have done if he had come to me with a
story of having fallen in love with one of those horrid modern young
women--the sort who are for ever having their names in the papers about
something or other--charities and things? Charity has become the most
effective means of self-advertisement in these days.”
“If he had come to you saying that he loved such a girl, you--you would
have loved her too, you dear old thing!” cried Madge, kissing her on
both cheeks.
“Madge, I’m ashamed of you,” said Mrs Harland with dignity--the dignity
of the lady with a grievance.
“It is of yourself you would feel ashamed if your son came to you with a
tale of loving a girl--any girl--and you failed to see her exactly with
his eyes,” laughed Madge. “But I know you are glad that your duty in
this respect is so easy: you have always loved me, haven’t you? How
could you help it? When I think of how naughty I used to be; of
the panes in the greenhouse I used to break, playing cricket with
Julian--panes that involved no penalties; when I think of your early
peas that I used to steal and eat raw out of the pods; when I think of
all the mischief I used to put poor Julian up to, usually giving him a
good lead over; and when I reflect that not once did I ever receive
more than a verbal reproof from you, then I know that you could not
help loving me,--it was not my fault that you did not think of me as the
greatest nuisance in the county.”
Mrs Harland laughed, though she had entered upon this interview with
the girl who was to be her daughter-in-law very seriously, and in by no
means a laughing spirit.
“I loved you always, because you were always a girl to be loved, and my
prayer day and night, dear, was that Julian would come to think so in
good time,” said she. “I was, I admit, slightly alarmed to find how
very friendly you and he always were: every one knows that nothing is so
fatal to falling in love as great friendliness.”
“Of course,” said Madge. “How funny it was that I should never think
about the matter at all! And yet I feel that I must always have loved
him, just as I do now. How could any one help it, my dearest mother?”
The fond mother of Julian Harland made no attempt to answer so difficult
a question. Some mothers may be able to formulate on economic grounds
how it is that young men do not find it impossible to resist the charms
of their numerous daughters; but the mother of an only son declines to
entertain the notion that he may fail to attract any girl who has had
the good fortune to appear attractive in his eyes. That was why Mrs
Harland fully acquiesced in Madge’s view of the irresistible qualities
of Julian.
“He is a good boy, he has never been otherwise than a good boy,” she
said. “Still--well, I know that his future is safe in your keeping, my
Madge.”
She had heard of extremely good boys making extremely undesirable
matches with young women in tobacconists’ shops. It would seem as if
every university town must be overflowing with tobacconists’ shops, and
as if every tobacconist’s shop must be overcrowded with attractive
young ladies; one reads so much (in books written by ladies) of the
undergraduate victims to tobacconists’ girls. She felt glad that her son
Julian had not come to her from Oxford with a story of having made
up his mind that he could only be entirely happy if married to one of
these. She felt that he had been a really good son in choosing
Madge Winston, the most beautiful girl in the county, rather than a
snub-nosed, golden-haired girl from behind a tobacconist’s counter. Yes,
he deserved great credit for his discrimination.
“And I am doubly glad that you have become engaged just now,” she
continued. “You will keep him at home, Madge.”
“He has never shown any tendency to roam again,” said Madge, with an
inquiring look into Mrs Harland’s eyes. “He has often said that having
had his tiger-shooting in Kashmir, he is perfectly satisfied.”
“It was not that sort of shooting that was in my mind,” said Mrs
Harland. “But his father was a soldier--my father was a soldier. Look
round the hall, Madge--nothing but uniforms in every picture. That is
why----”
“You are afraid that if this war breaks out in earnest----”
“That’s it--that’s it. He belongs to a race of soldiers. There has not
been a war since Blenheim between England and any other Power in which a
Harland and a Severn have not fought.”
“That is a splendid thing to be able to say; and yet Julian was content
with his Militia. Isn’t that strange?”
“It was for my sake, dearest Madge. I saw in his face before he was
sixteen the old racial longing to be a soldier, and I made an appeal to
him. He put his career away from him for my sake, Madge. He promised to
stay at home with me in my loneliness.”
“You were able to make such an appeal to him?” There was a suggestion
of surprise in the girl’s voice, and it carried with it a curious
suggestion of coldness as well.
“Was it selfish of me--was it, Madge? Oh! I dare say it was. Yes, it
must have been selfish; but think of my position, dear. He is all I have
in the world now. What would life be worth to me if he were away, or if
he were in danger? And then, think of his responsibilities. The property
is not a large one, and it requires careful treatment. You don’t think
that I was unreasonable, Madge?”
“Oh no, no,” said the girl. “You were right, quite right; only----”
“Only--only what, dear?” said Mrs Harland. “What is on my mind exactly
at this moment,” said Madge, “is, that I--I would not have been strong
enough to say that to him.”
“To say what to him, Madge?”
“What you said--to ask him to stay at home when he had his heart set
on being a soldier, as his father and as his grandfathers were. Even
now--but what’s the use of discussing a situation that cannot arise?
Even if the war breaks out, he is only a Militia captain, so that he
cannot be called on for duty in a campaign.”
“Of course, the war will be over in a month or two, and there is no
chance of the Militia being called out; but it is just for the next
month or so that I have my fears--my fears, I should say. I have none
now that I know that you have promised to make him happy--to make _me_
happy. I had my fears that at the first sound of the trumpet in his
ears all the instincts of his house... Look at those uniforms in every
picture round the hall.... Ah, I was afraid that he might ask me to
release him from his promise.”
“And you knew that you would have released him without a word of demur,”
said Madge. “You know that you would do so, for you belong to a fighting
house, too. Bless me, I’m the only representative of civilianism among
you all. Oh, it is high time that the fighting Severns and the fighting
Harlands got a pacific element introduced among them.”
“That is what I feel,” said Mrs Harland. “Madge, you will not allow him
ever to yield to that tradition of his house. I feel that so long as
he is by your side he is safe. One campaign at least will take place
without a descendant of the Harlands having anything to do with it.”
Before Madge had time to make a reply the gravel of the drive was sent
flying against the lowest panes of the room by the feet of a horse
reined in suddenly.
“Julian has returned with some important news,” said Madge, glancing
outside.
In another instant a man’s step sounded in the porch, and Julian Harland
entered the old oak hall with a newspaper in the same hand that held his
hunting crop.
“It has come at last!” he cried. “War! war! war!”
“England has declared war against the Transvaal!” said Madge.
“On the contrary, it is Mr Kruger, the Boer farmer, who has declared war
against Great Britain!” said he.
“Poor Mr Kruger!” said Madge.
“I am sorry--very sorry! War is terrible! I know what war means,” said
Mrs Harland.
“Sorry!--sorry!” cried her son. “Why, what is there to be grieved,
about? You’re not a friend of Mr Kruger’s, mother?”
“I know what war means,” said she.
“And I don’t,” said he.
There was something in his voice that suggested a sigh, and it seemed
that he was aware of this himself, for he threw his riding crop into a
corner, and cried out quite cheerily--“I’m happy to feel all the springs
of domesticity welling up within my bosom since you made me the happiest
chap in the county, my Madge. I have no greater ambition than to sit in
a chair at one side of the fire with you to look at, my Madge. How
rosy you are, my dear. What is keeping the lunch, mother? We must drink
together ‘Confusion to Kruger!’ His ultimatum--fancy a half-caste Dutch
peasant having the impudence to write an ultimatum to Great Britain!--it
expires to-day. We’ll not leave the hall till we are sure it has
expired.”
He continued in this excited strain during lunch, and Madge found that
she too was in the same vein. War was in the air, and while the crowds
in London were cheering aloud and singing “God Save the Queen!” with
flashing eyes, the little group of three at the table in that old
Somerset hall stood up and drank to the success of the Queen’s soldiers
in South Africa. Around them on the oak panels were the pictures
of Harlands in red coats, Harlands in blue coats, Harlands in
the demi-armour of the Stuarts, Harlands in the chain mail of the
Lancastrians. Every man of them carried a sword and kept his eyes fixed
on the living head of their house sternly, anxiously.
And that was why Julian, after drinking to the toast which he had given
a moment before, remained on his feet with his glass still in his hand,
and with his eyes looking from picture to picture as though he had never
seen one of them previously in his life.
His mother watched him, so did Madge.
The glass dropped from his hand and was smashed in pieces on the floor,
and he fell back into his chair and gave a loud laugh.
“That’s Kruger!” he cried: “smashed!--smashed!--beyond recovery!--beyond
coaguline--smashed--and without a Harland raising his hand against
him,--that’s what they are saying--those Harlands that have had their
eyes fixed on me, as if I needed their prompting. Come along, sweet
womenfolk, and have a look at the sundial that Rogers unearthed when
digging the new rose-bed, where the remains of the old maze were,--the
date is carved on it, 1472 a.d. Just think of it, hidden for perhaps
three hundred years and only unearthed yesterday, at the very hour that
you promised to be my own Madge! A good omen! What does it mean except
that a new era for the old house is beginning? Come along, my dearest.”
There was no great alacrity in Madge’s response to his challenge.