called for him at the Admiralty. "This is a sad business about Jim. I
was very sorry for you all."
"You don't think there's any hope?"
"I tell his mother and sister that he's sure to turn up. If you ask me
whether I believe what I say.... It _is_ a holocaust and a half! O'Rane,
Jim, Tom Dainton, Summertown--Lady Maitland's eldest boy is back
wounded. And with the rest you feel it's only a question of time. Val
Arden lunched with me three days before he was killed, and I felt that
he _wanted_ to be killed. The thing had got on his nerves till he knew
he couldn't stand much more of it without going out of his mind. Other
people, again, seem to take the war like a game of rather irregular
football." He hesitated and then tried to go on without allowing a
change to come into his voice. "Jack Waring came to see me last week,
and I'd swear that he was enjoying the whole thing."
Barbara's pulses hammered at sound of the name, and she dreaded to seem
too nonchalant.
"How was he?" she asked, though it was rather of Val Arden that she was
thinking. Perhaps Jack, too, welcomed the chance of having everything
ended for him. She remembered that his eyes had suddenly shone, when
George came, grave-faced, into the banqueting-hall; he was making plans
for taking a commission three days before war was declared and three
minutes after he left her. It was in truth a new emotion to feel that
she might have driven him to constructive suicide....
"Positively keen to get back," said George. "Didn't...?" He was going
to ask, in some surprise, whether she had not seen him; the ball at
Chepstow seemed to have healed any breach between them. But it was not
his business. "Your mother tells me that your hospital is being closed,"
he substituted.
"Closed?" Barbara echoed in dismay.
"The War Office finds it difficult to work."
"But mother never told me! Oh, George! that's too awful! I can't get on
without it. I _must_ have something to keep me busy. If I start
thinking----"
His eyes opened so wide that she checked herself.
"My dear, the war's getting on your nerves," he said significantly.
"Doesn't Lady Crawleigh----?"
Barbara blamed herself bitterly for letting her voice get out of
control; it was always happening....
"George, promise me you won't say you've seen me!" she begged. "I didn't
tell them I was going to be in London. I know I'm disgracing you by
looking like this, but, if mother saw me, she'd take me away; and I
should die, if I didn't have work to do."
"I see. Well, I'm not a doctor, but you'll die remarkably soon at your
present rate. D'you know what I'm going to do when we leave here?"
"Drop me at Cartier's, I hope."
"If you like. And that's handy for Berkeley Square. I'm going to your
mother and I'm going to tell her what I think of your general
condition."
"George, if you do that, I'll never speak to you again! And really, you
know, it _isn't_ any business of yours."
"Except that I happen to be very fond of you. And, if you get ill....
Dear Barbara, to please me, will you see your doctor before you go back
to hospital?"
Barbara had so long looked on George as a kindly and comfortable bit of
universal family furniture that she was startled by the unexpected
softening of his voice. Perhaps he, too, felt that it was time to
cultivate a heart and to fall in love. She smiled with an approach to
happiness. Any hint of tenderness in a man's voice made her like a
flower opening its petals to the sun.
"D'you like me, George?" she asked.
"Not when you're looking like this. Now I only want to slap you and send
you to bed. Will you go to your doctor?"
"If you like, I'll say that I'm going to him----" she began.
"That's all I want," he interrupted. "If you gave a promise, however
extravagant, I should know that you'd always keep it."
She raised her eyes to his and looked swiftly away.
On the day after her return to the Abbey, the hospital was filled with
rumour and gossip. No new cases were to be taken; and, as soon as the
last bed was empty, commandant and doctors, nurses and orderlies were to
be transferred to the new government hospital at Sunbury. Lady Crawleigh
came down without warning to arrange for the reconversion of the house.
In the middle of the afternoon she went into Barbara's room to find her
with drooping mouth and wet eyes, crying in her sleep. The commandant
was flushed from her office and invited to explain; without waiting for
the hospital to be closed, Barbara was personally conducted to London
and sent under the care of Lord Crawleigh's sister to the sea. She made
no resistance; she did not even tell her parents that she was twenty-one
and that she refused to be ordered about. She seemed no longer to matter
either to herself or to any one else....
Before coming off duty for the last time, she said good-bye to each of
her patients and found herself presented at the first bed with a
pendant.
"We had to get it in rather a hurry," explained the spokesman. "But we
hope you'll like it. We all wish you weren't going, Lady Barbara. It's
not worth being in hospital without you."
"You dears, _I_ wish I wasn't going," Barbara cried with a quaver in her
voice. "Good-bye, and bless you all! No, I _won't_ let you kiss my hand!
I'll kiss yours."
She walked from bed to bed, smiling until she reached the door; then her
composure deserted her, and she ran out crying. It was her fate to make
people fall in love with her, whether she tried or not--her fate, too,
never to be in love with any one herself. Jim, of course, would have
called this another experiment in emotion; he would have been very
scornful about the presentation and her tearful farewell, reminding her
that Florence Nightingale, her great prototype, had her shadow kissed,
as she passed down the ward. And next day, as she might almost have
foreseen, there were photographs of her in uniform: "_Lady Barbara
Neave, who has been doing splendid war-work at Lady Crawleigh's hospital
in Hampshire._" For the first time in her life she wanted to be left
alone and unnoticed, so that she could get into a train or walk about in
London without being recognized.
Under the hourly care of a doctor she was no longer allowed to keep
herself awake for fear of dreaming. But there was nothing to occupy her
by day, and she brooded eternally on the workings of Jack's mind. A
letter from Sonia started the train.
"_Bobs darling, the bracelet is divine! Thank you ever so much for it! I
didn't write before, because we've been so frightfully busy. I expect
you saw that we were married last week. Babs, I'm so happy! I'm at_
PEACE _now. With David I feel so secure. I always_ USED _to think that I
should feel circumscribed, but the_ COMPANIONSHIP'S _so wonderful that I
don't want anything more. At least, I want to have children--lots and
lots of them; and I want David to go on loving me, as he does now; and I
want it always to be summer. But I wouldn't change David for any one in
the world; and I wouldn't be_ NOT _married._
"_Looking back on it all, I don't_ REGRET _anything and I suppose I
enjoyed myself, but it seems rather hollow now. We shall lead a very
quiet, humdrum life and we shall be frightfully poor, but I think that's
where the_ PEACE _comes in. If I'd married poor Jim--though I know he'd
have been the most adoring husband--I don't believe the privilege of
being 'the beautiful Lady Loring' (if anybody had troubled to call me
that!) would have compensated all the ceremony and fuss. I never felt a
thousandth part of the love for Jim that I feel for David. I suppose
that's the difference. All I ask now is to have David's love for ever
and to give him every ounce of mine and to make our lives one. It's a
silly thing to say, but, before I married, I never imagined how
extraordinarily two lives DO become one. We each of us know what the
other's thinking of; we carry on conversations where we only seem to_
SPEAK _one sentence in three--everything else is understood. My dear, we
are so happy! You know how I love you, Babs; I only hope that you'll be
as happy as I am._"
For all its irritating italics and ill-defined emotion, the letter
unsettled Barbara. She, too, would like to have children--"lots and lots
of them"; the papers pretended that this was an age-old world-instinct
and that Woman--in the abstract--was being impelled by an abstract
Nature to repair the life-wastage of the war; hence they deduced the
absurd scandal of the "war-babies," thus they explained the abundant
crop of "war weddings." Barbara's intelligence rebelled against
world-instincts as much as against abstract Woman and abstract Nature.
She wanted children because she wanted something of her own to love, and
her untapped reservoir of devotion had overflowed when she was nursing
the boys who pretended that nothing was the matter, when she could see
their eyelids flickering with pain. She yearned to lay their heads on
her breast and tell them to cry because it would do them good and
because she wanted to comfort them.
And she did not see why Sonia should have so much happiness.... "_We
were married.... We've been so frightfully busy.... We shall lead a very
quiet, humdrum life and we shall be frightfully poor.... We each of us
know what the other's thinking of...._" Barbara writhed at the
possessive, participating plural. She was ready to be poor and to live a
quiet humdrum life, if she could share it; she appreciated the _peace_
of marriage, so often underlined by Sonia, because it was what she
hungered to feel. Eight months had passed since Jack went abroad, twelve
since they parted. When she heard that he had been home on leave without
communicating with her, she felt sure that he would never communicate
with her; but, when the war ended, she must tender her promise again. In
the meantime she might fall in love with some one else....
The memory of Jack in the banqueting-hall at Chepstow was replaced by a
picture in which he stood, silent and forbidding, between her and some
one whom she strove passionately to reach. The image haunted her until
she jettisoned her last fragments of pride and wrote to him again.
"_I sent you a letter nearly a year ago and I have never had an
answer_," she began. "_I don't think you can have read it, because it
would be such a horribly cruel way of punishing me, if you read it and
paid no attention. I don't think I asked for mercy or forgiveness,
because I didn't deserve either; but, though I behaved unforgivably, I_
DIDN'T _appreciate until it was too late quite what I was doing and
quite how much you loved me. I don't want you to think I'm_ EXCUSING
_myself; I want you to understand that perhaps I do appreciate rather
better now and that I'm ready, as I was then, to do anything in the
world that you ask. I've taken a solemn oath. You may accept it
generously or refuse it generously; or, if you like, you can just
humiliate me--you know I'm vain and you know that's where you can punish
me best. Don't play with me! Sometimes I think I'm going out of my mind.
I want you to be just and, if you can, to be generous; it will be
generosity, if you are able to say that you forgive me, and it will be
justice, if you remember that I apologize and ask to be forgiven and
offer to do anything that you want--and that there's nothing more I_ CAN
_do. I don't_ DESERVE _consideration, but I need it_."
Barbara knew that she was too uncertain of herself to trust her own
judgement, and the letter was put aside until her mood of abject
humility had passed. When she read it again, the terms of her own
abasement set her cheeks flaming, but there was no other way of winning
peace. She allowed five days for the letter to reach him and another
five days for a reply. For the first two nights she never slept; on the
third day Dr. Gaisford was summoned, and that afternoon she was
despatched to the sea for another three weeks' rest. While there, the
tenth day came and went without any reply. Barbara added an eleventh,
because letters lost a day in forwarding. It was no less barren than its
predecessors, but news came in an unexpected form on the twelfth.
"_George has been dining_," wrote Lady Crawleigh, "_and I'm sorry to
say that he was once again the bearer of bad nexus. Poor Jack Waring is
the latest. He is reported missing. George had it from the family,
though it hasn't appeared in the papers as yet, and he told us in case
we wanted to send a line of sympathy. I don't know Mrs. Waring, of
course, but I felt I had to tell how sorry we all were. She replied at
once with what I thought was a very brave letter. It's a great shock,
but she's quite convinced that he's all right. Well, I'm afraid that,
after our dear Jim's death, I don't put any faith in these 'missing'
cases...._"
Before she got to the end of her mother's letter, Barbara knew that her
first and strongest feeling was relief, though she dared not put it into
words. She wondered for the thousandth time why she had allowed Jack to
gain so strong an influence over her, then ceased wondering for fear of
persuading herself that perhaps, after all, she had loved him.... And,
if there _were_ immortal souls, if a man died with a lie to God still
unexpiated....
On her return to London she sought details from Oakleigh, but he could
only tell her that the company had been almost entirely wiped out. Two
subalterns were reported to be prisoners; but the Warings had received
no news of Jack, nor did the subalterns mention him.
"I'm afraid he's gone, too," George sighed. Then he took her hand and
pressed it gently. "I can't say anything that will do any good----"
"When will they know for certain?" Barbara interrupted. She was shocked
to find him treating this as her exclusive, personal loss.
"Well, you never know for certain until some one reports that he's
actually seen him dead. That, of course, was what happened with Jim.
Until then, I suppose, one _is_ justified in hoping...."
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE ANSWER OF THE ORACLE
"Why, which of those who say they disbelieve,
Your clever people, but has dreamed his dream,
Caught his coincidence, stumbled on his fact
He can't explain, (he'll tell you smilingly)
Which he's too much of a philosopher
To count as supernatural, indeed,
So calls a puzzle and problem, proud of it
Bidding you still be on your guard, you know,
Because one fact don't make a system stand,
Nor prove this an occasional escape
Of spirit beneath the matter: that's the way!
Just so wild Indians picked up, piece by piece,
The fact in California, the fine gold
That underlay the gravel--hoarded these,
But never made a system stand, nor dug!
So wise men hold out in each hollowed palm
A handful of experience, sparkling fact
They can't explain; and since their rest of life
Is all explainable, what proof in this?"
ROBERT BROWNING: 'MR. SLUDGE, "THE MEDIUM."'
It was not until his name appeared in the Roll of Honour as "missing"
that Barbara appreciated how eagerly discussed she and Jack had been.
The discreet sympathy of her relations would have been bewildering if
Lady Knightrider had not explained it.
"I hurried round the moment I had the news! My darling child, you've got
to be very brave!" she faltered. "I know what you and Jack were to each
other."
"Aunt Kathleen, I don't think I can talk about this," Barbara
interrupted quietly.
"No...? It sometimes helps. I was always very fond of dear Jack, and
you _know_ how I love you! But I only came to tell you that you mustn't
give up hope----"
"Thank you, dear!"
Barbara realized suddenly that she was being forced into an assumed
intimacy which would have been comic at any other time. It was
impossible, however, to begin explaining to Lady Knightrider.
"Did you see him when he was home on leave?" her aunt continued with the
persistency of one who, having come to harrow and to be harrowed, did
not propose to be baulked.
"I've not seen him since that time a year ago."
"Ah, no! You've both been so busy. His poor parents----"
"They're the people to be sorry for," said Barbara.
"Darling, you're quite wonderful!"
Barbara had used the words to deflect the conversation from herself, but
her aunt gave her credit for such stoicism that she took a step towards
the door for fear that in another moment she would break into a scream.
Lady Knightrider followed her, and in the hall they met George Oakleigh,
embarrassed and trying to carry off his embarrassment with an air of
earnest bustle.
"I'm absolutely at a loose end to-night, Barbara," he began. "I believe
somebody must have made peace or something; the Admiralty's not been as
slack as this since the first day of the war. I wondered whether you'd
care to come and have dinner somewhere."
"It's sweet of you, George, but I've promised to dine with Aunt Eleanor
and Amy. Is to-morrow any good to you?"
"I believe I'm dining out, but I can scratch that. Yes, to-morrow. I'll
come and pick you up about eight. Now I must simply fly!"
"Back to work? I thought things were so slack?"
"M'yes, I said that, didn't I?"
"And it served its purpose. They'll be slack whenever I say that I want
you; and you'll sit up half the night afterwards. Thank you, George. But
I wish you didn't make me feel so horribly unworthy of your sweetness."
He turned away and fidgetted with the badge of his cap.
"'Sweetness' be blowed! This war's such a ghastly business.... Sometimes
one wants a little companionship. I'm glad you can come to-morrow. Keep
a brave heart, Barbara."
It seemed sacrilegious to accept so much sympathy, and, as he hurried
into Berkeley Street, she was tempted to run after him and explain. Once
she read of some one who murdered a man and went to the widowed mother
to confess his crime; his delicacy in telling her of the death caused
him to be regarded as her son's dearest friend, and, when the murder
went undiscovered, the murderer accepted the situation and attended the
funeral as chief mourner, with the widowed mother leaning on his arm....
If Lady Knightrider and George fancied that she had loved Jack, she must
accept the situation; it might be sacrilegious, but, on the other hand,
if any one said "Did you love Jack Waring?" she could not honestly give
a categorical "No."...
And there would be more sympathy--and sacrilege--at dinner. Barbara knew
that she had only been invited that Lady Loring and Amy might try to
comfort her. Neither referred to Jack by name; but they were more gently
affectionate than usual, and she was left to discuss him or not, as she
liked. Lady Loring told of the steps which she had taken and the offices
which she had approached to gain tidings of her son. George had set
enquiries on foot through the Spanish and American Embassies, the
Vatican and The Hague; but they were barely instituted, when the War
Office received indisputable evidence of death.
"Connie Maitland was very anxious for me to go to a clairvoyant," Amy
put in. "She says Mrs. Savage in Knightsbridge is wonderful. When her
boy was wounded--before she heard about it--she had a sort of
presentiment that something was wrong, so she went there, and Mrs.
Savage told her that he was wounded but that it wasn't serious. I
believe she actually said that he was wounded in the head, but Connie
may have added that."
"Did you try her?" asked Barbara.
"No." Amy hesitated and looked uncomfortable. "I'm always afraid.... I
believe, if we were _meant_ to have that kind of knowledge it would come
to us in some other way.... And, if anything terrible's going to happen
to me, I'd sooner not hear about it beforehand."
Barbara whispered the name to herself and determined, if need be, to
find out more about the woman. Since her tragic _séance_ in Webster's
flat, she had decided to play with fire no more; but she could never
forget the sight of Jack Summertown, staring a little glassily but
speaking with his natural voice and talking so freely of an imminent war
and of his own approaching death that none dared tell him what he had
said. It might be coincidence that his name had appeared in the first
casualty list; but more than coincidence was needed to explain why he
should have talked at all of a future war.
"But uncertainty's the most terrible thing of all," Barbara murmured.
"It _has_ to be borne," said Lady Loring gently, after a pause. "And
sometimes for a long time."
Barbara nodded. It was useless to tell them that she had already waited
a year to find out whether Jack wanted to marry her.
The next night she dined with George Oakleigh, who told her that he had
taken tickets for Eric Lane's play.
"Oh, George, I don't know that I _want_ to go to a theatre," she said
doubtfully. "I've not been for so long----"
"Isn't that all the more reason? You're the best unpaid dramatic critic
in London; and I want to know what you think of it. Eric's a great
friend of mine. I particularly want you to meet him.... Don't come, if
you'd rather not. But I've got a box, and, if the play bores you more
than my conversation, we can talk in peace."
They compromised by arriving late, but Barbara was not in the mood to
enjoy herself. It was a well-constructed play with dialogue of
distinction and a good sense of the theatre; the characterization, she
complained, was insufferably romantic.
"I congratulate your friend on a great commercial success," she said,
"but I don't want to meet him. Listen to the applause! Every single
character is so unmistakably labelled that the audience greets them like
old friends. The theatre's so conventional that, if you tried to shew
men and women who were higher _and_ lower than stage standards, the
critics would say that your characters were freaks. On the stage a woman
may be jealous or high-minded or a mixture or a saint or a
thorough-going, melodramatic villainess, but she's always a child, a
kitten. Men idealize us so hopelessly! We're dear little fluffy, rather
silly things, with silly little mental kinks of vanity or motherliness;
no man understands how mean a woman can be, the lies she'll tell and the
crimes she'll commit from motives which she'd be afraid to confess. Your
friend Mr. Lane has never met a woman."
"You're hard on your sex," George commented.
Barbara shook her head sadly.
"I've seen it--without its rouge and powder. Look here, Sonia's a friend
of yours and of mine; we both know how she behaved to Jim, but you'd
never dare put her into a play, because the audience won't accept
anything that offends against its standard of human dignity, it won't
accept realism which makes people unconventionally mean, it won't
believe that any one who's pretty enough to attract can have a really
deceitful, petty spirit. Sonia was getting rather a bad name before the
war, but she marries a man who's lost his sight, and every one says that
the other part was just froth and that this is the true, noble
Sonia--just as nine women out of ten become true and noble at the final
curtain. Sonia married that man for effect!"
"I don't think you can have seen them together," George suggested.
"If it pays, a woman can always make herself think she's in love with a
man--for a time. I daresay she thought she was in love with Jim; it
would have been a sensational marriage, and she'd just made a fool of
herself with that other man, the barrister. This, in another way, is a
sensational marriage, and she feels she's justified herself. It's no
good shaking your head, George; you don't know what romances a girl
makes up for herself. _I_ should do it. As long as women are exposed for
sale in a shop-window, they'll do anything to keep up their price. They
think it's self-respect; and you men admire them for their pride."
George drew her hand through his arm and walked to Berkeley Square
without speaking. From her unwonted bitterness he guessed that she was
trying to harden herself in advance for the news of Jack's death; every
one had to choose his own form of consolation.
"When will you dine with me again?" she asked, as they reached her
house.
"I'm going to the Abbey for the week-end. Any time after that."
"Then what about Monday? I'll pick you up at the same time."
When the day came round, Lady Crawleigh telephoned to say that the
dinner must be postponed, as Barbara was ill in bed. She had fainted in
the train and would have to take a complete rest; no plans had yet been
made, no details or explanation were vouchsafed. Indeed, Barbara would
only say that she had found herself stretched on the seat of the railway
carriage, while a strange man forced brandy between her lips.