On the day of the famous “Armistice,” old Mr. Durham did what was for
him an unusual thing--he went to London. Moreover he rose so early and
went off so surreptitiously that “Riverside Sam” opined “there must be
something in the wind.” What that “something” was could not be divined,
but the pretty little “Sentimentalist,” finding him gone when she
called, as was her morning custom, at his cottage, was made somewhat
anxious by his sudden departure. However there was no means of allaying
her anxiety, as the one old cook-housekeeper who “managed” the cottage
for him “didn’t know nothink” as she averred, except that “he’d got up,
’ad his coffee and went out,” telling her not to expect him home till
the following day as he was going to town on business. The fair Sylvia
heard this explanation, but was scarcely satisfied. It was not like him,
she thought, to rush off suddenly to London without at least calling to
see Dr. Maynard and telling him of his intended absence for a couple of
days. And she,--like “Riverside Sam,”--felt there must be “something in
the wind.”
On this particular day she happened to be very much alone. The
Philosopher had taken himself off to Oxford almost as suddenly as old
Durham had taken himself off to London,--her father was engrossed in the
writing of an article for the dullest of monthly magazines, and the
whole house was curiously silent. Far away in the great metropolis the
sirens and guns had announced the “Armistice,”--that cessation of battle
which appeared to make the German foe consider himself the victor,--but
here in the heart of a quiet country there was a wonderful
stillness--the lovely stillness of far-stretching fields and the
slow-winding river,--a stillness too which suggested the monotony of
life without some stirring action or emotion to vibrate through its
tranquillity. And, for some inexplicable reason the usually well-braced
and cheerful spirit of the Sentimentalist began to droop,--a cloud of
melancholy darkened her mind, and she pictured herself alone--always
alone!--alone in the old Manor house, stitching at her embroidery or
working in her garden, with nothing further to look forward to but just
placid comfort and well-being for the rest of her days! Surely she could
never stand it! Better to marry the Philosopher and rub up against all
his odd humours and eccentricities, than have nothing whatever to move
her out of the rut of the easy commonplace! Better perhaps to become a
“loud” woman like some of the modern vulgar,--women who stoop to the
baseness of betraying their friends’ confidences and publishing them in
“rag” newspapers for so much cash down,--better to be a “film” star (or
tallow-dip!) than live wholly without any sort of “sensation”! And
yet!--she raised her eyes and saw a warm shaft of the sun strike on a
bunch of brown sedges near the river, flecking the whole plant with
gold, and close by on a leafless twig, a robin perched, looking at her
with its fearless bright eyes, and ruffling its bonny crimson breast,
and as she saw this little “phrase” of nature, this wordless speech
which means so much to the simple heart and pure mind, her mood changed
and brightened.
“After all I’d rather live a dull life than a low one!” she said to
herself. “I’d rather be honest than mean! I wouldn’t like to look at
myself in the glass and know that I was a despicable little
scandal-monger, raking up stories about my friends and sneering at them
and taking money for doing it! That sort of thing may be ‘sensational’
but it’s disgraceful! And as for films and ‘stars,’ I hope they’ll all
go out one day and never come back! And I’ll be content as I am--I’ve so
much to be thankful for!--and if Jack ever comes home--”
She broke off in her musings here, being called by her father. She ran
off to obey the summons, and was soon busy with the various trifles he
wanted in the way of string, sealing-wax and a long envelope in which to
enclose his magazine article for the post. The old gentleman looked very
cheerful, and rubbed his hands joyously over “Armistice Day.”
“They’ve stopped killing each other for the time being,” he said. “And
_that’s_ a mercy! Dear, dear! What fools men are, to be sure! As if any
Governmental quarrel should be settled by the murdering of innocent men!
There’s no sense of justice in it.”
“But is there any justice in anything?” queried Sylvia, with sadness in
her tone as she put the question. “It doesn’t seem to me that there is!”
Her father looked at her tenderly.
“Anything the matter, little girl?” he asked. “You don’t seem very
bright! What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,--really nothing!” she answered, quickly. “Only--I find it hard
to believe in justice when such dreadful cruelties happen as have been
happening in the war,--when innocent people are killed, and men torture
each other in every imaginable way--”
“Yet justice is done,” said Dr. Maynard, gravely. “Sooner or
later,--believe that, my dear! For all the lives wasted there will be a
reckoning--not in _our_ way, but in God’s way! We must not doubt that
Right is the ruling power, always bound to come uppermost!”
“It seems very long in coming sometimes,” she murmured, then suddenly
and in a timid voice she said: “Dad dear!--do you know--can you
imagine--that Mr. Craig has asked me to marry him?”
Dr. Maynard smiled.
“Oh, he has, has he? Well, I’m not surprised! And you,--what did you say
to him?”
“I said ‘No,’” she replied. “I asked him not to go on with
it--but--but--of course--I feel he has done me a great honour.”
The old scholar looked meditative.
“Um--um--perhaps he has--and perhaps he hasn’t! We men are apt to think
too much of ourselves, and you women are prone to think too much of us!
Craig is a clever fellow--but--well!--he’s a _leetle_ old for you, my
pretty one!--just a _leetle_ worn and battered in the battle of life to
be the husband of a small fairy like you! So that the ‘honour’ of his
asking you to marry him doesn’t seem so great to my mind as the ‘honour’
of your accepting him--if you _did_!--which you won’t!”
“Which I won’t!” and she slipped a loving arm round his neck. “You’re
sure of that, Dad? How do you know?”
He put one hand under her chin and turned her sweet face up to his own.
“How do I know?” he echoed, and laughed as he spoke. “Why, because
you’re not in love with him! God bless my soul! Do you think I’m such an
old noodle as not to know when a girl’s in love?--and my own little
girlie too! There, there! You can’t play bo-peep with _me_! He has
proposed to you--well and good!--it’s a bit of a cheek on his part, but
never mind that!--and you’ve thought it might be a good thing for you to
be established in life as the wife of a distinguished Oxford
man,--but--see here, my child!” And his bantering tone changed to one of
earnest and tender gravity. “We are living in queer times--this old
world has got a shock straight to the heart in this war, and men and
women are drifting away from the faith of their forefathers--the faith
and right principle which made Britain ‘Great.’ Don’t go with the fatal
‘swim,’ Sylvia!--it’s bound to end in a whirlpool of trouble. Keep to
the straight lines of life,--and one of those straight lines is love.
Love, my little one!--nothing but real, pure love can make a woman happy
in marriage.”
Sylvia nestled close to him.
“Dear Dad! You are quite eloquent!” she said, and smiled up into his
eyes. “And you don’t think I’m in love with your distinguished friend?”
He laughed.
“Not a bit!” he replied. “Nor is he really in love with you! He thinks
you a pretty little armful of charms--which you _are_--but he wouldn’t
know how to treat you as a wife, nor would he know how to treat _any_
wife! He’s past all that. His habits are settled, and he wouldn’t change
them to please any woman!”
“No, I suppose he wouldn’t!” she murmured meditatively. “And those
habits are rather trying--sometimes!”
Her father laughed again.
“Of course they are! The habits of bookworms are always trying! _I’m_ a
bookworm. _My_ habits are trying!”
“No, they’re not!” And she linked her arms round his neck and hugged
him. “No, Dad, you’re just the dearest and best man in the world to me!
You know that, don’t you?”
“Well, you make me believe so!” he answered, submitting to her caresses
with a very good grace. “But when the gout is on me--”
“Ah, that’s not _you_!” she declared, lovingly. “That’s the gout _only_!
You’re not in it!”
“I wish I were not!” he responded. “But I tell you what, Sylvia,--it’s
less violent than it was. Craig has certainly helped me to ignore it--if
he hadn’t kept me at work--”
“Ah, yes! ‘The Deterioration of Language!’” smiled Sylvia. “You must
both be sorry that it is nearly finished--that great book!”
“It _is_ a great book!” he agreed, triumphantly. “And it’s a book that’s
wanted. Language is getting more and more deteriorated every day. When
you see the press circulating the vilest slang--such as ‘the blinkin’
this, that, or t’other’--the ‘bally’ rag of some special thing, and
women, passing for ‘ladies,’ talk of ‘tommy rot’ in ordinary
conversation, surely it’s time some protest was made! A slangy nation is
always a decadent one--purity of speech is the result of purity of
thought, while coarse language expresses coarseness of mind and morals.”
The old scholar was wandering off on his favourite theme and turned to
get a book to confirm what he was saying. His daughter stood watching
him for a moment,--then suddenly, in a hushed tone she said:
“Dad, do you think Jack Durham is really killed?”
He looked at her thoughtfully and kindly.
“Do I think so? My dear, I don’t know what to think--but so far as my
own impressions go, I rather feel that he’s alive. Of course all the
facts are against me,--all the same I cannot realise anything else. It
seems to me impossible that he should be dead. I know there are
thousands of young fellows like him who are gone--more’s the
pity!--but”--here he paused and stretching out a hand drew his daughter
tenderly towards him--“I suppose you were really fond of him?”
She hesitated, then spoke in rather a hushed tone.
“Yes, Dad--I think I was,--I think I _am_! And yet--do you know I never
thought of being fond of him till your friend, the Philosopher”--and she
smiled--“came on the scene. I really was quite taken with _him_!--he
rather made a sort of love to me for a time, and I was quite proud that
such a clever man should even _seem_ to like me. But after a while, such
ugly sides of his character began to show--he could be so rough and
rude--and--and--_selfish_! that I began to dislike him, as much as I had
once liked him. And Jack--”
“Well?” interpolated her father, gently. “And Jack?’
“Jack was always kind,” she said, “and quite _un_selfish. He told me
before he went away that he was fond of me--but he would not bind me to
any promise or engagement--he left me quite free. Only one thing seemed
to trouble him a little--he hoped I would not marry the Philosopher!”
“And yet you had some vague idea of doing it!” laughed her father.
“Only vague!” she responded. “Very vague!”
“Suppose the worst--that Jack is really gone--would you marry Craig?”
She thought a moment, then answered--
“No, I don’t think I could!”
“Right! You’d be a fool if you did! Dear child, you know what I’ve told
you before this--there’s only one right way of marriage and that is
great love on both sides. It’s no good playing with a sacrament. The
thousands of miserable marriages and divorces are ample proofs of the
mistakes men and women make in taking each other for better or worse on
the strength of a mere ‘fancy,’ or by way of monetary convenience. Now
I”--he paused--“I _loved_ your mother!--loved her above everything in
the world!--and I know she loved _me_! She gave me YOU!--and though I
may be a testy old fellow at times I love you next best to Her. And I
want you to be happy, my little girl!--and for your sake I hope Jack
Durham is _not_ killed. He’s not particularly clever--but I believe his
heart is in the right place, and that he would make you a kind husband.
Kindness is better than all the intellectual brilliancy in the world!”
He kissed her with lingering fondness, and then with an air of shaking
off his mood of seriousness, resumed his groping among his books.
“And so Durham has gone to town?” he suddenly queried, looking round.
“Yes. So his housekeeper at the cottage told me this morning.”
“Some sudden business, I suppose! Craig won’t be back till to-morrow, so
you’ll have to pass a quiet evening with me all alone! Poor little
Sylvia! I’m afraid it’s very dull for you here sometimes.”
“It’s _not_,” she declared with emphasis. “When I find my own dear Dad’s
company ‘dull’--I deserve to be branded as an ungrateful little brute!
How can you think such a thing!”
His old eyes rested upon her sorrowfully.
“Ah, my dear! Times have changed!” he said. “In the old days ‘home’ was
a happy abiding place for the young folk who honoured their old
folk--but now, thanks to the stupid governments under which the people
pay taxes and groan their lives away, ‘homes’ are broken up and old folk
made mock of while the young are encouraged to run a wild life as they
will, without faith in God or trust in any good save for themselves.
_You_ are not of these--I have brought you up differently--but it’s an
‘old-fashioned’ bringing-up, Sylvia!--and you are not a ‘modern’ minded
girl. Perhaps you’ll thank me for that some day--perhaps not!--but I
maintain that an ‘old fashion’ which built up the homes of the nation
and taught the people to believe in God and live clean, loyal, loving
lives, was a ‘fashion’ worth following. No ‘new’ fashion will ever equal
or surpass it!”