"England clasps in her embraces
Many. What is England's state?
Warn her, Bard, that Power is pressing
Hotly for his dues this hour:
Tell her that no drunken blessing
Stops the onward march of Power.
Has she ears to take forewarnings,
She will cleanse her of her stains;
Feed and speed, for braver mornings,
Valorously, the growth of brains."
GEORGE MEREDITH.
Two days later the head-lines of every newspaper in the kingdom
announced in heavy-leaded type "Austria declares War," "Partial
Russian Mobilisation."
At hundreds of breakfast-tables incredulous people read out those few
and fateful words. Even at this late hour, the majority could
scarcely bring themselves to believe that the Titanic struggle--long
prophesied to deaf ears--had begun at last; that Austria was the
megaphone merely through which Germany cried aloud her challenge to
the world.
Keith Macnair, it need hardly be said, was numbered among the
minority who had seen, with anger and dismay, warning after warning
scoffed at or ignored by a pacific Government and a comfort-loving
people; yet he neither exclaimed, nor cursed the blind guides who had
been sedulously whittling down the fighting strength of the British
Isles.
"Hullo! The fat's in the fire," he remarked coolly, having pulled in
his chair and opened the _Scotsman_ with his customary deliberation.
"The voice is the voice of Jacob; but the hand is the hand of Esau."
It was Lady Forsyth, standing behind him, who exclaimed and read out
snatches from the Summary of Contents with heightened colour and
quickened breath.
Though Keith had all the natural man's objection to these peculiarly
feminine methods, he bore the infliction without a murmur, till Mark,
towering behind his mother, took her waist between his hands and
propelled her towards the sputtering kettle.
"Steady on, Mums, and feed your sheep," he commanded, standing guard
over her. "Your righteous wrath will only give you indigestion, and
the elderly gentlemen who are engineering this eruption won't be one
penny the worse."
"And you ought to be grateful to them really!" Mona remarked, with a
wicked twinkle. "What about the German invasion you were praying
for?"
They all "ragged" her, young and old. She was irresistible; and
unquenchable.
"Well, at least we can fight invading Germans, and we couldn't fight
the petticoats!" she retorted, while Mark thrust a caddy spoon into
her inattentive hand. "But it still remains to be seen whether our
_pax vobiscums_ will permit us to hurt a single hair of a single
'kindred Teuton' head!"
The tea was made by now, thanks chiefly to Mark; and for five minutes
she managed to concentrate her attention on cups and saucers. But
throughout the meal they could talk of little else than the veiled
drama of the nations and its probable developments. Mark himself was
rather quieter than usual; but perhaps he thought the more.
When the younger ones went out on to the terrace, he followed Keith
into the study, and for some time the two--who were as brothers in
all but blood--sat together in a smoky, companionable silence, each
absorbed in his own printed sheet. The Irish news was by no means
reassuring. But Mark, to Keith's surprise, had tacitly dropped the
subject; and it was the older man who spoke first.
"I'd give something for a glimpse, this minute, into Germany's
barracks and her sacred Kiel Canal. If I know anything of the Kaiser
and his gang, she's on the move already; counting on our neutrality
of course. God send she may find herself mistaken; but Grey will
leave no stone unturned to avoid war. As a philosopher and a man of
letters, I'm with him there. But the rest of me is convinced that
nothing short of Treitschke's 'terrible medicine' will shake us out
of our democratic fiddle-faddling and partisan squabbling. It would
link up the men and women, not to mention the Empire; and as for the
Irish--at the first hint of real business, they'd be falling on each
other's necks. In that case, Mark, you and I would be for offering
our services elsewhere."
"Yes--of course. Rather so!" Mark agreed with fervour; then checked
himself and fell silent.
Keith said nothing; but his thoughts were effectually diverted from
the threat of war to a more personal threat that touched him very
nearly, because Mark was Helen's son. Being a man, he understood, as
she could never do, the nature of Mark's infatuation for this
alluring girl--"the ideal mistress" he classified her mentally; the
siren-type, who sits combing her hair in the sunset and smilingly
wrecks the souls of men. The straighter and cleaner a man's record,
the more easily she flings her gold dust in his eyes; and should she
chance to fall in love----
Macnair had not yet made up his mind on that score. He was concerned
at the moment with one painful, practical question: could she, in the
event of war, conceivably induce Helen's son to play the coward's
part? He knew Mark for a man of strong passions; but he believed him
equally strong in spirit and in will. He felt troubled and anxious
none the less. Had he known of that recent surrender he would have
felt more anxious still.
Mark left the study without further allusion to the subject; and
later in the morning Bel appeared serenely graceful, in a new yellow
silk golf coat and a distractingly becoming hat. With such a vision
before his eyes no man in his senses could feel seriously concerned
about European thunderclouds that might still, at the eleventh hour,
dissolve in a harmless shower of rain.
Bel, of course, was airily convinced they would. "Besides," she
concluded, with her engaging air of sagacity, "where's the earthly
use of being an island, with an invincible Navy, if we're to be
scared by every little flare-up across the Channel?"
Mark smiled and shook his head at her. She was ensconced in the deep
window-sill of the studio, lightly swinging one foot.
"It's not a case of being scared, but of being prepared," he said,
fingering the stray tendrils in the nape of her neck. "If Germany's
engineering this squabble it'll be the biggest flare-up the world's
ever seen; and before many days are out we may be thanking Prince
Louis on our knees for having kept the Fleet in being----"
"Oh, be quiet!" she commanded, slapping the hand that caressed her.
"You're as bad as Mr. Macnair." She leaned half out of the window.
"It's a divine morning. A boat on the loch would be more to the
purpose than all your horrid battleships put together. Here comes
the midday post."
"The _Times_!" cried Mark, and was promptly extinguished.
"You aren't going to look at the _Times_ till to-night," she said.
"You're to look at me in my new clothes. What else did I put them on
for?"
The word "clothes" reminded him of an expected parcel. "You wait
there a minute," he said mysteriously; and very soon reappeared with
two of them. From the smaller, he extracted a rope of amber beads;
from the larger, a snow leopard skin, lined with satin, to form a
natural cloak.
Bel's face, during these proceedings, was certainly better worth
looking at than the _Times_. The beads were the very colour of her
coat; the pale tones and dusky markings of the skin harmonised
perfectly with her hair; and her delight in both was too genuine to
be marred by minor affectations. By lunch-time Mark had almost
forgotten the International Crisis, and the threat of war.
But throughout that unforgettable week--when the world's destiny hung
in the balance--events in Europe moved swiftly toward the great
upheaval; while in England the tension of anxiety increased daily.
Between those who feared that an enlightened Liberal Government would
be criminal enough to fight, and those who feared the worse
criminality of its failure to stand by France, there could be little
peace of mind anywhere, except among the wilfully or constitutionally
blind--a large majority in every country.
At Inveraig they could talk of little else, except in snatches. And
Mark--reared by his mother to live in touch with the whole vast sweep
of life--was as bad as the rest: though Bel, in her leopard-skin
cloak and amber beads, was a vision enchanting enough to distract any
man's thoughts from graver matters: and indeed she did her utmost to
that end with fitful success. In her heart she hated this looming
shadow, chiefly because it dwarfed her proudest achievement--the
conquest of Mark: and as the week drew on, she became bored; even
faintly irritable. She began to find or invent excuses for avoiding
meals at Inveraig, and when Mark remonstrated, she candidly owned to
being tired of the subject. She wasn't accustomed to that sort of
talk, and a little of it went a long way. She would give him a
holiday on Friday, she concluded graciously. They had friends coming
to join them at The Rowans--Mr. and Miss Maitland from his part of
the world.
Mark raised his eyebrows. "Maitland?"
"Yes. He's classical master at High Rough School. D'you know him?"
"'M--slightly. I've not much use for him. Sort of chap whose veins
run ink instead of blood."
She flushed a little and lifted her head. "He's a great friend of
mine; so you needn't make rude remarks."
"A _great_ friend?"
Mark bent a searching glance upon her.
"Yes: in his lukewarm way."
"Oh, if he's lukewarm, he'll do! Didn't I say his veins ran ink?
I'll let you be polite to him on Friday, and I must have Saturday
afternoon and evening entire as a reward!"
But even while they talked, Europe hummed with the stir of gathering
armies; and by Saturday morning the head-lines announced "Russian
Mobilisation Complete." Germany, who had secretly forestalled that
event, responded by declaring a state of war, and an impenetrable
veil fell between her and the outer world.
Keith handed the paper to Mark, who had come in late for breakfast.
"There you are, old boy. I said the end of the month, didn't I?
Russia brings in France automatically. It only remains for Italy and
England to show their hands. I back Italy to keep hers clean and
stay out of it."
"And I back England to fight."
"Yes--if we've still enough of the old leaven to save us from the
curse of legal verbiage and inaction."
For the rest of the meal he confined himself to intermittent
"rumblings" (the word was Lady Forsyth's) against peace-cranks,
Internationals, and so forth; but it was not until he had talked over
the telephone to a friend in Edinburgh that he really let himself
go--an event as rare as the proverbial "blue moon."
For it transpired that his friend--a professor of distinction--had
just promised his signature to a neutrality letter strongly
protesting against England's intervention in a Continental quarrel.
"Continental quarrel, forsooth! And the damned fools, not content
with their egregious letter, are moving heaven and earth--that's to
say International and Labour lights--to get up a Neutrality
Committee, by way of further assisting a divided Government that
stands shivering on the brink. Here we are, sunk deep in the ruts of
peace in its most repellent form--peace, that has almost landed us in
civil war; yet sober-minded men and women cry out against our taking
the only course that can conceivably save half Europe, including
ourselves, from the domination of the German machine."
His quiet grey eyes had a glint of steel in them, as he stood there
beside the telephone in the study, swept, by intensity of conviction,
so completely out of his philosophic calm, that Helen and Mark, the
natural talkers, never dreamed of interposing a word. On the rare
occasions when the spirit of speech moved him, they were willing to
listen ad infinitum.
He had descended to a lower plane now, and was confounding the
tyranny of the week-end habit, the curse of the country, that would
send responsible people scuttling out of town on a Friday, though the
last trump were sounding in their ears. He also confounded, for the
first time in his life, that sacrosanct institution the Scottish
Sunday, which would cut them off from letters, telegrams, and papers
for twenty-four hours.
"Never mind, old man, we've got the blessed telephone," Mark consoled
him, clapping a hand on his shoulder. "And we can jolly well make
ourselves a nuisance to all our friends and relations. What else is
a telephone for? I vote we run down to Glasgow on Monday and sleep
the night. We'd feel a bit closer to things----"
An imperious tinkle interrupted him. Admiral Sir John Forsyth this
time. Unlike the heads of the political world, he had come up
post-haste from Dorset, and he wanted a few words with his nephew.
It was while these things were in progress that Bel arrived, eager
for a sight of Mark, and found herself relegated to the drawing-room
with Sheila and Mona for company. Sheila apologised in her
friendliest fashion; but that was quite beside the point. The
appearance of the tea-tray brought in Lady Forsyth; but not till tea
was half over did the telephone release Mark. Then at last came her
chance of escape; and the lovers wandered off through the pine copse
on to the small patch of open moor overlooking the loch.
"A shame to keep her waiting," he apologised tenderly. "But this is
history, darling, on a tremendous scale; so you must make allowances."
"I'm trying to." She dropped her lips with a bewitching air of
martyrdom. "But tremendous things are rather exhausting. I can't
get into a state of thrill, like your mother and the rest. And I'm
very glad--you may think what you like!--that there really is a
chance we shall keep out of it. Mr. Maitland says Sir Edward Grey
has admitted that the Entente's not binding, and a Liberal Government
can't drag a free people into the horrors of war."
"Damn Maitland!" Mark flashed out; then reddened and drew in his lip.
"Sorry. But if you don't want fireworks you'd better keep that
chap's inspired remarks to yourself. Besides, you're practically one
of us now; and I can't have you talking pacifist twaddle."
"Well, don't let's talk of it at _all_. I'm sick of the whole thing."
Mark said nothing, and they walked on in silence through the heather.
Then she turned to him and slipped a hand through his arm. "Darling,
let's go off somewhere to-morrow for the whole day and forget all
about everything, except each other."
"Bel!" He stood regarding her with an enigmatical smile. For an
instant she thought he would consent. "I'd love to, of course," he
said honestly. "But I simply couldn't do it. Though we can't get
papers, there's the telephone; and my mind would be on the stretch
the whole time."
She shrugged, with a faint reflection of his smile. "Very well.
I'll join the others. They're going for an outing in any case. Your
Scotch Sunday is so desolating."
"Then I'll call in for you after supper, if you're not too tired.
Keith and I are going to Glasgow on Monday for the night. See how
they're taking things there."
She sighed. "This wretched war is simply spoiling everything." Her
shoulder touched his as she spoke, and at once he put his arm round
her. "It seems to shut me out."
"Only because you refuse to come in."
"But, Mark--it's such a horror." Her shiver was not pure
affectation. "And I've no taste for horrors. I can feel it hovering
there, across the Channel, like a tiger waiting to spring. And when
I try to forget it, you don't help me. As you won't come to-morrow,
I shall console myself by asking Mr. Lenox. I like him the best of
your lot."
"All right; ask him. He can keep an eye on you. See that you don't
flirt with Maitland."
"But I do--always. It's an understood thing between us. And if I
can't have you, I must get what fun I can out of him!"
Maurice, though feeling the strain in his own way, accepted Bel's
invitation, plus her proviso that no one was to say "War" or
"Politics" from start to finish. Privately she felt Mark's defection
more keenly than she cared to admit, but she intended to enjoy
herself in spite of it; and she succeeded, by the primitive process
of playing the two men off against each other. Maitland--a
loose-limbed narrowly built person of nondescript colouring--had for
years been discreetly in love with her. He was of those for whom
discretion is the better part of everything. For which cause a
penniless Bel could never become Mrs. Maitland. But the moth
persisted in hovering round the candle, and he had heard with a mild
pang of her engagement to Sir Mark.
Like many schoolmasters of second-rate quality, Maitland was less a
man of intellect than of specialised culture. Years of close touch
with the "humanities" had failed to make him human. He was
humanitarian, merely: a very different pair of sleeves.
Maurice, watching him with Miss Alison, saw the girl in a new light,
and wondered a little what Forsyth would think about it. But on his
return he simply remarked that Maitland seemed the sort of
schoolmaster who disseminated ignorance; that Miss Alison had been in
great form, and they had had a ripping day.
Early on Monday afternoon the two men set out for Glasgow; and to
Lady Forsyth the house, bereft of their presence, seemed a dead
thing. A man's woman in the finest sense of the phrase, her men were
the first best gifts of God to her. She was their born comrade. She
had the rare gift of seeing life with their eyes; and through her
nature ran a streak of inconsistency, peculiarly endearing to the
more consistent half of creation.
Even in the midst of her real anxiety lest a Government wedded to
peace should withhold England from the path of honour and safety, her
sensitive spirit revolted against the oncoming holocaust of death and
suffering, with a fierce intensity of which Bel's nature was purely
incapable. She felt it as a vast thundercloud, stealthily,
inexorably blotting out the light of heaven. These days of
waiting--days of tense and awful quiet for all who were far from the
throbbing heart of things--were as the pause of utter stillness that
precedes the crash of the storm. And in that stillness she could see
and feel too vividly things that filled her with a shuddering dread.
The whole world's sorrow seemed to beat upon her heart, and at
intervals through the vast diapason of universal anguish came the
piercing note of personal pain.
She knew--triumphantly, yet shiveringly she knew--what it would mean
for her if England went into the war, not merely as a protective
Power, but as a united Empire to challenge conclusions with her most
insidious and most formidable enemy. Mark would go out to France;
and he would lose no time in going. That was his way. He had said
no word of it, so far, either to her or Bel. But she knew his
intention, if the girl did not; and even while she shrank from the
surrender of her last best treasure, she never dreamed of withholding
him. If it were really to be war on a big scale, everything,
everyone must go....