Four years of war add only four years to the life of a man according
to the record in the family Bible, if he happen to spring from stock
in which that sacred document is preserved. But four years of war add
twenty years to the grey matter behind the eyes--eyes which learn to
dream and ponder strangely, and sometimes to shine with a hardness that
has no part with youth. When Captain Grant and Sergeant Linder stepped
off the train at Grant’s old city there was, however, little to suggest
the ageing process that commonly went on among the soldiers in the Great
War. Grant had twice stopped an enemy bullet, but his fine figure and
sunburned health now gave no evidence of those experiences. Linder
counted himself lucky to carry only an empty sleeve.
They had fallen in with each other in France, and the friendship planted
in the foothills of the range country had grown, through the strange
prunings and graftings of war, into a tree of very solid timber. Linder
might have told you of the time his captain found him with his arm
crushed under a wrecked piece of artillery, and Grant could have
recounted a story of being dragged unconscious out of No Man’s Land, but
for either to dwell upon these matters only aroused the resentment of
the other, and frequently led to exchanges between captain and sergeant
totally incompatible with military discipline. They were content to pay
tribute to each other, but each to leave his own honors unheralded.
“First thing is a place to eat,” Grant remarked, when they had been
dismissed. Words to similar effect had, indeed, been his first remark
upon every suitable opportunity for three months. An appetite which
has been four years in the making is not to be satisfied overnight, and
Grant, being better fortified financially against the stress of a good
meal, sought to be always first to suggest it. Linder accepted the
situation with the complacence of a man who has been four years on army
pay.
When they had eaten they took a walk through the old town--Grant’s old
town. It looked as though he had stepped out of it yesterday; it was
hard to realize that ages lay between. There are experiences which soak
in slowly, like water into a log. The new element surrounds the body,
but it may be months before it penetrates to the heart. Grant had some
sense of that fact as he walked the old familiar streets, apparently
unchanged by all these cataclysmic days.... In time he would come to
understand. There was the name plate of Barrett, Jones, Barrett, Deacon
& Barrett. There had not even been an addition to the firm. Here was
the old Grant office, now used for some administration purpose. That, at
least, was a move in the right direction.
They wandered along aimlessly while the sunset of an early summer
evening marshalled its glories overhead. On a side street children
played in the roadway; on a vacant spot a game of ball was in progress.
Women sat on their verandas and shot casual glances after them as they
passed. Handsome pleasure cars glided about; there was a smell of new
flowers in all the air.
“What do you make of it, mate?” said Grant at last.
Linder pulled slowly on his cigarette. Even his training as a sergeant
had not made him ready of speech, but when he spoke it was, as ever, to
the point.
“It’s all so unnecessary,” he commented at length.
“That’s the way it gets me, too. So unnecessary. You see, when you
get down to fundamentals there are only two things necessary--food
and shelter. Everything else may be described as trimmings. We’ve
been dealing with fundamentals so long---mighty bare fundamentals at
that--that all these trimmings seem just a little irritating, don’t you
think?”
“I follow you. I simply can’t imagine myself worrying over a stray
calf.”
“And I can’t imagine myself sitting in an office and dealing with such
unessential things as stocks and bonds.... And I’m not going to.”
“Got any notion what you will do?” said Linder, when he had reached the
middle of another cigarette.
“Not the slightest. I don’t even know whether I’m rich or broke. I
suppose if Jones and Murdoch are still alive they will be looking
after those details. Doing their best, doubtless, to embarrass me with
additional wealth. What are YOU going to do?”
“Don’t know. Maybe go back and work for Transley.”
The mention of Transley threw Grant’s mind back into old channels. He
had almost forgotten Transley. He told himself he had quite forgotten
Zen Transley, but once he knew he lied. That was when they potted him
in No Man’s Land. As he lay there, waiting.... he knew he had not
forgotten. And he had thought many times of Phyllis Bruce. At first he
had written to her, but she had not answered his letters. Evidently
she meant him to forget. Nor had she come to the station to welcome him
home. Perhaps she did not know. Perhaps--Many things can happen in four
years.
Suddenly it occurred to Grant that it might be a good idea to call on
Phyllis. He would take Linder along. That would make it less personal.
He knew his man well enough to keep his own counsel, and eventually they
reached the gate of the Bruce cottage, as though by accident.
“Let’s turn in here. I used to know these people. Mother and daughter;
very fine folk.”
Linder looked for an avenue of retreat, but Grant barred his way, and
together they went up the path. A strange woman, with a baby on her arm,
met them at the door. Grant inquired for Mrs. Bruce and her daughter.
“Oh, you haven’t heard?” said the woman. “I suppose you are just back.
Well, it was a sad thing, but these have been sad times. It was when
Hubert was killed I came here first. Poor dear, she took that to heart
awful, and couldn’t be left alone, and Phyllis was working in an office,
so I came here part time to help out. Then she was just beginning to
brace up again when we got the word about Grace. Grace, you know, was
lost on a hospital ship. That was too much for her.”
Grant received this information with a strange catching about the heart.
There had been changes, after all.
“What became of Phyllis?” He tried to ask the question in an even voice.
“I moved into the house after Mrs. Bruce died,” the woman continued, “as
my man came back discharged about that time. Phyllis tried to get on as
a nurse, but couldn’t manage it. Then her office was moved to another
part of the city and she took rooms somewhere. At first she came to see
us often, but not lately. I suppose she’s trying to forget.”
“Trying to forget,” Grant muttered to himself. “How much of life is made
up of trying to forget!”
Further questions brought no further information. The woman didn’t
know the firm for which Phyllis worked; she thought it had to do with
munitions. Suddenly Grant found himself impelled by a tremendous desire
to locate this girl. He would set about it at once; possibly Jones or
Murdoch could give him information. Strangely enough, he now felt that
he would prefer to be rid of Linder’s company. This was a matter for
himself alone. He took Linder to an hotel, where they arranged for
lodgings, and then started on his search.
He located Murdoch without difficulty. It was now late, and the old
clerk came down the stairs with inoffensive imprecations upon the head
of his untimely caller, but his mutterings soon gave way to a cry of
delight.
“My dear boy!” he exclaimed, embracing him. “My dear boy--excuse me,
sir, I’m a blithering old man, but oh! sir--my boy, you’re home again!”
There was no doubting the depth of old Murdoch’s welcome. He ran before
Grant into the living-room and switched on the lights. In a moment
he was back with his arm about the young man’s shoulder; he was with
difficulty restraining caresses.
“Sit you down, Mr. Grant; here--this chair--it’s easier. I must get the
women up. This is no night for sleeping. Why didn’t you send us word?”
“There is a tradition that official word is sent in advance,” Grant
tried to explain.
“Aye, a tradition. There’s a tradition that a Scotsman is a dour body
without any sentiment. Well--I must call the women.”
He hurried up the stairs and Grant settled back into his chair. So this
was the home of Murdoch, the man who really had earned a considerable
part of the Grant fortune. He had never visited Murdoch before; he had
never thought of him in a domestic sense; Murdoch had always been to him
a man of figures, of competent office routine, of almost too respectful
deference. The light over the centre table fell subdued through a
pinkish shade; the corners of the room lay in restful shadows; the
comfortable furniture showed the marks of years. The walls suggested the
need of new paper; the well-worn carpet had been shifted more than once
for economy’s sake. Grant made a hasty appraisal of these conditions;
possibly his old clerk was feeling the pinch of circumstances--
Murdoch, returning, led in his wife, a motherly woman who almost kissed
the young soldier. In the welcome of her greeting it was a moment before
Grant became aware of the presence of a fourth person in the room.
“I am very glad to see you safely back,” said Phyllis Bruce. “We have
all been thinking about you a great deal.”
“Why, Miss--Phyllis! It was you I was looking for!” The frank confession
came before he had time to suppress it, and, having said so much, it
seemed better to finish the job.
“Yes, Phyllis is making her home with us now,” Mrs. Murdoch explained.
“It is more convenient to her work.”
Grant wondered how much of this arrangement was due to Mrs. Murdoch’s
sympathy for the bereaved girl, and how much to the addition which it
made to the family income. No doubt both considerations had contributed
to it.
“I called at your old home,” he continued. “I needn’t say how distressed
I was to hear--The woman could tell me nothing of you, so I came to
Murdoch, hoping--”
“Yes,” she said, simply, as though there were nothing more to explain.
Grant noticed that her eyes were larger and her cheeks paler than they
had been, but the delight of her presence leapt about him. Her hurried
costume seemed to accentuate her beauty despite of all that war had done
to destroy it. There was a silence which lengthened out. They were all
groping for a footing.
Mrs. Murdoch met the situation by insisting that she would put on
the kettle, and Mr. Murdoch, in a burst of almost divine inspiration,
insisted that his wife was quite incompetent to light the gas alone at
that hour of the night. When the old folks had shuffled into the kitchen
Grant found himself standing close to Phyllis Bruce.
“Why didn’t you answer my letters?” he demanded, plunging to the issue
with the directness of his nature.
“Because I had promised to let you forget,” she replied. There was a
softness in her voice which he had not noted in those bygone days;
she seemed more resigned and yet more poised; the strange wizardry of
suffering had worked new wonders in her soul. Suddenly, as he looked
upon her, he became aware of a new quality in Phyllis Bruce--the quality
of gentleness. She had added this to her unique self-confidence, and
it had toned down the angularities of her character. To Grant, straight
from his long exile from fine womanly domesticity, she suddenly seemed
altogether captivating.
“But I didn’t want to forget!” he insisted. “I wanted not to
forget--YOU.”
She could not misunderstand the emphasis he placed on that last word,
but she continued as though he had not interrupted.
“I knew you would write once or twice out of courtesy. I knew you would
do that. I made up my mind that if you wrote three times, then I would
know you really wanted to remember me.... I did not get any third
letter.”
“But how could I know that you had placed such a test--such an arbitrary
measurement--upon my friendship?”
“It wasn’t necessary for you to know. If you had cared--enough--you
would have kept on writing.”
He had to admit to himself that there was just enough truth in what she
said to make her logic unanswerable. His delight in her presence now did
not alter the fact that he had found it quite possible to live for four
years without her, and it was true that upon one or two great vital
moments his mind had leapt, not to Phyllis Bruce, but to Zen Transley!
He blushed at the recollection; it was an impossible situation, but it
was true!
He was framing some plausible argument about honorable men not
persisting in a correspondence when Murdoch bustled in again.
“Mother is going to set the dining-room table,” he announced, “and the
coffee will be ready presently. Well, sir, you do look well in uniform.
You will be wondering how the business has gone?”
“Not half as much as I am wondering some other things,” he said, with
a significance intended for the ear of Phyllis. “You see--I was just
talking it over with a pal to-day, a very good comrade whom I used to
know in the West, and who pulled me out of No Man’s Land where I would
have been lying yet if he hadn’t thought more of me than he did of
himself--I was talking it over with him to-day, and we agreed that
business isn’t worth the effort. Fancy sitting behind a desk, wondering
about the stock market, when you’ve been accustomed to leaning up
against a parapet wondering where the next shell is going to burst! If
that is not from the sublime to the ridiculous, it is at least from the
vital to the inconsequential. You can’t expect men to take a jump like
that.”
“No, not as a jump,” Murdoch agreed. “They’ll have to move down
gradually. But they must remember that life depends quite as much on
wheat-fields as it does on trenches, and that all the machinery of
commerce and industry is as vital in its way as is the machinery of war.
They must remember that, or instead of being at the end of our troubles
we will find ourselves at the beginning.”
“I suppose,” Grant conceded, “but it all seems so unnecessary. No doubt
you have been piling up more money to be a problem to my conscience.”
“Your peculiar conscience, I might almost correct, sir. Your
responsibilities do seem to insist upon increasing. Following your
instructions I put the liquid assets into Government bonds. Interest,
even on Government bonds, has a way of working while you sleep. Then,
you may remember, we were carrying a large load of certain steel stocks.
These I did not dispose of at once, with the result that they, in
themselves, have made you a comfortable fortune.”
“I suppose I should thank you for your foresight, Murdoch. I was rather
hoping you would lose my money and so relieve me of an embarrassing
situation. What am I to do with it?”
“I don’t know, sir, but I feel sure you will use it for some good
purpose. I was glad to get as much of it together for you as I did,
because otherwise it might have fallen to people who would have wasted
it.”
“Upon my word, Murdoch, that smacks of my own philosophy. Is it possible
even you are becoming converted?”
“Come, Mr. Grant; come, everybody!” a cheerful voice called from behind
the sliding doors which shut off the dining-room. The fragrant smell of
coffee was already in the air, and as Grant took his seat Mrs.
Murdoch declared that for once she had decided to defy all the laws of
digestion.
At the table their talk dribbled out into thin channels. It was as
though there were at hand a great reservoir of thought, of experience,
of deep gropings into the very well-springs of life, which none of them
dared to tap lest it should rush out and overwhelm them. They seemed in
some strange awe of its presence, and spoke, when they spoke at all, of
trivial things. Grant proved uncommunicative, and perhaps, in a sense,
disappointing. He preferred to forget both the glories and the horrors
of war; when he drew on his experience at all it was to relate some
humorous incident. That, it seemed, was all he cared to remember. He
was conscious of a restraint which hedged him about and hampered every
mental deployment.
Phyllis, too, must have been conscious of that restraint, for before
they parted she said something about human minds being like pianos,
which get out of tune for lack of the master-touch....
When Grant found himself in the street air again he was almost swallowed
up in the rush of things which he might have said. His mental machinery,
which seemed to have been out of mesh,--came back into adjustment with
a jerk. He suddenly discovered that he could think; he could drive his
mind from his own batteries. In soldiering the mind is driven from the
batteries of the rank higher up. The business of discipline is to make
man an automatic machine rather than a thinking individual. It seemed
to Grant that in that moment the machine part of him gave way and the
individual was restored. In his case the change came in a moment; he had
been re-tuned; he was able to think logically in terms of civil life.
He pieced together Murdoch’s conversation. “Not as a jump,” Murdoch had
said, when he had argued that a man cannot emerge in a moment from the
psychology of the trenches to that of the counting-house. Undoubtedly
that would be true of the mass; they would experience no instantaneous
readjustment....
There are moments when the mind, highly vitalized, reaches out into the
universe of thought and grasps ideas far beyond its conscious intention.
All great thoughts come from uncharted sources of inspiration, and it
may be that the function of the mind is not to create thought, but
only to record it. To do so it must be tuned to the proper key of
receptivity. Grant had a consciousness, as he walked along the deserted
streets toward his hotel, that he was in that key; the quietness, the
domesticity of Murdoch’s home, the loveliness of Phyllis Bruce, had,
for the moment at least, shut out a background of horror and lifted his
thought into an exalted plane. He paused at a bridge to lean against the
railing and watch the trembling reflection of city lights in the river.
“I have it!” he suddenly exclaimed to the steel railing. “I have it!”
He paused for a moment to turn over his thought, as though to make sure
it should not escape. Then, at a pace which aroused the wondering glance
of one or two placid policemen, he hurried to the hotel.
Linder and Grant had been assigned to the same room, and the sergeant’s
dreams, if he dreamt at all, were of the sweet hay meadows of the West.
Grant turned on the light and looked down into the face of his friend.
A smile, born of fields afar from war’s alarms, was playing about his
lips. Even in his excitement Grant could not help reflecting what a
wonderful thing it is to sleep in peace. Then--
“I have it!” he shouted. “Linder, I have it!”
The sergeant sat up with a start, blinking.
“I have it!” Grant repeated.
“THEM, you mean,” said Linder, suddenly awake. “Why, man, what’s wrong
with you? You’re more excited than if we were just going over the top.”
“I’ve got my great idea. I know what I’m going to do with my money.”
“Well, don’t do it to-night,” Linder protested. “Someone has to settle
for this dug-out in the morning.”
“We’re leaving for the West to-morrow, Linder, old scout. Everybody
will say we’re crazy, but that’s a good sign. They’ve said that of every
reformer since--”
But Linder was again sleeping the sleep of a man four years in France.