It seemed to Matheson that with his engagement events multiplied with
such amazing rapidity that the deep significance of the step he had
taken was lost sight of; its importance was swamped in the whirlpool of
calamitous happenings that marked the year of 1914 in bloody letters
upon the calendar of the world.
It was in July that he became engaged, and within a week of his proposal
the world war had made its puling start with the faked dispute over an
assassinated archduke. The insignificant start swelled to compelling
significance; and the world awaited with suspended breath each new
development of the most appalling disaster in the history of the
nations. From the first Matheson had no doubt that Great Britain would
be forced into the struggle. There was no choice about it; it was a
question of national safety as well as of honour. He began to consider
the subject in connexion with himself. Plainly if the country went to
war it was his duty to see the matter through. Quite apart from
inclination the man of military age and fitness was called upon to
serve.
He talked to Macfarlane about it. Macfarlane was cautious and reserved
his opinion.
"You've got a girl now," he said. "You've got to consider her."
"But that's all the greater reason why a man should stand by his
country," Matheson insisted.
"Better talk it over with her first. And, look here!" Macfarlane
became more alert. "This trouble, if it involves England, is going to
reach out here. Have you forgotten your talk about a Boer rebellion? I
thought you were rotting at the time--but you weren't. You are
something of a prophet, you know, Matheson. If England is full up with
her own affairs, that's just the time the Boers will seize for getting
hold of this country. It's all cut and dried, you can depend on that.
Should there be trouble out here," Macfarlane added in a hard decisive
voice, "I am for helping to quell that anyway. If your talk of
colonisation is worth anything, you will do the same."
Matheson made no immediate answer. Macfarlane's speech somehow
visualised for him the whitewashed walls of Benfontein, and Honor's face
showing wanly in the moonlight while the low-pitched voice breathed its
earnest question: "I wonder if you will ever see into the heart of the
veld?"
"I can't tell what I'll do," he answered after a long silence, and got
up and went away with rather surprising suddenness.
July ended and August came in on the pathetic note of Belgium's appeal
against the savage bestiality of this new-born oppression which overran
her territory, an appeal to which there could be but one answer. The
hour for Great Britain's intervention struck with that piteous cry for
help.
To Matheson, after the first shock of amaze wore off, it did not appear
so much a question of a European crisis as of the deepening of that
sinister shadow which stretched its forbidding length across this land.
Dark though the cloud of war loomed in Europe, this lesser cloud, which
lay like a black stain upon the sunlit peacefulness, was even more
tragic in the bitter personal nature of its animus. If no human agency
could disperse this cloud, brother would be against brother, friend
against friend.
Matheson did not believe that anything would avert the disaster. Quite
clearly he saw it coming. Every word in Holman's letter was indelibly
fixed in his memory--the letter which Honor had read to him, and which
breathed through every line the insidious cunning of the spy who is paid
to organise rebellion. It was coming surely, and it would come soon.
The first intimation of active trouble revealed itself in the impudent
invasion of the Union by a German force from South-West Africa, an act
of war that could have originated only in a confident assurance of a
prompt and general rising of the Boers.
Matheson applied to his firm for leave to volunteer, and received
immediate permission. He was in a state of considerable indecision.
His interest in the country inclined him to stay to defend it. Had it
been a matter simply of fighting the Germans there would have been no
hesitation in respect of choice; but he felt an increasing reluctance to
take the field against Honor's people. They were wrong, they were
wholly mistaken; but at bottom, the motives which actuated the majority
of them were pure in conception. If later in the heat of conflict, and
with a free rein given to hatred, some among them lowered their ideals
and committed base acts, these were in the minority. He knew what they
would fight for--Liberty. Man has sought after and fought for his ideal
of liberty since the beginning of time.
One result of the war was to precipitate his marriage. Whether he went
to Europe, or whether he remained in the Colony and joined the Union
forces, now commanded by the Premier since General Beyers' resignation
of troops he knew he could never take over with him in his treacherous
alliance with the Germans, the question of Brenda's future could not
remain unsettled.
He took her for a walk and discussed the matter with her.
"I can't, you see," he said, "go away and leave you at the cafe. I want
to provide for you. It will be an inadequate provision, but it will be
an improvement on the cafe. I can't leave you there. I don't like your
being there. I've never liked it. It's rather inconsiderate to hurry
you like this... Do you mind?"
"No. I can be ready as soon as you wish. But if you go to Europe I'll
go too. I could put my hand to something to help. At least," she said,
smiling, "I could undertake canteen work. I'm qualified for that. You
wouldn't object to my doing that--for the war?"
"No. I suppose I never imagined you would be satisfied to sit still and
look on."
He felt for her hand and held it, and they walked on together in the
dusky starlight, rather silent and preoccupied, thinking of many things.
"This settles any chance of honeymooning," he said presently. "We'll
have to have that later. It's rough on you all round."
She drew closer to him.
"I'm not minding that. Those things don't seem to matter any more. If
only you come through!"
He squeezed her hand hard, and they were silent again. The possibility
of losing him had wrought a considerable change in Brenda's view of
things. Her own phrase perhaps best expressed this alteration:
"Those things don't seem to matter any more." The sting of bitterness
had gone out of her sorrow. Those minor distresses, the jealousy of
another's claim, and the knowledge that she did not possess his entire
heart, shrunk to inconsiderable dimensions in the face of this greater
disaster--before the haunting spectre of possible death for him. The
fear of losing him in a sudden and tragic manner made him very precious
to her. There was no room in her mind for any but loving thoughts.
"What a lot of things have happened," he said presently, "since you and
I first mooned about this beach! I remember having a feeling in those
days that you had come into my life to some purpose... come to stay.
One knows somehow instinctively the people who are going to count."
He stooped suddenly and kissed her lips.
"Salt kisses," he said... "like the salt kisses I first took from you."
He held her chin in his hand and tilted her face upward slightly. "The
spray has got into your dear eyes... There were no tears there on that
other occasion."
She smiled at him and attempted to wink the tears away.
"It's only spray... don't heed that. Go on talking... I want to hear
you talk. These remembrances... I love to hear them."
"Confidence for confidence," he said teasingly. "Tell me something of
your early impressions. Did you ever dream of me?--I've dreamed of
you."
"No." She laughed happily. "I don't dream. But I used to lean from my
bedroom window and think and think and think."
"What about?" he asked.
"You... You peopled my world from the outset. There were nights when I
lost count of time, and leaned there and watched the dawn break."
"That last night?" he asked.--"When we said good-bye under the
oleanders?"
"That last night of course," she answered. "I stayed at the window
until the sun rose."
"Dear little lonely watcher!" he said. "I wish I could have been with
you... And you were in trouble too that night."
"I hadn't time to think of that. I was enjoying in retrospect my
perfect hour. The troubles began next day." She rubbed her cheek
against his shoulder caressingly. "We won't talk of that I refuse to
remember unpleasant things."
"Wise little woman! ... Stand here a moment. I want to listen with you
to the wash of the waves between the rocks. How often have we stood
here like this?" he said with his arm about her. "There is no other
music--is there?--like the music of the sea."
"With you beside me--no. When I listen to it in your absence it will be
as sound divorced from the spirit of music."
Bending over her, he asked quickly:
"You wouldn't wish to keep me back?"
He thought of Macfarlane's words: "You've got a girl now. You have to
consider her." He had not considered her in this matter at all. He had
not even consulted her. He had taken her approval for granted.
"Of course I wouldn't keep you back. Only I hate war. You can't expect
me to be glad."
"There isn't much in it to occasion any one gladness," he replied.
"It's a bad business however one lodes at it." The old reckless smile
shone for a moment in his eyes. "Though, if it wasn't for a certain
young woman, I think I could find the prospect somewhat alluring. Man
was born to kill his enemy."
"It's high time man had outgrown his primitive instincts," she said,
smiling with him.
"That he will never do," he answered with conviction. "Love and hate,
the primordial emotions, hang together--the antithesis of each other,
irreconcilable yet inseparable. Humanity without love is
inconceivable--and so is a world without hate. At best civilisation
teaches us to control these elemental passions--and our control is about
as effective in a crisis as the outer petals which conceal the canker in
the heart of a flower. If you look close enough you see the stain of
evil showing through."
He discussed their immediate plans for a while, and referred to the
growing difficulties of the South African situation. Her own brothers
had joined the Union forces: he felt that it caused her surprise that he
did not do the same. Her mother had taken it for granted that he would.
He found it more difficult to deal with Mrs Upton; she required
explanations. He was a little uncertain how she would receive the news
of their immediate marriage. Although she liked him, and approved of
the engagement, she had expressed the hope that they would do nothing
hastily, but would learn to know one another more thoroughly before
taking any decisive step.
He went back with Brenda that night to break the news to her, braced to
meet opposition, and bent on overcoming it. But when he faced her and
made his half-defiant announcement, he saw by the look in her eyes that
there was no opposition to fear. She lifted a serious, unsurprised face
to his, and said quietly:
"I've been expecting this... You want to marry before joining up?"
"Yes. It's awfully jolly of you to take it like this."
She smiled briefly.
"When it comes to war," she said, "we stand aside and yield your sex
first place. It's your hour. You've a right to consideration. But for
the war, I would rather you had waited--years."
"You don't mean that?" he said, and scrutinised her closely. "There is
a little distrust at the back of your mind which I haven't succeeded in
allaying."
She changed colour, showing signs of embarrassment, and turned away a
little disconcerted at this outspoken attack.
"Do you suppose any mother ever thinks a man good enough for her girl?"
she asked with a slightly nervous laugh.
"If that's all..." he said, and waited.
She faced round again and held out both her hands to him in an impulsive
appeal.
"You will be good to her?" she cried... "Oh! you will be good to her?"
"Surely," he answered earnestly, "you know I will be?" and took her
hands and kissed them.