WATCHERS FOR THE DAWN
"... If you can make a heap of all your winnings
And risk them on one turn of pitch and toss
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss ..."
RUDYARD KIPLING, "If."
I
On the 25th May a Coalition Government replaced the old Liberal Ministry
under which I had served four years. A few people welcomed the change in
hope that the direction of the war would be more vigorous and
farsighted. Most of the men I met condemned the new departure, and the
detached critics at the Club showed endless fertility in the inferences
they drew and the tendencies they traced.
O'Rane had gone to Melton at the end of April, and my uncle and I,
dropping back into our former mode of life, saw more of each other than
when we had had a guest to entertain. The outbreak of war had infused a
strong spirit of party loyalty into Bertrand, and, as the clouds of
destructive criticism gathered round the doomed head of the Government,
there was hardly a theory or rumour too extravagant for him to embrace.
I remember his fiery indignation when the Coalition idea was first
canvassed. At one moment the Opposition had broken the party truce and
was being silenced by having its mouth filled with plunder: at another
malcontent Liberal Ministers were clearing a way to the throne with the
aid of assassins suborned from the enemy. The conspiracy--and as public
nerves wore thin, conspiracies multiplied--in either case was worked out
in minute and convincing detail with chapter and verse to support every
count in the indictment. I find it unprofitable even to discuss his
theory, because a generation must elapse before the essential diaries
and memoirs are made public; and there will be enough guesswork and
enough errors of recollection to correct even then. Also, I feel there
will be a colourable pretext for revolution when the troops come home,
if a hundredth part of the charges be proved to be based on truth.
Apart from the rank and file Liberals who felt the ground had been cut
from under their feet, the commonest view was that the Coalition was a
London journalistic triumph, desired of no man but foisted on the
country by large headlines and hard leader-writing. Erckmann took me on
one side in the smoking-room at the Club and laid his heart bare for my
inspection. (His intricate and far-reaching business interests had
somehow stopped short of newspaper proprietorship; and the 'Sentinel,'
bantering him on his change of name, had harped with needless insistence
on the wisdom of interning naturalized aliens.) In Erckmann's eyes, the
Coalition was the latest thrill of a sensation-mongering Press. "These
journalists aren't a Mudual Admiration Zociety, hein? They live by
addág. Liberal Government no use: zed ub a Goalition. Goalition no good;
zed ub a digdador, hein? Digdador no good, zed ub a Liberal Government.
Always addág, addág. We're doo long-suffering, we English. If you pud
one or doo edidors againsd a wall, pour encourager les audres, hein?"
My own explanation of the change is founded in part on a study of
collective psychology, in part on a certain familiarity with the House
of Commons. Democracies are volatile and over-susceptible to panic,
disappointment and desire for punishment. Erckmann's estimate of the
English was so far wrong that the Government's chief difficulty--from
the declaration of war, through the strikes and drink problems to the
cry for all-round compulsion--lay in its unillumined ignorance how far
it could go without arousing uncontrollable opposition.
The Coalition came because Democracy was vaguely restless and desirous
of change. The long winter agony of the trenches was borne in the hopes
that spring would see a general advance, Germany thrust back to the
Rhine, the beginning of the end. Neuve Chapelle showed that, thanks to
apathetic organization, the war might be expected to continue at least
another year. Democracy showed itself disappointed and angry. What was
the good of a soldier at the War Office if this kind of thing happened?
"Something is wanted, there needeth a change." The whisper made itself
heard in Whitehall, and, be it through policy, fear or intrigue, the
Coalition--desired and loved of none--was brought to birth. "I suppose,"
said my uncle some months later when his bitterness had abated, "it was
the only alternative to shutting down the House of Commons. We've all
been brought up on party lines, and it takes more than a war to deafen
you to the pleadings of a Whip. More than a Coalition, for that matter,"
he added gloomily.
So the portfolios were shuffled, salaries pooled and everything went on
as before. Erckmann's "sensation-mongers," after attacking everyone
else, turned to rend the few remaining figures they had set on pedestals
the previous August. The Foreign Office was attacked for failing to
counteract the effects of the Press campaign in Europe: the creator of
the modern British Army was driven from office for not quintupling the
size of that army (I sat in the House through those dreary years when we
lisped in terms of small holdings and cheered every penny saved on the
Estimates): and that soldier whom the Press had violated constitutional
practice to place in charge of the War Office, was given press-notice to
go because the war was still unfinished and the stock of victims was
running low.
I remember looking back on the first six months of the war with its
upheaval of ideals and standards and habits of life: I recalled my
feeling in August that nothing would ever be the same again. And in May
I was to find that politics and journalism had so eaten their way into
our being that even the scalpel of war failed to dislodge them. Unborn
To-morrow must curb its Press or educate itself into independence of it.
While the Coalition was still a conjecture and occasion for blaspheming,
my uncle announced his intention of retiring from politics and making
over to me the reversion of his seat. As I had done no work for the
party since my defeat in 1910 it is more than doubtful whether his
nomination would have been endorsed in the Whip's Office, but in any
case I had neither time nor strength to sit in the Admiralty by day and
the House by night. Such leisure as I could find was already double
mortgaged. I spent my Sundays at Bertrand's hospital, and my evenings in
entertaining officers on leave or trying to keep in touch with friends
who seemed to have been caught up into another and busier world since
the outbreak of war.
It was half way through May when my cousin Violet crossed from Ireland
with her mother and took up her residence in Loring House. Her
confinement was expected to take place early in July, and by moving to
London she hoped to see more of her husband when his three times
deferred leave was granted. Old Lady Loring and Amy come down from
Scotland to get the house ready and keep her company, and, as soon as I
could find a free evening, I called round to see them and give Violet
the message contained in her brother's letter from Melton.
Loring was writing regularly and in good spirits at this time: the life
suited him, he was in perfect health, and his company was the finest of
any army in the world. He had been given his fair share of fighting,
promoted to the rank of captain, and had taken part in the advance to
Neuve Chapelle--a circumstance which he never ceased to deplore, as it
involved the exchange of a trench "with all the comforts of home" for
one for which he looked in vain for a good word to say.
When I got up to go that night, Violet came with me to the head of the
stairs and confided to me that she had a favour to ask.
"I want you to go to the War Office," she said. "If Jim's wounded, or
... or anything, they'll send a telegram to me. I want you to arrange to
have it sent to you. For the next six weeks I'm simply going to
vegetate. I shall write to Jim, of course, and if he writes to me I
shall read his letters. If he doesn't, I shall try not to worry." She
slipped her arm through mine. "You see, George, it's everything in the
world to me now. And to poor dear old Jim. I'm doing it for his sake,
too. It's all I can do. So if anything does happen ..."
"Isn't the Dowager the right person to take this on?" I suggested. "She
_is_ his mother."
Violet shook her head.
"She'd tell me. Not in so many words, but I should see it. And the same
way with Amy. Say you will, George."
"I will, by all means."
"Good boy! You'd better not come again for the present. If you walked in
one evening with a long face.... Amy'll ring you up as soon as there's
anything to report."
"Whatever you think best, my dear."
I kissed her good-night and started to walk down the stairs. She stopped
me with a whisper.
"George, I'm ... I'm not a bit afraid!"
"Best of luck!" I said. "Good night!"
Thereafter for some weeks Loring's letters continued to come with fair
regularity, but there were times when he had no opportunity of writing,
and I had no difficulty in understanding Violet's self-denying
ordinance. We had two or three scares in the course of May and
June--unexplained periods of time when no word came. Then a hurried
scrawl would tell us that Loring had just come out of the trenches and
was resting in billets behind the lines--"no time to write the last day
or two, and no news even if the censor let it through. You know much
more about the war than we do." And then we could all breathe more
freely.
One such interval of suspense came to an end on June the 25th. I
remember the date, if for no other reason, because it was my uncle's
birthday. He had ordered his will to be sent round from the solicitor's
and spent several hours, pencil in hand, drafting alterations and
working out elaborate calculations in the margin. After dinner he
returned to his task, and I was settling down to letter-writing when he
suddenly said:
"Will you feel aggrieved, George, if I leave you out of this thing?"
"Not in the least," I said. "As I never expected----"
"Oh, nonsense! We've lived together for years, and I never could find
anyone to do _that_ before. They're all afraid of me, think I'm going to
bite their heads off. I _had_ put you down for everything and, if you
think you're being shabbily treated, I won't alter the thing."
"I've really got as much as I need," I answered.
He nodded without looking up.
"Then the books and oddments will come to you, and the money will go to
David."
"He'll refuse it, Bertrand," I said.
My uncle shrugged his shoulders. "He must please himself--as I am
pleasing myself. Other things apart, I couldn't die and leave his
father's son.... George, I'm not comfortable about the boy."
"Why not?"
"I always think that blindness is one of the few excuses for suicide,"
Bertrand answered.
"I'll go down for the week-end and see him, if you like," I said.
Reaching for a telegraph form, I was beginning to write when a maid
entered and handed me a buff envelope. I read the contents and passed
them over to my uncle.
"There is no answer," I told the maid.
The Secretary of State for War "regretted to inform" me that Captain the
Marquess Loring was reported as "missing."
"He's only missing, George," said Bertrand gently, laying his hand over
mine on the table.
"Isn't that--rather worse?" I asked, but Bertrand had crept away to
leave me undisturbed.
I got away from the Admiralty early on the Saturday afternoon and
reached Melton at four. In the disturbance of the previous evening I had
forgotten to complete my telegram, and it seemed prudent to leave my
luggage at the station until I had found out whether O'Rane could take
me in for the week-end. I had won clear of the town and was half-way to
the school when I heard my name called and looked up to find Lady
Dainton driving with a break-load of convalescent soldiers.
"Are you coming to see us?" she asked.
"Eventually," I said.
"If you can find room inside," said Sonia from the box-seat, "we can
drive you home in time for tea."
I wanted a word with Sonia privately, so I suggested that she and I
should walk the rest of the way.
"We shall be frightfully late," she said dubiously as she descended from
the box. Her rest-cure was doing her little good, to judge from her
hollow cheeks and the dark rings round her eyes.
"Never mind," I said. "Right away! I say, Sonia, I'm a bird of
ill-omen."
"What's the matter?" she asked anxiously.
"A friend of mine is missing--a friend of Raney and of us all. I was on
my way to the school when you overtook me."
Sonia had stopped in the middle of the road and was looking at me with
her big, beseeching eyes.
"You don't mean--Jim?" she said.
I nodded.
She gave a half sob. "Oh, poor, poor Violet!" And then, with the
calmness that everyone seemed to acquire in the terrible first months of
the war, "When did you hear about it?"
"Last night. Violet's not to be told till after the child's born. I felt
Raney ought to know--he was our greatest friend."
We walked the best part of a mile in silence. Then Sonia said, "You
were coming to tell me too?"
"Certainly."
"Thank you." Her head was bowed and her eyes turned to the ground. "I
don't suppose you understand, George.... A man can't.... Oh, there was
so much I wanted to say!"
"I think he understood everything," I said, taking her hand. "From the
time when you offered him your good wishes on his marriage."
She seemed startled. "He told you about that?"
We were walking through country that to me was steeped in Loring's
personality--the School Cricket Ground where he and I fielded at the
nets as fags--the big Brynash Pond where we skated in the long frost of
'94, the pavilion in the Southampton Road that marked the southernmost
limit of Junior Bounds and skirting the forest the ribbon of white road
along which seniors were privileged to tramp on their winter walks.
"You haven't been to the school yet, have you?" asked Sonia.
"Not yet. But I was thinking of it when you spoke. I remember walking
along here with Jim one afternoon in autumn. It was Raney's first term.
We tramped through the forest and up the hill till we came in sight of
the milestone round the next corner. I recollect there was a figure
seated on it, swinging his legs; and as we got nearer, we saw it was
Raney. We'd thrashed him that term as many times as school rules
permitted, and here he was calmly defying two monitors of his own house
by dawdling a good two miles out of bounds. Poor boy!--there were tears
shining on his eyelashes. Yes, he knew it was out of bounds, but it was
the only place hereabouts where you could smell the English Channel, and
sometimes, if you were lucky, you'd see smoke from a passing ship, and
that gladdened the heart of him. I remember him saying it, with a brogue
that he'd heard in his cradle and hardly since. Then without warning he
became a sardonic little spitfire, oozing insubordination at every pore
and drawling in hideous hybrid American. 'Guess I'm up against another
of your everlasting rules, Loring.'"
"What did you say?" asked Sonia.
"I left it to Jim. They seemed to understand each other, and Jim never
lost his temper, though I must say Raney was the most consummate little
fiend in his first term that I've ever met. All Jim ever said was,
'Lonely little devil!' He certainly looked it, sitting on the
milestone."
We walked on, turning over old memories, until we were out of the sweet,
heavy pine forest, and the road curved sharply and ran downhill to
Crowley.
As we rounded the corner a giant St. Bernard turned his head lazily in
our direction, gathered himself together as though for a spring and
raced towards us.
II
"It's a great noise ye're making, Jumbo," said a voice, and I saw that
as once before there was a figure on the milestone. "Quiet, sir! Where
are your manners?"
The attitude, voice and very tone of dejection were as I remembered them
once, and once only, sixteen years before, when--as now--O'Rane had
wandered forth to hide his misery from the world.
"I shan't tell him yet," I whispered to Sonia, instinctively stopping
short.
She nodded her approval.
The dog's deep-chested bark had turned to a whimper of joyous welcome.
"Don't be heeding him, madame," O'Rane called out. "He'll not hurt you."
Sonia had walked on a few steps, but at sound of his voice she too
stopped. Some time was yet to pass before she appreciated the
sightlessness of those vivid, commanding eyes.
"Raney!" I cried.
He slid down from the milestone and faced us.
"George! what brings you here? It was a woman's step!"
"I was walking on the grass," I explained. "Sonia's here. She's taking
me home with her to tea."
He pulled off his hat and stood with outstretched hand.
"Why don't you come too?" asked Sonia.
He hesitated. "I must be getting back to school," he said.
"Not yet," I urged. "Saturday afternoon? I came down here to invite you
to take me in for the week-end. Come on to Crowley Court, and we'll walk
back together."
He was without excuse and forced to accept.
"Well, why not?" he asked after a moment's deliberation and picked up
his ash-plant from the roadside. "Not the first time we've met at this
milestone, George?"
The wind was blowing from the south, salt and wet.
"You can still smell the sea from here," I said, as we set out.
"I can still see them, two a minute," he cried. "The grimy Cardiff
colliers, and the P. & O.'s swaggering down Channel as if they owned the
seas. And out of the grey into the blue of the Bay. And the Rock
towering over you one morning. And then the roar of the quayside in
Marseilles.... And those parching nights and days in the Canal ...
Bombay, Colombo, Singapur, Hong-Kong, Shanghai.... The P. & O. sailings
are like an ode of Keats. Java Sea, China Sea.... Salt and sunshine and
great swampy rivers losing themselves in a midnight jungle.... The
rattle of the derricks, and all the cursing, sweating stevedores in
their rolling lighters.... The Pacific Coast and the sweepings of God's
universe. 'The smell of goats and incense, and the mule-bells tinkling
through.' Put me near tar and salt or the throb of an engine."
He stood with his head thrown back and the wind playing through his
hair, once more five thousand miles from Melton. Sonia looked at him and
turned away with lowered eyes. I slipped my arm through his, and we
walked on, idly discussing the latest news of the war.
Crowley Court had been changed out of recognition. The bigger rooms were
turned into wards, nurses in uniform were hurrying up and down stairs,
and there were groups of wounded soldiers in their blue overalls sitting
or limping about the garden. Twenty-five new patients were expected that
night from Southampton, and the resources of the house were being
strained to breaking point. Lady Dainton with a mourning brassard over
her grey dress gave us tea amid alarums and excursions in the old
smoking-room.
"Raney and I had better make ourselves scarce," I told Sonia, as her
mother was called out of the room for the sixth time.
"Let me just talk to a few of these fellows first," begged O'Rane. "We
may have been through the same places."
He jumped up and hurried out of the room with his fingers through
Jumbo's collar.
"D'you care to walk back part of the way with us?" I asked Sonia.
She shook her head, and her eyes filled with tears.
"He doesn't like me near him. Didn't you see? He never spoke a word to
me the whole way coming here. George--" she hesitated, and played with
the hem of her handkerchief--"George, is it true he refused an
interpretership on the staff?"
"He could have had one," I said.
"Well, when he went into the ranks ..."
"Sonia, don't try to take _all_ the troubles of the world on your
shoulders. Frankly, you don't look as if you could stand much more."
She lingered for a moment at the window, looking out on to the lawn
where O'Rane was sitting cross-legged on the grass, surrounded by
soldiers. Then she walked to the door.
"Say good-bye to him for me, George," she said. "I have to lie down
before dinner."
I smoked half a pipe and went into the garden. The conversation on the
lawn was abounding in historic, blood-drenched names--La Bassée, Ypres,
Neuve Chapelle, Festhubert; the men talked with bright eyes, and there
was a flush on O'Rane's thin cheeks.
"Is it time to go?" he asked, as he felt my hand on his shoulder.
"There's a fresh lot due," I said.
He jumped up and waved a hand round the circle. "Good-bye, you chaps.
You've bucked me up no end."
"Good-bye, sir! Good-bye!" The voices rang with cordiality and almost
drowned the "Poor devil!" that fell from a man with one arm and no legs.
"Come and see us again, sir."
"I'll try to! Now, George, I'm ready."
We went back to the house for our hats, and O'Rane asked if Lady Dainton
was to be found. I said I thought she had better not be disturbed.
"Sonia sent 'good-bye' to you," I added.
"Then we may as well start," he said.
"Unless you'd care to speak to her before you go?"
He picked up his hat and whistled for the dog.
"At her present rate of progress it may be your last chance, Raney."
"What the devil d'you mean?" he demanded fiercely.
"She thinks she's responsible for getting you wounded," I told him. "She
thinks you went into the ranks and chucked over a comparatively safe
job...."
"On her account?"
"Yes. And she's breaking her heart over it. Is it true?"
He stood silent, without a restive face-muscle to give me the key to his
thoughts.
"You want me to tell her it's untrue?"
"Yes," I said.
"Where is she?"
I led him upstairs and tapped on Sonia's door.
"May Raney come in and say good-bye?" I asked.
Then I went downstairs again. "I shall smoke a pipe at the milestone," I
called up to him from the hall.
A third pipe followed the second, and for the twentieth time I looked
impatiently at my watch, jumped down from the milestone and gazed down
the dusty road in search of O'Rane. It was past seven when at last I saw
him, striding along with the dog at his side, swinging his stick and
apparently guiding his feet only by the flat crown to the road.
"Hope I haven't been very long, George," he apologized, as he drew up
alongside.
"It's a beautiful evening to be in the country," I said, luxuriously
sniffing the warm scents of the evening air.
"The may's good," Raney murmured half to himself. "I'd give something to
see the chestnuts and golden rain." Then he linked his arm in mine.
"George, you oughtn't to have sent me back."
"Why, what's happened?" I asked.
I could feel him shivering.
"Oh, it was damnable," he said. "I walked in with the words, 'I've come
to say good-bye, Sonia.' There I wanted the thing to end, and I held out
my hand to signify as much. She took it and--kept hold of it. 'D'you
know those are the first words you've spoken to me to-day?' she said. I
suppose she was right. I didn't mean to be rude. She asked me why I went
into the ranks...." His voice sank, and he walked for fifty yards
without speaking. "Well, I was broke, George. Of course I could have
started again, but--my God!--was it worth doing?... I told her I wanted
to get recruits. It was true, George, the whole thing was real--even
that nonsensical meeting at Easterly. The only thing in life then was to
get men. Men and more men.... And, good heavens, officers aren't immune
from bursting shells.... Then I said good-bye, and she told me Sam was
due out of hospital next week, and would I come over and see him."
His head dropped forward so that his face was hidden.
"I told her I couldn't meet her again. Once I'd asked her to marry me
and now I thanked God she hadn't.... Then she crumpled up. Literally.
And I had to catch hold of her to keep her from falling.... She lay
there sobbing ... and I could feel the beat of her heart. 'God in
heaven!' I said, 'd'you think I'd see you married to a blind man?'"
It was half-past eight when we reached Melton, and as we were too late
to dine in Common Room I sent my suitcase up to the school and carried
O'Rane off with me to the "Raven."
"Bertrand told me to ask if you were going to keep on your seat in the
House," I said half-way through dinner.
"I'll give up nothing!" he answered defiantly. "You think I'm going to
let this make any difference----?"
"Apparently you told Sonia it would. In your place I should certainly
stick to it. Four hundred a year----"
O'Rane stopped me suddenly.
"By next January I can let you have three hundred on account," he said.
"You'd better pay it back direct," I suggested. "Two hundred to my
uncle, who'll be mortally offended at receiving it----"
"I can't help that," he interrupted obstinately.
"And the next time you go to Crowley Court----"
"I'm not going there again, George."
"My dear Raney, in common decency you _must_! When a girl sells the
pearls her father gave her when she came out----"
"George!"
"And things from her dead brother, and a twopenny wrist-watch----"
"George, _please_ stop!" He sat with his fists pressed to his temples.
"I'd have sworn it was Jim. I wrote to him a fortnight ago.... And as he
didn't deny it...."
There was a long silence.
"Perhaps he never got your letter," I said.
III
We walked up to the school after dinner and joined the staff at dessert.
I had gone to Melton to break the news of Loring's disappearance and not
to spy the incongruity of O'Rane's self-sought surroundings, but I left
without touching on the subject of my visit. O'Rane seemed to be
carrying as much sail as he could stand. Being a Saturday night the
masters had all dined in Common Room, with the exception, of course, of
Burgess. I found them profiting by his absence to compare the ideal way
of running a great public school with the way actually adopted at
Melton.
So long as a regimental mess devotes every moment of its spare time to
discussing regimental politics, so long as three barristers at a
dinner-party of twenty-four segregate themselves to discuss the last
appointment, so long as Members of Parliament refight in the
Smoking-Room the battle they have just left in the Chamber, I suppose it
is not surprising that schoolmasters should widen their outlook and
refresh their minds for the morrow by returning to the chalk dust and
ink of their classrooms.
The criticism of Burgess hung on a peg provided by one Vickers. (I shall
never forget his name and some day perhaps I shall meet him.) It seems
that Vickers, in the opinion of his form-master Matheson, was ripe for
super-annuation on the ground that he knew nothing, learned nothing and
was only being injured in health by having to spend his leisure hours in
detention-school. Ponsonby, in whose house Vickers spun out his
unprofitable existence, disagreed _in toto_ with his good friend
Matheson. Vickers was slow, without a doubt; a little patience, however
... And the boy was admirably behaved. And there must be something in
the son of a man who had captained Somerset. I was given to understand
that the _chose_ Vickers had been under discussion for some while and
that the antagonists only agreed in condemning the Head.
Burgess, it seemed, had admitted the boy five years before on the
strength of a chance conversation on early Church music. He took the
weak line that Melton might do Vickers good and that Vickers could not
possibly harm Melton; finally he was believed to attach less than no
importance to Matheson's reiterated complaints to the senior Vickers
that their son admittedly spent evening preparation in reading oratorio
scores. On this last point Ponsonby ventured to say that he paid a
personal visit to prep. room every night and could only say that he had
never discovered Vickers so employed. Had anyone described to me the
conversation of that Common Room, I should have dismissed his account
as a cruel parody.
Raney had walked up from the hotel in unbroken silence, but I saw him
gradually awakening to the sound of the Common-Room talk, where four
conversations were always in progress at once and no one waited to hear
what his neighbour had to say.
"Send him to O'Rane," suggested Ponsonby. "If he can't make anything of
him ... Hallo, Oakleigh, where have you sprung from?"
"O'Rane is welcome to him," returned Matheson. "But you may remember my
contention was that this is a school and not an asylum."
The term was two-thirds over, and I will make all allowances for rawed
nerves. But there was still a note of pathos running through the acrid
conversation. Sixteen years had passed since I last entered the smoky
Common Room over Big Gateway, and I was then being entertained to a
farewell dinner by men who seemed to shed their mannerisms with their
gowns and become suddenly human. In the interval I had wandered about
the world and tried my hand at many things; O'Rane had wandered farther
and made more experiments. Yet the Common Room was hardly changed: there
was the same round hole in the carpet by the fireplace; the horsehair
was still bursting through the scorched part of the largest chair; the
tongs, still in two pieces, were still used as pokers.
The men, too, were hardly changed. Only the younger ones came and
went--some to headmasterships, some far away from scholasticism. There
were a few science men, imported grudgingly by Burgess to tend the
growing but still suspect Modern Side; and each one knew his neighbour
too well. They knew their work too well and had corrected the same
mistakes too long. I wondered what they made of O'Rane and he of them.
As Headmaster, Burgess stood in a different position; with his enormous
range of knowledge he would always be differentiated from his fellows. I
tried to see him that night before going, but he was engaged with the
Bishop of Minehead, who was preaching in chapel next day. We met,
however, in the Cloisters after Roll Call while I was waiting for O'Rane
to come out of Early School.
"Behold, I have prepared my dinner," he said, as we shook hands. "My
oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready."
I interpreted his words as an invitation to breakfast and asked whether
I might bring O'Rane.
"Priests and Levites sit at meat with me this day," he answered, with a
warning glance to the end of the Cloisters where the Bishop was reading
the inscription on the South African memorial. "An he be not afraid....
Laddie, doth thy memory hold the day when David O'Rane came first among
us?"
"I went in fear of my life, sir, for the first term."
"I, too, laddie," said Burgess, stroking his long beard. "Cloven
tongues, like as of fire, sat upon him, and he prophesied with strange
utterance, saying, 'See here, Dr. Burgess, I propose to come to your old
school for a piece. There's my money, every last dime. When that's
petered out, I guess I'll have to find more. When do you start anyway,
and what are the rules?' Laddie, I spake a word here and a word there.
It was not good for a babe to know what he knew. Yet I would not fling
him into outer darkness, for he was not without valour."
We left the Cloisters and walked into the sunlight of Great Court.
"You saw him when he came back from France, sir?" I asked.
Burgess struggled out of his gown and threw it over one shoulder.
"Not for long did we commune together," he said, as we walked towards
Little End. "A word here and a word there. I knew little but that one of
my young men was come back to me with eyes that saw not. The laddies
call him the 'Black Panther,'" he added.
"So my cousin tells me. How did you find that out, sir?"
He shook his head vaguely.
"I am an old man, broken with the cares and sorrows of this life,
yet--all things are revealed unto me. There was turbulence in the Under
Sixth when Plancus was Consul."
"I believe there was, sir," I admitted.
Burgess beckoned with one finger.
"Come and see," he said.
We had walked round from Little End to the front of his house, and he
now led the way back through Big Gateway, across Great Court and up the
steps into Great School. The folding doors of Under Sixth room stood
open, and as we approached, a boy was standing up reading a passage of
Greek Testament; O'Rane stopped him at the end of the chapter, and the
construe began.
"How does he manage about the written work?" I whispered to Burgess.
"It is read aloud to him and he does not forget. Boy is a noble savage,
laddie," he remarked reflectively, looking at the still, orderly form.
"They wot not that the High Priest is even now at hand."
We walked down School and waited in Great Court for the bell to ring.
"It was hardly the end I pictured for Raney," I said.
"The end, laddie?" Burgess echoed.
The bell rang, and almost immediately a wave of boys poured headlong
down the steps and separated to their houses. In their rear came O'Rane,
with his hand on the shoulder of my cousin Laurence.
"Thus grows mankind's ritual," Burgess commented. "The self-appointed
guardian guards still, though his services be no longer required." He
called my cousin to him. "Laddie, if thine house-master grant thee
leave, I pray thee to a place at my board."
On the evening of my return from Melton I called at the War Office to
inquire for news of Loring. It was a fruitless mission that I had to
repeat every day that week. Sometimes I varied the procedure by calling
at Cox's Bank as well, but the result was always the same. On the
Saturday I determined to call at Loring House and prepare its inmates
for the official notice that I had not been able to intercept on its way
to the Press.
I was met in the hall by Amy, tremulous with excitement.
"You got my message?" she inquired.
"I've not been home."
"My dear, it's a boy! At six o'clock this morning. I couldn't get hold
of you at the Admiralty, so I sent a message to Queen Anne's Mansions."
"How's Violet?" I asked.
"Splendid. They both are. Everything went beautifully. She's sleeping at
present, but she wants to see you."
"Isn't it--rather soon?" I asked.
"It's only for a minute, and of course you mustn't excite her. I
mentioned in my message----"
"Amy," I interrupted, "how long is it since you heard from Jim?"
Her eyes grew apprehensive.
"You've not got bad news of him?"
"I've no news at all."
She reflected for a moment.
"It was ten days ago. We haven't heard since then, but so often we get
no letter for a week or so, and then three or four come together."
"I haven't heard either." I took her arm and walked to a settee. "It's
possible that he's missing, Amy."
"Missing?" She did not yet take the word in its specialized sense.
"It doesn't necessarily mean anything," I said. "Thousands of 'missing'
men turn up again. You see, if you get separated from your company----"
Amy covered her face with her hands, and I put my arm round her
shoulders.
"You mustn't meet trouble half-way," I said. "He may be as right as I
am----"
"You don't think that, or you wouldn't have told me," she whispered.
"I told you because you may see his name in the papers any day."
Her hands dropped into her lap, and she gazed across the hall to the
staircase as if she expected to see her brother's tall form descending.
"Jim--Jim--Jim!" she repeated with twitching lips.
"Nothing's known yet, Amy," I said. "I told you because I wanted you to
help me."
Slowly her eyes turned and met mine in a dazed and tearless stare.
"What am I to do?" she murmured.
"We must think of Jim's son," I said. "Keep Violet utterly in the dark
at present. Lie to her--anything you like--invent news of Jim. She
mustn't see the papers, she mustn't see her letters. As soon as he's
reported missing in the papers people will write and sympathize. You and
your mother must keep up the play till she's strong enough to be told.
And then you must laugh at her fears as I've laughed at yours. Missing?
What of it? With millions of men stretching over hundreds of miles----"
The dazed expression left her eyes, and her steadiness of voice and
touch as she laid her hand on mine showed me that all the courage of her
soul had gone forth to battle and returned triumphant.
"What do you think yourself, George?" she demanded.
"It's long odds against any man now out there returning with a whole
skin," I said.
She stood up and looked slowly round the great hall, instinct with the
personality of its owner. No word passed her lips, but it was the most
eloquent silence I have experienced.
"Come upstairs and see if Violet's awake," she suggested. "He's a
beautiful boy."
I found my cousin in a darkened room, leaning back on her pillows,
weak-voiced but radiant. She pointed one hand to the far side of the
bed, where a nurse stood with a new-born child in her arms.
"James Alexander Erskine Claverhouse-Moray," she whispered. "Poor mite!
it isn't fair on him. Jim wouldn't miss any of them out, though."
"If I'm to be one of his godfathers, I shan't allow it," I said. "He
shall be Sandy, plain and unadorned. How are you feeling, Vi?"
"So tired, George!" she answered, with a sigh. "I oughtn't to be seeing
you, but I want you to do something for me. Will you"--she paused, as
though the effort of speaking hurt her--"will you tell Jim you've seen
Sandy--plain and unadorned?"
I bent down and kissed her forehead. "Seen him and approved of him," I
said. "I'll write to-night."
"Oh, send him a wire."
"I'll wire," I said. "Good night, Violet."
She had dropped asleep before I reached the door. As I walked
downstairs, Lady Loring came out of the drawing-room and stood waiting
for me by the stairhead. Her round face was as placid as ever, but her
eyes were restless.
"Amy has told me everything," she said.
I bowed without speaking.
"Would you prefer to tell Violet, or shall I?" she asked.
"Perhaps, as Jim's mother----"
"I should prefer you to do it," I said, "as soon as you think it's
safe."
"Very well. As regards the boy--I've not sent any announcement to the
papers."
"I will see to that," I said.
After calling at the offices of "The Times" and "Morning Post," I wrote
letters to ten or twelve people including O'Rane and Laurence. Thinking
over the events of the day as I walked home from the Club, I could not
help feeling that one of the hardest things to bear in all the war was
the courage of the women.
IV
A week or two elapsed before I received any acknowledgement from Melton.
Then my cousin wrote a letter designed to release both myself and
O'Rane from obligations, to convey an invitation for Speech Day and as
long afterwards as I could spare for Raney's tried and approved spare
room, and finally to impart a great deal of such miscellaneous
information as my cousin thought would interest me or seemed suitable
for treatment by an epistolary method in which he took considerable
pride.
"This is awful news about Jim," he wrote. "Though I really hardly knew
him, he seemed an awful good sort--white all through. The Panther says I
haven't gone half far enough. It was an awful shock for _him_, poor
chap. I usually roll round after Early School on my way to breakfast,
just to read him his letters and the headlines in the paper. I found
your fist staring at me, so I told the Panther and read out the letter.
If I'd had time to read my own first, I might have let him down easier:
as it was, I was frightfully abrupt.
"Well, as you say, there's always hope until they definitely write him
off. It does seem rotten luck on Vi, though. She writes a fairly cheery
letter in spite of all: I heard from her this morning, asking me to be
godfather to the kid.
"I've had a most astonishing time here since last I wrote. I was coming
out of the racquet court the other day and haring along through the rain
when I bumped up against a girl in Big Archway. I apologized with my
usual pretty grace and was hurrying on when she asked me the way to the
Panther's rooms. As I happened to be going there myself on the chance of
tea, I volunteered to show her the way. With any luck the Panther might
be out, and then my theory was to invite her to the 'Raven.' It would
have been worth getting sacked just for the fun of it, George. She was
some beauty--like the picture of Lady Hamilton dressed as a Bacchante.
(If you happen to remember it, and if I'm thinking of the right one, the
thing in the dining-room in Dublin.) She'd been walking through the rain
and wind and her hair was shining with the wet, and there was little
baby diamonds on her eyelashes. (Said he poetically.) I--George, my life
is blighted: I fell in love at first sight of her eyes (colour dark
brown and an 'out' size) and at the sound of her voice. I feel I could
write reams of bad poetry about her. You should have seen me doing the
Walter Raleigh stunt and bagging our Mr. Matheson's green brolly from
Common Room passage.
"It took us some time to get to the Cloisters, as I led her round Big
School by a _lucus a non_ short cut through Chapel and by the Baths.
However, we got there eventually, and I knocked at the Panther's door.
"'That you, Oakleigh?' he asked.
"'Yes, sir,' I said.
"'You're just in time to make tea. The water's boiling. Come along in
and shut the rain out.'
"'A lady's called to see you, sir,' I said; and waited for him to hand
out hush-money.
"The Panther hardly raised an eyebrow. 'Get a move on with the tea,
then,' he said. 'What have you done with her?'
"'I'm here, David,' answered My Dream. Curse him! she called by his
Christian name!
"The Panther held out his hand. 'I didn't expect you so soon,' he said.
"'I got your letter this morning,' she answered.
"Well, George, the whole thing seemed a put-up job, and I quite made up
my mind to warn Burgess how his young men were carrying on. I poured the
tea out and handed round the food and was just making for the door when
the Panther called me back.
"'Sonia,' he said, 'I want to introduce a young cousin of George's.'
"'George is one of my oldest friends,' she said. (You old devil, you
never told me. Never mind, she called me 'Laurie' before we'd finished.)
"'And Miss Dainton is one of _my_ oldest friends,' said the Panther.
'Sit down and continue to preside over the meal. I've not made tea since
the days when I was your brother-in-law's fag--eighteen years ago,
nearly.'
"We talked a bit, and I poured out more tea and handed more food and
then I made another attempt to go.
"'You're in a great hurry, Oakleigh,' said the Panther. 'We've bored
you, I'm afraid.'
"'No, sir,' I said, 'but I thought you and Miss Dainton might want to
talk.'
"'I should like you to stay,' he said, 'Miss Dainton has called to see
these rooms, and I want you to show her round. There is a question
whether she would care to live here.'
"You could have counted me out over that, George. He said it in the most
matter-of-fact way, standing by the fireplace with his hands in his
pockets. _I_ didn't know what to say. I looked at her. She was leaning
forward with her hands round her knees and her head bent. Her eyes were
full of tears, and I couldn't make out if she was frightfully happy or
frightfully miserable.
"'What's your view, Oakleigh?' he asked.
"'I ... I don't know yet, sir,' I stammered. It was a damned unfair
question, George.
"'We were engaged when I was sixteen,' said Miss Dainton.
"'Well, what have you been waiting for?' I asked. It was awful cheek,
but it slipped out. The Panther simply yelled with laughter.
"'Then--in my place, Oakleigh?' he asked.
"'Rather, sir!' I said. I was warming to the job. I had a look at her,
but she didn't seem to mind.
"The Panther thought it over for a minute. Then he sobered down and said
very quietly:
"'If you were blind?'
"'It doesn't seem to make any difference to you, sir,' I said.
"George wasn't that a perfectly innocent remark? The Panther's simply
amazing, the things he does. However, I seemed to have said the wrong
thing. He clapped his hands to his eyes as though he'd been stung, and I
could hear him whisper under his breath, 'Oh, my God!'
"I weighed in with the most abject of apologies, and he was all right
again in a minute and turned to Miss Dainton.
"'Am I to take this young man as representative of the world at large,
Sonia?' he asked.
"She said 'Yes' very quietly.
"'Oakleigh hasn't shown you round the rooms yet,' he said. 'They're
nothing very much. I left my money behind in London, and a slice of my
youth the far side of the Atlantic, and my sight in Flanders. If you
care about what's left Sonia.... I'm not half-way through my life yet.'
"She got up and whispered something that I couldn't hear, then the
Panther turned to me and held out his hand. 'Will you be the first to
congratulate me, Oakleigh? I shall want you to write a lot of letters
to-night. One to George, and another to your sister, and any number
more. You can tell George to desert from the Admiralty and come down
here for Speech Day--and as long as he can stay afterwards. You can tell
the school, too, if you think it'll amuse them.'
"I shook hands with the two of them for about five minutes. They were
simply bursting with cheer. I wanted to shout or make a speech or
something, but all I could do was to pump-handle their arms up and down
and burble 'Best of luck!' and on my honour I slapped the Panther on the
back and told him to buck up!
"Never in my life did I feel such a fool as when it was all over. I got
away as soon as I could and wandered down to the baths. About an hour
later as I was coming up to prep. with Majoribanks we caught sight of
the Panther and Miss Dainton starting up the Crowley Road. I mentioned
casually that the Panther was getting married and that I'd been having
tea with them and that she struck me as being a decent sort of girl. I
didn't go into details. It was all such an extraordinary business that I
knew that if _I_ didn't quite get the hang of it, it was useless to look
to a chuckle-head like Margy for light and leading.
"You know, George, I don't believe they'd have done it if it hadn't been
for me.
"And now to the fascinating task of turning Marc Antony's funeral
oration into Latin Hexameters for the benefit of our Mr. O'Rane. If he
gives me any lip about them, I shall tell him that she called me
'Laurie.'
"The cost of living has gone up again since I thanked you for that
fiver."