It seems to be a fact that love, like the camel, can live on its own
resources for a length of time that amazes the less fantastic and
incalculable rest of creation; but it is equally certain and a great
deal more comprehensible that months of strain, followed by a spell of
hot weather, salad and strawberries, nervous excitement, sleepless
nights and a climax of elemental emotion, have sooner or later to be
paid for; that, soothing as it may be to the soul to lie for three hours
in a damp ditch without changing afterwards, it is distinctly bad for
the body; and finally, that only a lover or a camel (there is certainly
a likeness between them in more ways than one) could be surprised if at
last even their strength goes from them, and they give their relations
or their driver a deal of unnecessary trouble.
Laura, developing, for no reason that Aunt Adela could conceive, a
feverish cold, dragged about the house for a week, refusing to go beyond
the garden, saying how much better she would be in a day or two, and
then collapsed. Once in bed she found herself suddenly too weak and ill
to struggle with the kindly, overbearing Samsons who kept her there, and
by the end of the day the very knowledge of them had passed, swamped,
with the memory of the past and the fear of the future, in the present
mercy of bodily pain.
From that timeless interval she woke one day to the realization of a
darkened room and a clock ticking, and a calendar on the wall with
‘twenty-five’ in staring, black figures and July above it, and below a
verse, and below that again a table with bottles and a cup. She
recognized them at once—bottles and a cup and a table and a calendar, a
calendar and a table——Why had somebody said something just now about
Laura being delirious?... Poor Laura!... saying cruel things like that
about poor Laura.... She was sorry for that poor girl....
And here she began to laugh aloud, weakly, because she was Laura
herself, lying on her own bed, able to move and speak, though the
bedclothes were a weight unbearable and there was a weight like
bedclothes on her mind.
She looked up at an aunt appearing miraculously out of space.
“I’m Laura!” she told her.
“Of course you are. Now be a good girl and go to sleep.”
“Poor Laura,” she said—and obeyed.
After that she began to mend, yet so slowly that the doctor was puzzled.
Day ate up day and still she lay passive, taking her medicines, doing as
she was told, without wishes, almost without words, but listening with
grave, uncomprehending attention to Aunt Adela, under orders to amuse,
to rouse if she could, but not to excite the invalid. Aunt Adela, in
undisputed command of Laura and the situation, now that the nurse was
gone, enjoyed herself. She was conscientious, she was well-meaning: she
sat by the hour at Laura’s bedside in a basket chair that creaked as she
turned the pages, reading her items of interest from the paper (nothing
exciting, of course—oh, the doctor might depend on her) and stories and
poems from the parish magazine: and would break off in the middle with
chit-chat of the village, with the news that the new curate had preached
last Sunday, and that Annabel Moulde had called to enquire after Laura.
But every one enquired regularly—most kind—because, of course, it was an
extraordinary thing to get pneumonia in such weather, and, as she had
told Annabel only that morning, she hoped it would be a warning to her
never to be without wool next her skin, even in the height of summer.
Mrs. Cloud had said the same thing. Yes, she had called before she went
to the sea—oh, about a month ago now, Justin had gone on ahead, if Laura
remembered—but Laura was looking so white that she was sure it was time
for her tonic, and how often had she told Laura that she must try and
not talk so much?
Laura thought feebly how kind she was, and how like the bluebottle
buzzing on the pane.
But as July blazed over into August, Laura noticed, with the same
trance-like impersonal interest in the phenomenon, that Aunt Adela’s
manner was changing. She looked worried, yet greatly excited. She could
not be talking ten minutes without pulling herself up short. She was
always changing the subject for no reason that Laura could discern, for
ever verging on tremendous revelations and for ever thinking better of
it. She talked more than usual, too, of the twins and of how young they
were, thank God—no, Laura, not eighteen, seventeen and nine months—and
of the need for a good supply of tinned foods in the house, and of how
much she had always admired Sir Edward Grey.
Laura, promising not to excite herself by talking to Ellen, when Ellen,
obviously also under orders, dusted the room, did not even shrug a
shoulder. Aunt Adela had always loved making a mystery. She was not
curious. She had her own mystery to occupy her, the mystery of the dead
weight upon her mind that was connected with the names that were for
ever on Aunt Adela’s tongue—Justin—Mrs. Cloud—familiar names that hurt
her to hear spoken. It was not that she had really forgotten things, of
course ... but for the moment, only for the moment, the precise
significance of certain far-away actions of her own had evaded her, as
well as the exact relation to herself of this Justin.... Justin—and Mrs.
Cloud—who was—who, of course, was Justin’s mother.... Now Justin—now she
and Justin.... But it hurt her head to remember all that she knew about
Justin.
But one morning Aunt Adela, called out of the room to entertain
callers—morning calls had never quite gone out of fashion in
Brackenhurst—left the paper she was reading flung down upon the bed, and
Laura’s eye was caught by such enormous headlines as she had never seen
before, headlines that blared through the room like trumpets.
England—she turned sideways that the paper might catch the light—England
was at war. England had been at war three days.
War? In the egotism of her weakness it seemed a trifling thing. War ...
war.... There had been the Boer War too.... She dropped the paper
indifferently.
But a thought, not of the unrealized present, but of that dreamlike far
past, remained with her, stirring her mind to exertion.
The Boer War.... She could just remember the red-white-and-blue ribbons
in shops and the picture buttons of Redvers Buller, and Sir George
White, and Kitchener, that she used to buy with her pennies. Father—that
shadow of a shadow—had been killed in the Boer War.... He had left his
business to volunteer ... that was why they were poor.... She
remembered—and the memory stabbed like a sudden light in a dark room—the
beady rasp of carpet against her bare knees as she twisted round from
her dolls’ house at the sound of voices, at her Aunt Adela’s voice—
“Pure selfishness in a married man, I call it—though he is my brother.
What’s the army for?” And then—not her mother’s answer, but her mother’s
soft, angry, beautiful face....
It was like Aunt Adela not to realize that decent men were bound to
volunteer when there was a war on, like the Boer War.... _The Great War_
by Conan Doyle.... She had the book somewhere ... it had lasted three
years—that great war.... Of course, this business——
She picked up the paper again and began to read.
And as she read, those overworked, willing servants the body and the
brain of the body, roused themselves, as in crisis they always do, to
meet the demands of the shocked spirit. She felt the clogging weakness
drawing away from her as a cloud draws away from a hill-side. She turned
from a remembered past that had seemed the extreme of trouble to a
future that made that past a childish thing.
War....
Deliberately she put aside the emotions that she owed the event.
‘England,’ ‘Right,’ ‘Wrong,’ ‘Victory,’ ‘Sacrifice,’ ‘Our Fleet’—these
were words that could wait: it was first necessary to comprehend its
personal significance. This war meant—it meant danger: and before this
danger, she saw already, one would be helpless: between this danger and
Justin one would not be able to interpose body or soul.... This—she
tried to be very clear—this was war—man’s war—a dragon from the fairy
tales come to overwhelming, incredible flesh and blood life.... It was a
week old and already it was clamouring for its food.... ‘Your King and
Country want you.’... Father had volunteered—all decent men had to
volunteer—always—in a war.... So Justin ... if Justin ... but surely
Justin wouldn’t have to go? At any rate, not for months and months....
Why should Justin go? the only son of his mother.... Justin would surely
understand that it was not his duty ... not yet anyhow.... He could do
things at home.... No need—no need.... But if Justin went.... All decent
men went.... He would go—he would go—he would go in spite of all—she
would have to watch him go.... And there were more ways than one, it
seemed, of losing Justin....
She turned on her pillow and abandoned herself to terror—a terror beyond
the decencies. She was wrenched and torn with weeping, frantic in her
fear for him. He might suffer.... He might be exposed to bodily
torture.... He might die ... be gone from her for ever—for ever—like a
candle blown out.... In six months—in three months—there might be no
Justin—anywhere—any more....
And at that she bit and tore at her wrist lest she should scream aloud.
It was a madness that spent itself at last, as such things must, leaving
her sane and heavy-eyed and ashamed. And in that desolate lull she could
hear the voice, cold, disloyal, of another subtler fear—
Suppose—suppose he did not go?...
When Aunt Adela came back an hour later, stuffed to bursting with gossip
that must on no account be imparted to the invalid, she found Laura
sitting up in bed, her eyes quick and intelligent, her passivity a thing
of the past.
She acclaimed her.
“My dear, you’re better! You’ve got quite a colour.”
“Yes.” Laura touched the paper beside her. “You ought to have told me.
Why didn’t you tell me?”
Aunt Adela looked guilty.
“Did I leave——? I never meant——My child, you weren’t fit——Laura, what
are you doing?”
Laura threw back the sheets.
“I’ve got to get up.” Then, softening at her aunt’s horror, “Poor
Auntie! I must have been a nuisance. But I’m all right now. Can’t you
see? Who was it?”
“Oh, Mrs. Gedge. Laura, don’t be ridiculous! Cover yourself up! They’re
in such trouble. They can’t hold Robin. And he was to have been
ordained. I’m as patriotic as any one, but I do _not_ see——But it takes
hold of the men somehow. I remember your father——Extraordinary! People
you’d never dream——Now wouldn’t you call Justin Cloud the last
person——?” She checked herself. “Oh, Laura, I didn’t mean to tell
you—not yet—the doctor——Now, Laura, I will not have you getting up!”
But Laura, hanging on to the edge of the dressing-table, was tugging
feebly at a drawer.
“I must. I must be well. There must be things to do. D’you think I can
lie here——? When did you hear?”
Aunt Adela was resigned.
“Well, if you must, I’ll get you a dressing-gown. Of course, Dr. Bradley
has said all along that if you could only make the effort——”
Laura swayed where she stood.
“I’m all right. When did you hear?”
“About Justin? I knew you’d be upset. Not that he’ll get out. Everybody
says it can’t last six months. But I wonder he hasn’t written. I had
such a nice note from Mrs. Cloud, apologizing for not seeing me when I
called. She was at home for a few days—getting things together. She is
going to town for the present to be near him, till he knows where he’s
training. And her love to you. H.A.C. I wonder if he’ll get a
commission? But you’ll be hearing from Justin himself in a day or two, I
expect. Would you like some hot water?”
She bustled out of the room.
Laura, bent and flushed over the task of putting on stockings, for the
grasshopper was still a burden for all her high-handedness, wondered how
she was to convey to Aunt Adela that there would be no letters from
Justin. And from that passed dully to the knowledge that if she had been
patient, if she, wise in her own eyes, had not chosen to force the
issue, there would have still been ‘letters’ in her life. And who, pray,
was she to have doubted Justin? “H.A.C.—the first week!” This was the
man that she would have ruled and schooled!... “A shock—that’s what he
wants—a shock.” ... her own words were a bitter taste in her mouth. For
now it had come, the shock, the real thing—no crazy schoolgirl
artifice—and she was justified to her own undoing. “A private—the first
week!”
Justified—thank God she was justified. But there would be no letters
from Justin.
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