“Such decent chaps they were,” said Alan reflectively, “we had a most
delightful conversation. They don’t really want to arrest me in the
least. Not with any conviction. Still, they’re coming to discharge their
painful duty at 8 a.m. to-morrow morning. Don’t look so wretched,
Dennis. I’m glad to be really up against it at last.”
Dennis made no answer. He was mentally calculating how many hours of
freedom still remained to Alan. It was 2 a.m. now. Not many hours more.
“And they’re mistaken if they think that imprisonment can make me
forswear my creed, or declare that I believe in war as a means of
regeneration of nations, or that the duties of citizenship lie in taking
the lives of other citizens, rather than in trying to promote pacific
relations between them. Benny was complaining the other day that we’re
so few, and I know some of us have ratted on that score alone, given up
the battle because they think it’s no use against such odds. Being in
the minority doesn’t imply being in the wrong. But capitulating means
admitting that we believe that black is white, just because the majority
says so. Poor devils all over Europe are being told that black is white,
and are dying in proof of it. Dying gallantly and splendidly and
wastefully for the sake of a lie.”
“And when we try to assert our truth, we’re condemned to the
death-in-life of prison.”
“I wouldn’t call it so much death-in-life, as so many years that a
benighted State unlawfully robs out of our lives, and it’s our business
to prove that even that theft can’t daunt us.”
“You needn’t be afraid that I shall let it daunt me.” To logic and
commonsense and humanity; to every argument, reason and motive that had
hitherto impelled Dennis to take up his stand as a pacifist, was now
added the greatest of all these—love. “A couple of weeks hence I expect
I shall be safely under lock and key too.”
Alan grinned. “Locked up because we’re considered a danger to
humanity.... Almost humorous, isn’t it?”
“Well, at least we shall both be going through the same hell, Alan.”
“The same hell, and the same good fight; I think we fought side by side
before now. In ancient Greece, perhaps, or Rome. Sometimes I have dreams
... and in those dreams you are always my comrade in battle, my comrade
in love.”
“And always will be, Alan, always....”
“You’re sure, Dennis—sure that it will be, when we come out on the other
side of this infernal tunnel?” There was a note of anxious pleading in
the boy’s voice. For all his keen determination and courage, he looked
suddenly even younger than he was—as young as he had looked that night
at Crannack.
“Alan....” Dennis dug the nails into the palms of his hands as he tried
to master the choking sob that rose in his throat. But at that note in
Alan’s voice all his laboriously built-up self-control and restraint
gave way....
* * * * *
The Square was very still, flooded in the cold bluish light of the moon.
The two stood a moment in silence on Dennis’s door-step.
Then Alan smiled up at his friend. “Good-night, Dennis....”
“Good-night, boy....” He tightened the pressure of his hand round Alan’s
arm. “If only I could keep you safe....”
“Nothing matters now,” murmured Alan, “I’m glad it’s been like this—the
last time....”
PART III
CHAPTER I
“And do you mean to tell me,” Mrs. Ryan said severely, “that Dennis is
appealing for exemption _again_?”
Mrs. Blackwood looked troubled. “You see, the local tribunal passed him
for General Service, so he’s appealing against that at the House of
Commons.”
“I should have thought that being refused once would have brought him to
his senses,” persisted Mrs. Ryan. Mrs. Blackwood glanced helplessly
across at Antoinette. They had met at Dennis’s tribunal, for which Mrs.
Blackwood and Doreen had come up to London; and they had invited
Antoinette to England for the following week-end. Dennis had remained in
town pending his new appeal.
In answer to Mrs. Blackwood’s look, Antoinette rose in his defence.
“Naturally he’s appealing again. The local tribunal scarcely listened to
what he had to say.”
“I should think not,” snorted Mrs. Ryan.
“But surely the object of a tribunal _is_ to listen to what people have
to say...?”
Momentarily routed, Mrs. Ryan occupied herself with the sleeve of the
pyjama she was sewing. All the ladies present were either sewing or
knitting, and Doreen was busy with the tea. Antoinette found it both
amusing and stimulating to be championing Dennis’s views in his own
home-circle. Mrs. Blackwood was too worried, and also a little
shamefaced before her visitors to do much in the championing line; and
Doreen apparently shared this attitude. It therefore devolved upon
Antoinette alone to defend the conscientious objector against these
female militarists—Mrs. Ryan and Mrs. Hallard the most rabid ones; Mrs.
Griggs merely woolly and futile; little Miss Simpkins torn between
admiration of “our gallant boys,” and a reluctant personal admiration
for Dennis. Unlike Mrs. Blackwood and Doreen, Antoinette had no regard
whatever for the susceptibilities of the old ladies of Eastwold, and so
felt quite equal to her task.
Mrs. Ryan returned to the offensive. “I suppose if he appeals long
enough he will get himself put into that Non-Combatant Corps. A shame, I
call it, for a healthy young man.”
“Oh, he wouldn’t dream of accepting Non-Com,” Antoinette replied
loftily, “that’s only a compromise.” She was glad that she had picked up
enough at Miss Mowbray’s to enable her to carry on the argument—carry it
on clumsily, perhaps, but with Dennis’s own weapons.
Mrs. Hallard, biting off the end of her cotton, said with brisk
cheerfulness: “Well, there’s always Work of National Importance for him
to undertake if he won’t fight. Plenty of that going, isn’t there?”
“Dennis won’t undertake anything that means releasing another man to be
killed in his place,” said Antoinette, and Mrs. Blackwood supported her
weakly with: “You see, Dennis is a socialist.”
“One of those horrid people who wear red ties and are always having
riots ...” quavered Mrs. Griggs.
“Dennis doesn’t wear a red tie!” declared his mother.
“As he doesn’t believe in war himself, he won’t help others to wage it,”
Antoinette ignored the asides.
“So selfish ...” murmured Mrs. Griggs.
“He might at least make munitions,” was Mrs. Hallard’s next bright
suggestion.
“Isn’t that helping to kill people, just as much as going to the Front?
It’s doing it at home in comfort, instead of out there in danger.”
“But—but the Germans _have got_ to be killed,” expostulated Mrs. Ryan,
“how else are we to win the war?”
Antoinette plunged round for some of the remembered arguments.
“Pacifists don’t see why we should win it, any more than the Germans.
They think a decisive victory for either side wouldn’t mean lasting
peace, but would only be the foundation for future wars. Nothing will
move Dennis from that belief!” she added proudly.
“It’s quite a wrong-headed belief and someone ought to talk it out of
him,” said Mrs. Ryan, “I hope you’ve used all your influence, Mrs.
Blackwood?”
“Oh, I can’t argue with him,” the mother shook her head, “his brains are
so much better than mine ... and of course he must do as he thinks
right.”
“But do you realise that if he persists in upholding such nonsense, he
runs the risk of being put in prison?”
Mrs. Blackwood did realise. To anyone observing under her eyes the dark
hollows that told of many sleepless nights, the fact would have been
obvious.
“Think of the disgrace!” said Mrs. Ryan in sepulchral tones.
“Yes, the disgrace that a man _should_ be put in prison for standing by
his convictions!” Antoinette blazed out.
Mrs. Ryan glared at her. “Well, really ... these people are put in
prison for being cowards, and quite right too.”
“But the C.O.s who stand out aren’t cowards: cowards take the easy
way—they commit suicide.” She was thinking of young Oswald Forsyth, who,
maddened by fear of that which awaited him no matter in which direction
he turned, had found a solution by taking his own life. “They’re not all
cowards—there are some exceptions to the rule.”
“I always distrust the exception to the rule.”
“But you can’t have a world with everyone in it absolutely true to type,
and built upon the same model by the dozen. Think how dull and tidy it
would be—how German, in fact.”
“I trust that my ideas do not in any respect savour of the _Kultur_ of
that despicable country,” said Mrs. Ryan with dignity; “but I maintain
that anything that puts itself outside the general rule and diverges too
widely from the ordinary type, is an undesirable element, and should be
barred out.”
“That means that you’d bar out genius too, and lots of other fine
qualities that only exist in the brains of people who are exceptions to
the rule.”
“... Such a very gifted young man,” sighed Miss Simpkins, smoothing her
buttonhole with her thimble, “it seems such a pity....”
“In times like these,” pronounced Mrs. Ryan, “if he can find nothing
else to do, he should at least devote his gifts solely to composing
Battle-Hymns for our men....”
“... And she won’t be budged from her opinion any more than Dennis will
be from his,” reflected Antoinette. It suddenly made her feel tired to
think of the perpetual clash and battle of opposing belief and opposing
opinion going on all over the world now—and no party ever coming round
to see the point of view of the other.
Mrs. Ryan, by way of intimating that the discussion was at an end,
pointedly asked Doreen if she had news from Hugh, who was in the
trenches.
“I haven’t heard for some days, Mrs. Ryan. He was all right when he
wrote last, but the post comes so irregularly now....” Doreen also was
paler and thinner with the strain of waiting for letters, and dreading a
certain kind of telegram from the War Office.
There was a sympathetic murmur from all the ladies; then Mrs. Hallard
spoke with her habitual brightness: “Never mind, dear. Just think how
you and Lily will value the boys when they do come home to you for good.
I expect we shall have a double wedding, sha’n’t we, Mrs. Blackwood?
Clive and Lily, and Doreen and Hugh.”
“There’s nothing so pretty as a really pretty wedding, I always think,”
came Miss Simpkins’ gentle voice.
“Arthur was the first man to enter Combles,” said Mrs. Griggs for the
tenth time that afternoon. “He entered it at the head of his men,
although he was badly wounded in the knee, which I am sure was very
painful indeed, though he made light of it at the time.”
“Yes, he’s quite a hero, isn’t he?” said Mr. Blackwood, and Mrs. Ryan
put in: “He sent the girls a letter the other day; it had been opened by
the censor, and they were ever so proud of it.”
In imagination Antoinette could hear Amy’s excited lisp: “Fanthy the
thenthor reading all our thecreth—doethn’t it make one feel important?”
Later on Lily Hallard made her appearance. Hands plunged deep in the
pockets of her khaki coat, she greeted the assembled company with:
“Afternoon, everybody!” and helping herself to the sandwiches sat down
between her mother and Doreen.
“I’ve had a letter from Clive, so I thought I’d better toddle round with
it at once and show you. Says he’s feeling awfully fit. Killed three
Huns all on his own—sniped ’em. Good man!”
“Oh, well done, well _done_!” cried Mrs. Hallard, “that ought to mean a
decoration of some sort. Well, if he gets it or not, he’ll have deserved
it. Your boy has given you something to be proud of, Mrs. Blackwood.”
“Yes—yes, indeed....” But Mrs. Blackwood’s mind was troubled by an echo
of something her other boy had once said to her: “Do you think because
they’re Germans they love their sons less?”
“Oh, by the way,” Lily continued with her mouth full, “Tom Sanderson’s
been rather badly smashed up. I met his mother this morning. They had to
amputate both legs—the one only as far as the knee, though. They say
he’s wonderfully cheerful—learning to knit and make himself useful with
his hands, now he’ll never be able to ride or walk again. I won’t tell
Clive when I write; he’d be so cut up. He’s awfully fond of Tom. Rotten
shame, isn’t it?”
“The brutes!” exclaimed Mrs. Ryan.
... Those who had maimed Tom were brutes; but Clive, who had sniped
three of the enemy, was a hero. And to the other side Clive was the
brute, and Tom’s assailants were heroes. Antoinette marvelled that the
one-sided absurdity of it all should be apparent to no one save herself.
But she recognised that it would not even have been apparent to her were
she not seeing the world through Dennis’s eyes. And had he been a
soldier she would have collected his badges and buttons, and listened to
his stories from the Front with just as much zest as Doreen or Lily. But
while she utterly lacked convictions of her own, there was a certain
pride in taking up the attitude which she knew would have been his if he
had been here.
Mrs. Blackwood’s invitation to Eastwold had been a god-send. Ever since
Alan’s arrest, two months ago, she had felt strangely shy of Dennis; had
feared that he might think she was taking an unfair advantage over Alan.
He might hate her and recoil from her, just because she was there, and
he did not want her; and Alan, whom he did want, was inaccessible. All
she prayed for now was not that Dennis should love her, but that he
should not hate her.
And at Eastwold, surrounded by people and things that belonged to him,
she was continually being reminded of his personality. There were the
old photographs of him as a baby, as a boy ... such a serious-eyed
little boy. There were his books which she was invited to borrow if she
liked. There was in Doreen that faint family-likeness to Dennis; an
expression in the big light-brown eyes; the curve of the lips. There was
the fascination of listening to Mrs. Blackwood’s stories of him as a
child.... Antoinette felt nearer to him here than when she was actually
with him in London.
After the sewing-party had broken up, Lily, Antoinette and Doreen sat
talking in the latter’s bedroom.
Doreen appealed to Antoinette: “Can’t you do anything to make Dennis
give up his dreadful ideas?”
Antoinette smiled inwardly at the assumption that she had some influence
over Dennis; but thought it just as well to keep up the illusion before
Dennis’s sister. “Why should I, Doreen? Surely every man has a right to
his opinions, and I think it’s splendid of Dennis to stand by his, as
he’s doing.”
“Splendid!” cried Lily, “sheer theatricality, I call it. They should
never have had the chance of making such an exhibition of themselves.
I’d shoot ’em all if I had my way.”
“When so many are being shot already—and some are shooting themselves
for fear of being shot—and some are shooting themselves rather than
shoot others?”
“Oh, I like your so-called humanitarian who is so squeamish that he
won’t take the lives of his country’s enemies, and yet doesn’t scruple
to take his own, rather than let it be of service to the State.”
“Rather than use it for a purpose which he considers vile!” Antoinette
broke in. “There’s some heroism in that too, even if there isn’t in the
suicide of the person who’s just afraid. That’s only pitiful ...” she
added softly.
“Why concern yourself with such riff-raff? The C.O.s and all their like
are just a lot of contemptible weaklings.”
“You’re not very complimentary to your future brother-in-law, are you?”
“Doreen knows well enough what I think of Dennis’s behaviour; there is
no need for compliments. People of his sort are no good to the nation.
Cut ’em out I say!”
“You can’t call a man who’s ready to go to prison for his convictions a
weakling or a coward.”
“Prison’s safe. What’s prison compared with the trenches?”
“They do queer things to the C.O.s in prison—forcing food through tubes
up their noses if they won’t eat, putting them in chains and painful
irons—yes, you _shall_ listen, Doreen.... The officials have more or
less got a free hand with them, and backed up by public opinion they can
wreak their spite upon them as they please, giving them ghastly
punishments that may injure them for life.”
Lily shrugged her shoulders. “If a man disobeys orders he’s got to be
punished. The men in the trenches run other risks—real risks.”
“The men in the trenches also stand a sporting chance of escape. Those
in prison don’t. They have to undergo deliberate, cold-blooded torture.
It—it’s like atrocities!”
Lily snorted. “Well, it would be a nice thing if these precious
pacifists of yours were allowed to run loose and enjoy themselves while
all the really decent people have to suffer.”
“No, you’d like to see them punished just for having ideas that are
different from other people’s. You rampant militarists at home can’t
endure the thought of any joy or freedom being left in the world. You
seem to take a ghoulish pleasure in crushing it all out. It galls you to
think of anyone escaping with a lesser share of the general misery.”
“Frankly I don’t see why the C.O.s should escape. Why should men enjoy
the freedom and the rights of citizenship that they won’t fight for?”
“They’re not given their rights of citizenship as a free gift or a
charity; they pay for them in rates and taxes: that’s fair. But why
should they also be expected to pay in flesh and blood?”
“You’ve a very lofty idea of patriotism, I must say!”
“I hate all the talk about ‘a man’s duty to the State.’ Why should the
State have the right to claim a man’s life when it can’t _give_ him
life—when it can’t give him back as much as a finger-nail that he may
lose in the war? Why has the State the right to take more than it can
give?”
“You’re mad,” said Lily; and having thus clinched the argument,
departed.
Doreen sighed. “Dennis can’t stop the war by keeping out of it, so I do
wish he’d join in like everybody else, and help to win it.”
“Of course one man can’t stop the war by standing out, any more than one
man by joining in can win it. Each man can only answer for himself, and
do what he thinks right.”
Doreen cried impulsively, “I love you for sticking up for Denny like
that, but only because I love him too—not because I think he’s right. I
think it’s right to do what Hugh’s doing, even though I sometimes feel I
just can’t bear it a second longer—the waiting for news—and knowing he’s
in danger always—and hating the sight of a telegraph-boy.”
“Yet you wouldn’t want him not to be at the Front, would you?”
Doreen shook her head.
“And I don’t want Dennis not to stand by his views, either.”
“Oh, that’s different,” said Doreen childishly.
Antoinette smiled. “Is it...? And supposing Hugh had been a pacifist,
Doreen?”
“Oh, he never could have been ... but if he had,” Doreen softened, “if
he had, I suppose I should have tried to find excuses for him.” She
added after a moment: “But how I should have hated having to!”
CHAPTER II
He was adrift again now, while he waited for his tribunal, perilously
adrift: wandering down to Miss Mowbray’s and half-heartedly joining in
the talk, with his thoughts elsewhere; wandering into theatres when the
performance was nearly over, seeking in vain that which might distract
and hold him. Hold him.... Was there anything on earth that could hold
him, now that Alan had gone? And now that Alan had gone, his life was
one stupendous aching regret that what had happened that last night had
not happened sooner. The senselessness of all his repression and
self-denial stood revealed to him. Seeing at last with Alan’s eyes, and
in the light of his own experience, he recognised that herein had lain
the real perversion: in the continuous struggle between brain and body,
the continuous struggle to suppress his instincts and force them into
ways not natural to them. It had not lain in his passion for Alan. That,
and that alone, given the peculiarities of his nature, had been right,
had been beautiful, because it was truthful. He could curse himself now
for the short-sightedness, for the principle of imagined æstheticism
that had made him for so long resist his own impulses.
If only.... And now it was too late. Alan was behind the bars, and
Dennis left with the burning knowledge of all that he had missed. What,
indeed, was there that could hold him now? Yet despite his desire to be
held, at times he longed with weary irritability, to be able to sever
all ties; to break from his family; from Antoinette; perhaps, like
O’Farrell, to escape to Ireland; to live in truth the life of the outlaw
and outcast that he was.
Perpetual argument, achieving no result, and ending always in the same
inevitable deadlock, was carried on between the two conflicting strains
of his nature.
“It would break your mother’s heart.”
“She’s got the three others, and they are more satisfactory than I am.”
“She loves you more than the others—and differently.”
Dennis groaned, impatient of this wealth of affection to which he could
make no adequate return. He loved his mother—but she was not the pivot
of his existence, as he was of hers.
There was Antoinette, too, with her useless gifts, with her useless
pleading that he might accept them. Sometimes he hated her for his very
inability to accept them; and sometimes he could laugh at the futility,
the grotesque, ludicrous futility of these ties that held him—and held
him—and did not hold him. But if he broke them, he asked himself, what
then? What then?
Doubtless the Central Appeal Tribunal would in some measure furnish the
reply.
CHAPTER III
“Clear the court!”
The people were hustled out into one of the long stone corridors of the
House of Commons, and the door closed upon them. Behind that door the
fate of two of the applicants for exemption was being decided.
Antoinette groaned at the delay. Dennis had been called for 2.30 that
afternoon, but it was nearly 4 o’clock now, and so far only five out of
the twelve cases had been heard. The fact that one did not know in what
order they were to be heard, added to the suspense of waiting. In the
first case there had only been a brief interval between the applicant’s
statement and the delivery of judgment. The spectacled, obviously
highly-strung young man had appealed on socialistic grounds. His speech
was both virile and vehement, and he quoted Tolstoy and Wells and Karl
Marx and Philip Gibbs in a breathless Cockney voice that told of
self-education and the night-school. When he had finished, he still
stood tense and rigid, although he had the Board’s permission to be
seated. And when the blow fell—“Appeal dismissed. Applicant passed for
Foreign Service”—he crumpled up quite suddenly into his chair in a way
that made Antoinette’s throat feel tight.
The two next appeals had been decided in much the same manner; but the
last two had evidently presented greater difficulties and were now being
considered behind the closed doors.
In the corridor a crowd of men and women, friends and supporters of the
applicants, were huddled together, talking in low voices. Amongst them
there were representatives of both pacifist and militarist newspapers, a
plain-clothes detective, and two policemen. There was only one bench,
and that was occupied by a youth in khaki and three white-faced women in
black. The others had to stand, shifting restlessly to and fro, yet not
daring to move too far from those doors that might open again at any
moment. People who had never met before drifted into whispered
conversation with each other, linked together by an outlook and an
anxiety common to them all.
An elderly woman was talking to Dennis, and Antoinette was glad that his
attention was engaged. His behaviour to her had been entirely aloof and
impersonal ever since Alan’s arrest. Perhaps he thought—thus she
interpreted his mood—that if he were less aloof and impersonal he would
be guilty of treachery towards Alan. Even now, though she had
accompanied him here, and was outwardly quite in the picture—“the woman
at his side”—there was no intimacy of thought between them. She knew
well enough who it was who really “stood by” him.
She heard the woman say to Dennis: “I shall _will_ you to get total
exemption. I am a great believer in will-power, aren’t you? If they
offer you Non-Combatant Service, I do hope you won’t take it! Yes, I’ve
been to prison three times—look!” She lowered her voice to a whisper and
pointed to the suffragette badge she wore inside her jacket. Then,
turning to Antoinette: “I shall will him to get off for both your sakes,
my dear....”
Antoinette thanked her gravely.
The doors were flung open again, and the people pressed back into the
court, struggling to regain their old places on the benches that ran,
three deep, along the walls. Would it be Dennis’s turn now to face those
twenty-five men upon whom his fate depended?
Judgment was delivered upon the previous applicants. Then a name was
called: not Dennis’s. The young man in khaki stepped forward and took
his place at the desk, and a murmur of astonishment went through the
crowd at the sight of his uniform. He stated that when the military
authorities had come to remove him, he had told them that he had an
appeal pending, but they had taken no notice....
There were groans of “Shame....” “A disgrace!” which were instantly
quelled. The Chairman declared that the man must be put back into
civilian ranks before his case could be heard.
The next applicant claimed exemption on the grounds that he was the sole
support of his mother, his grandmother and a paralysed sister. His
father was dead, and his brother had been killed in the war. While the
Chairman enquired into the details of the circumstances, Antoinette
looked at the woman who had accompanied the applicant; the mother,
probably. Her hands were clenched in her lap, her eyes fixed imploringly
upon the Chairman’s face. Impossible to tell from the perfect
impartiality of his manner in which direction he was biased, if at all.
Antoinette found herself following this case, as she had followed most
of the others: not impersonally, but as if all her own hopes and
longings were centred in the desire that the man should get his
exemption. She shared the breathless painful suspense of the mother, and
the feeling that the agony was being unnecessarily prolonged, when
judgment was for the moment deferred, and the next man called.
This one stated that he had religious scruples against the taking of
life. In proof of this he had relinquished his post with a firm of
motor-tyre manufacturers on discovering that they were working for the
Government. He put his case badly, halting and stammering; but his
underlying determination seemed to be inflexible.
“The Lord said: ‘_Thou shalt not kill._’”
Here the Military Representative, to whose smooth fat face and sneering
expression Antoinette had taken an instantaneous dislike, rose to his
feet and asked the applicant with affected politeness if he were aware
that one or two of the Germans—yes, let us say one or two of them—had
already broken that commandment, and that it was his duty to his country
to retaliate?
“If the Germans do wrong, sir, I can’t help it. I can’t get beyond the
words of God.”
“You wish to interpret them in the manner most convenient to yourself.
Since you are so well up in the Bible, what about the passage that
demands ‘_An eye for an eye_’?”
“The God of vengeance may have demanded that, sir—never the God of
love.”
“Ask the Germans how much the God of love enters into their
calculations!” sneered the Military Representative; “it must be obvious
to every normal intellect that we were never meant to love hordes of
barbarians like those we have at present to combat.”
The man hesitated; fumbled for words; opened his mouth once or twice;
then: “But the laws of the Almighty weren’t meant to hold good only in
times of peace, sir!”
A ripple of laughter and applause ran through the crowd and was severely
repressed. The applicant was told that exemption would be granted him if
he returned to his employment with the Government-firm, or took up other
work of national importance. He shook his head in answer to both
suggestions, and his appeal was dismissed.
And then Dennis’s name was called.... They were both actually to go
through it now, he and she; no longer mere spectators of other people’s
anguish and suspense. She would have liked to touch his hand and whisper
“Good luck ...” as the other women did to their men, but he did not even
glance down at her as he passed by, with sombre, preoccupied gaze and
furrowed brow. He took his place. She could see him in profile—if she
looked. But at first she could not bear to look, knowing him there
before the twenty-five, defenceless and at bay. Nor did she take in the
meaning of his words, when he began to speak.
With all her faculties and thoughts concentrated upon the final issue,
she sat tense and rigid—as Dennis must have sat through Alan’s tribunal.
Alan had been in prison for three months already. If they offered him
release now, at the price of abandonment of his principles, she wondered
if he would accept it. Gladly, perhaps how gladly.... Always at Miss
Mowbray’s one heard tales of the things that were being done to the
conscientious objectors in prison. Could those fat, bald-headed old
gentlemen who sat there in judgment really be callous enough to condemn
Dennis to things of that sort?
The Chairman was saying: “So you think all warfare is wrong: I daresay a
good many people share that view, but most of them are fighting all the
same, realising that that is the only way to end this particular war.”
Dennis replied: “It is my firm belief that I should not in any way be
benefiting humanity by taking part in this war, as I am convinced that
there is no such thing as a ‘war to end war,’ and that victory would
only lead to successive wars, each more terrible than the last; also
that the solution of international disputes should be sought in
arbitration and diplomacy, rather than in bloodshed.”
The old gentleman sitting nearest to Dennis truculently demanded if he
had held these views previous to August, 1914.
“Certainly,” he answered.
“How can you prove that? Have you ever written or stated in public
anything of the sort before 1914?”
“No; but most of my friends were acquainted with my views. I’m afraid I
can’t offer you any more definite proof. You must take my word for it.”
The old gentleman grunted, and relapsed into silence. Antoinette hoped
and thought that this was the end, but immediately another interlocutor
rose in place of the first.
“Does the applicant not differentiate between a righteous war, a war of
self-defence—and one waged for gain and greed, with the sole object of
crushing smaller nations?”
“I’m afraid I can’t think of any war as a righteous war—war in all its
essentials being so profoundly unrighteous. And as to the comparison of
the respective war-aims of the Allies and of Germany—who can say at this
stage that England is only fighting to avenge Belgium, and with no view
to the conquest of enemy territory or the extension of power? What about
the conquest of German colonies in East Africa? The French say they
won’t make peace till they’ve got Alsace-Lorraine back. Have they the
right to it? Alsace-Lorraine was German territory before ever it became
French—before they got it back again in 1870.”
“Yes, yes, young man, you’re not here to teach us history,” the first
speaker cut him short, and the second rejoined: “Nor to give us your
highly unpatriotic views of your country’s war-aims. It’s your business
to fight for your country, not to criticise it.”
“If I am sent out to kill, surely I have the right to question the cause
that requires me to convert myself into a murderer.”
“‘Right or wrong, my country’—that’s the line for every true Briton to
take up.”
“I am a humanitarian before I am a ‘true Briton,’ then, if either the
‘right’ or the ‘wrong’ of my country involves the deliberate slaughter
of human beings.”
The suffragette who had spoken to them in the passage signified her
approval of this by nodding and smiling across at Antoinette. The girl
flushed. Her man was making a good fight, and she was proud of him, even
while she knew that she had no right to think of him as her man, and
hence no right to her pride. But she could almost have wished that he
were being just a little less vehement: it was obvious that the general
attitude was hostile towards him; only the Chairman still appeared
impartial, as he said: “You categorically refuse in any way to help to
carry on the war?”
“I do. I want to help to stop the war, and all possibility of future
wars. My justification for being here is my confirmed belief that I am
doing more towards that end by adhering to my refusal to fight than by
unthinkingly and unquestioningly going out to kill.”
Again there was a murmur of applause; and a moment’s silence followed.
Antoinette glanced from one to the other of the men’s faces; she longed
to tackle each of the twenty-five separately, to beseech and implore him
to be merciful. She tried to pick out at least one, whose physiognomy
held a promise of tolerance or understanding; but there seemed to be an
absurd family-likeness between them: they all looked pompous,
comfortable, overfed; and at the present moment, righteously indignant.
These old men had lived their lives; they would neither be called upon
to shed their blood for their country, nor to go to prison, if they
upheld opposing views; they had probably sent their sons to the war, but
of themselves no personal sacrifice would be demanded. They were
old—they were safe—and what right had they to send out the young men to
kill each other? What right to sit in judgment upon one with all the
potentialities of life still before him? To decree whether he was to be
allowed to act according to his principles, or faced with the
alternative of being forced to violate them or cast into prison?
Like the suffragette, Antoinette tried to “will” them into the required
frame of mind. Perhaps some of her “willing” was having its effect. That
moment’s silence could surely be taken as a good sign?
But already the unctuous tones of the Military Representative had
terminated the silence.
“The applicant is so very anxious to end the war at all costs: does he
realise that there are not two ways but only one way in which he can
help to do so?”
“I’ve declared the reasons for my unwillingness to take that one way,”
returned Dennis.
Another endless-seeming pause; looks and inaudible remarks exchanged
between the old gentlemen.
Antoinette held her breath.
“_Total exemption granted_”—could not all her wishing or “willing” force
the Chairman to speak those words? He was about to speak now:
“Clear the court!”
With sighs of exasperation at the renewed delay, the people rose and
crowded into the passage again. The young man’s mother was crying. The
reporters scribbled ceaselessly in their notebooks.
The suffragette was congratulating Dennis. “You made a splendid stand,
splendid, but they’re prejudiced against the ‘conscience’ men; it’s easy
to see that.”
Yes, he had made a splendid stand, but Antoinette would have liked him
to come to her for reassurance ... to whisper to her in the crowd: “I
was all right, wasn’t I?”
He evidently had no need of her reassurance. With an abstracted smile,
he thanked the suffragette for her congratulations, and stood gazing out
of the window, as if determined to keep unshared whatever turmoil of
fear and hope might be passing in his mind. But perhaps if the words
were spoken, that they both longed to hear, and the appalling strain
snapped, he would turn to her....
The bank-clerk’s mother was moaning: “If only they’d be quick and tell
us—can’t they see we need him more than the army does?”
But at present the Board showed no signs of “being quick.” A man
carrying a tray laden with tea-things had just unceremoniously jostled
aside the crowd and entered the court. He was followed by a boy with a
very large cherry cake. The old gentlemen were going to have tea....
Antoinette suddenly understood some of the feelings that had given rise
to the French Revolution! Soon the sound of hearty laughter mingled with
the rattle of cups. The old gentlemen were apparently telling each other
funny stories, while the people waited outside in suspense and agony of
mind.
For a weary half-hour they were still kept in the passage. Then at last
the doors were flung open again.
The Chairman stated that in the case of the bank-clerk who was the sole
support of his family, the Board had decided to grant three months’
exemption, with leave to appeal again. The decision was cheered, and the
mother cried hysterically: “Oh, thank you—thank you so much ...” and was
led out on her son’s arm.
“In the case of Mr. Dennis Blackwood—Non-Combatant Service.”
* * * * *
In dead silence they walked to the Charing Cross Tube station, the
strain between them almost intolerable. If only he were to break down,
so that she might comfort him....
Non-Combatant Service—that, as far as Dennis was concerned, amounted to
a sentence to penal servitude. Quite shamelessly she wished that he
would compromise now; hated with all her might the principles and
convictions that would not allow him to do so.
He said at last: “Good girl, to have stood by me.”
“I’d stand by you through worse than that,” she cried, “if only you
wanted me to.”
Another long silence. Then: “I’ll let you know when I get my notice to
join up—I suppose it’ll be in a day or two. I won’t go without saying
good-bye to you.”
“Dennis.”
“Well?”
“Dennis ... must you—are you really going to...?”
He laughed drearily. “You ask that now? Why, what would Alan say, if I
ratted at the eleventh hour?”
“Alan wouldn’t know ...” was her thought. But she was glad that she
cared enough for Dennis to keep it to herself.
* * * * *
From day to day he waited now, expecting his call. Alan’s had come
within four days of the rejection of his appeal, but there seemed to be
no definite rule as to the length of time that might elapse. He might be
left in peace for a week, or the call might come to-morrow. The
uncertainty seemed an additional and superfluous refinement of cruelty,
a veritable sword of Damocles, the presence of which sometimes preyed on
his nerves to such an extent that he felt inclined to precipitate its
fall by giving himself up to the police without further delay....
Abysmal terror dogged his heels by day and by night; terror of being
held, actually held to one place, when he had longed to throw off all
bonds, tangible and intangible; terror of monotony and brutality, and
the depths to which his own mind, thrust back upon itself, might sink.
Day after day went by, and still the call did not come. But he was too
heavily oppressed to be able to appreciate this added span of freedom.
It might be ended at any moment. The uncertainty precluded all
possibility of enjoyment.
Day after day he waited; and waited....
And then the creative impulse which had temporarily lain dormant stirred
in him anew. At first he struggled against it, knowing the futility of
starting upon any great composition now; but as usual the power within
him proved stronger than himself. He was its slave, and he had to obey.
His opera, “Karen and the Red Shoes,” was still unfinished, but he
recognised that the ideas which crowded his brain now could not be used
to complete it; they were too big, too heavy for the subject. Almost
independent of his own volition, they began to build themselves into a
great symphonic poem: “War.”
A chaos of conflicting motives bewildered him; he could hear each
instrument clamouring at cross-purposes with all the others in the
orchestra; clashing rhythms and counter-rhythms battled for supremacy.
It seemed at first a labour for giants to bring order into this chaos,
to select and reject wisely among the dissonant themes. Then he began to
perceive that he must eliminate none, reject none; each must have its
place in the scheme, for each stood for one of the innumerable beliefs
and reasons, ideals and madnesses that had led the peoples into war ...
all must be woven in until, in the final solution and climax, he had
succeeded in showing their fundamental unity, converting strife and
turmoil and the sorrows of all the nations into the transcendent harmony
of peace.
And throughout, the image of Alan stood to him for inspiration. Into his
work he poured all the love and the tenderness and the passion that the
boy had kindled in him. Feverishly he worked now, fearing that in the
space of time that remained—and it could not possibly be long—he would
not be able to accomplish his task. It was of necessity written for a
very large orchestra, and many months, if not years, might go to the
scoring of it.
He perceived his goal ahead, knowing that he would not be able to reach
it in time; not before that steadily-approaching shadow entirely blotted
out the light.... He could have prayed for more days, and more in which
to work: and awoke every morning to the knowledge that this might be his
last day of freedom.
* * * * *
And for Antoinette, also, this knowledge.
CHAPTER IV
“Hallo, Dennis, still at large? That’s one’s habitual form of greeting
nowadays, isn’t it?” Benny Joseph joined Dennis and Antoinette at their
table in the tea-shop.
“Still at large, thanks for kind enquiries. I think they must have
forgotten all about me. It’s nearly two months now ... what about you?”
“I’ve just had my appeal dismissed by the local tribunal,” replied Benny
with an affectation of indifference.
“We all share the same fate, apparently. What happened, Benny?”
“I started off, of course, by telling them that I was a Jew, but that I
wasn’t claiming exemption on religious, but on socialistic grounds. I
really didn’t get much further than that. The Chairman said he didn’t
think my case worthy of a moment’s consideration as I had admitted
myself to be an atheist, and could therefore scarcely lay claim to have
a conscience!”
“Well, if that isn’t the limit!” cried Dennis, and Antoinette asked:
“Are you going to appeal again?”
“Oh, yes. Same old programme of delights for all of us. Local
tribunal—Central Court of Appeal—arrival of police—prison! By the way,
they refused to renew Harry Hope’s exemption when he appealed the second
time.”
“What—has his widowed mother died in the meantime?”
“No, I don’t think so, but the Board seemed to think that he had
supported her long enough, and that it was time he devoted his efforts
to work of greater importance than keeping a harmless old lady in
Chiswick from starvation. He’ll look simply fantastic in uniform, like
poor Everard, do you remember?”
The impersonator of many cardinals had been killed during his first
month at the Front. Antoinette could not but help wondering in what
manner he had died. She was haunted by memory of a languid voice,
saying: “This is all—so—stupid....” Haunted by memory of other voices,
too; Alan’s vigorous speech; the youthful bombast with which Oswald used
to mask his terror; the heavy lilt of Pegeen’s and Conn’s tones. And
Conn had been shot down in the streets of Dublin during Easter week,
proclaiming with his last breath, that Ireland would never bend the knee
“to England’s bloody red”.... And of Pegeen, no one had heard; perhaps
she had shared her man’s fate—but no one knew for certain.
“Our ranks are getting sadly depleted,” said Benny, “I see your friend
Crispin has deserted us.”
Dennis laughed and Antoinette exclaimed: “Has Crispin ratted, then? I
didn’t know.” She saw Dennis so rarely now, that it was small wonder
that she was not quite _au courant_.
“Crispin, yes, he ratted some time ago. Of course, not a word of his
appeal at the local tribunal was audible, only a wild gurgling and
spluttering. But they thought it quite safe to dismiss the appeal though
they hadn’t heard it; and he didn’t like the idea of going through it
all again, so he just drifted into the army, and now guards
railway-bridges or stands drearily at the end of a pier, reciting long
Beethoven symphonies to himself.”
Benny murmured: “‘_Lieb Vaterland, kannst ruhig sein_’—while Crispin
guards our coasts.”
“You’re right. All the Zeppelins and submarines in the world wouldn’t
disturb him when he’s listening to classical music played inside his own
head.”
“Poor Crispin,” said Antoinette, “I suppose he never gets anywhere near
a piano now.” She had a quite absurd sentimental regard for Crispin:
Crispin had played the Waldstein Sonata during her first talk with
Dennis at Amberhurst; Crispin had figured throughout those letters from
Devonshire....
Dennis replied: “Oh, don’t make any mistake, he’s amply provided for in
that respect. He spends all his time getting himself adopted by old
ladies possessing pianos—grand pianos only, of course, he won’t touch an
upright.... And each of the old ladies thinks that this marvellously
gifted Tommy is her own special discovery, and cherishes him
accordingly. Crispin lets them cherish. It gives them pleasure, and
doesn’t hurt him. He merely walks into the room, sits down at the piano,
and plays for the full extent of his leave, with intervals for meals.”
Antoinette glanced surreptitiously at Dennis. Whence arose this rather
hectic animation on his part? There was about his whole manner to-day an
air of suppressed excitement for which she was at a loss to account. A
few minutes later, it was explained to her.
Benny said: “Mansfield’s doing hard labour; he shared the common lot at
his tribunal. I really don’t know why they go through the farce of
offering a man Non-Com., they might just as well arrest him straight
away.... What about Rutherford, Dennis: have you heard anything of him?”
“He’s coming out for a few days next week,” said Dennis, “I shall see
him then....”
* * * * *
Four weeks had elapsed for Antoinette without sign or sound from Dennis.
She scarcely thought that he had been arrested, as he had promised to
let her know when he received his call; but she dared not attempt to
make sure by writing or telephoning, lest he should think her
importunate. On the rare occasions when she was with him, he seemed to
keep her both mentally and physically at a distance. She chafed at the
waste of the days drifting by.
If he had cared for her the least bit in the world; if he had shared
with her his terrors, how good those days might have been, even while
they knew that each day might be his last. But he would not share with
her, terrors that were for another as much as for himself. Dennis had
kept staunch faith with Alan, as far as Antoinette was concerned.
But though she might have Dennis perpetually before an imaginary
tribunal of her own; though she might hurl the bitterest accusations at
him—“You’ve ruined my life ... you’ve made it impossible for me to care
about ordinary people ... you’ve forced me to live in a crazy inverted
world that I didn’t know existed, till you led me into it—” neither
these accusations, nor his confessed love for Alan, nor his aloof
treatment of her, could call forth the least flicker of hatred or
condemnation. His defence was always ready to hand: how could she hate
or condemn the only man for whom, with her peculiar temperament, she was
capable of feeling love? Love without any of its usual corollaries;
without faith, without glamour, without illusion; without the slenderest
hope of fulfilment; just love alone, all the stronger, perhaps, for
being stripped to its barest essentials.
* * * * *
She was surprised one day by a telephone-call from Doreen
Blackwood—Doreen agitated and incoherent. Clive was at Denmark Hill
Hospital, seriously wounded, and had Antoinette any idea where Dennis
was?
“Mummy and I came up yesterday to be with Clive, and we wired Dennis
that we were staying at the Grosvenor Hotel, and he never turned up
there, so Mummy went to his lodgings this morning, and the landlady said
he hadn’t been there for nearly three weeks. We thought perhaps you
might know something about him.”
“I don’t, Doreen, I’ve not seen him for ages.”
“Oh, you don’t think he’s been put in prison, do you? Surely he’d have
had time to let us know. He hasn’t written home for ever so long, but
then he often does that. Antoinette, what _can_ have happened to him...?
As if it wasn’t bad enough, having Clive like this....”
They arranged finally that whichever of them first succeeded in
discovering Dennis’s whereabouts, should inform the other. When she had
rung off, it struck Antoinette that Barnaby might know; she therefore
dashed off to Fleet Street, glad that she had at last a valid excuse for
trying to ascertain what had become of Dennis. But on arriving at the
office of “The Dove,” she was told that Mr. Barnaby had gone to
Manchester to attend a socialist meeting, and would not be back for a
few days. Antoinette determined to try Miss Mowbray’s next; perhaps Miss
Mowbray herself, or one of the _habitués_ could shed some light upon the
mystery. It was three o’clock, the hour at which the tea-shop was
usually empty. If Miss Mowbray could tell her nothing, she would have to
wait till the others began to straggle in.
As she had anticipated, the tea-room was deserted save for one man who
sat at a table with his back to the door, head buried in his hands.
“Dennis!”
At her cry, he slowly raised his head, looked at her with a dazed
stupefied expression.
Involuntarily she drew back from him. “Dennis—what’s the matter?”
Still he sat looking at her.
“Is it—have you had your call?” But even while she asked, she knew that
it was not that—not that alone.
“I’ve seen him,” Dennis said at last, “in the prison hospital. They
moved him there from the cells because he had a bad attack of fever. And
when he’s better, he’s got to go back again—back to that hell....”
He went on, as if unable to stop, now that he had begun: “He’s been in
solitary confinement—think what that means to an active brain like his!
The gnawing everlasting boredom and terror, the helpless exasperation at
it all.... He tries to draw on the walls of his cell with his
finger-nails—or counts the flies crawling up the bars of the
windows—invents foolish games just to keep his mind from giving
way—talks aloud to himself for fear of losing the use of his voice. Then
there are senseless cruel punishments—sleep made impossible by having
his bed removed; nothing but bread and water to eat; hours in a dark
underground cell infested by rats—this in a country that calls itself
civilised! Sometimes they ask him if he’ll join the army if he’s let
out—rather like using thumb-screws to force a man into confession. He
kicked one of the men who asked him, and was given twenty-four hours in
the strait-jacket. The militarist papers declare that the strait-jacket
doesn’t injure the man, and is merely good discipline. Good discipline,
Oh, God.... Do you know what it’s like, Antoinette? It’s a narrow strip
of canvas as long as a man’s body, but not as wide, and it’s laced
tightly round him with cords, usually with one of the warders digging a
knee into his back, so as to prevent him from holding his breath and so
gaining an extra inch of space. Then he’s left, trussed up like that,
alone on the floor of his cell, gasping for breath, the cords cutting
into his flesh, all the organs of his body being squeezed and
tortured——”
“Dennis, Dennis, don’t—I can’t bear it....”
“Alan’s had to bear it—more than once. The governor of the prison seems
to have a special spite against him. There’s no escape unless he
promises to give in. And he won’t do that. He’s an emaciated wreck, but
he’s determined that they sha’n’t crush him, even though he’s going
through things more devilish than any your imagination could have
devised for him, Antoinette, when you hated him most!”
She was stung to reply: “I never hated him like that. You’re unjust and
cruel to think that I should.”
“Yes, I daresay I am ... I’m sorry.... But I’m at the end, just at the
end of everything, and I hardly know what I’m saying.”
And at the utter misery of him, she knew only one longing: to break down
all the artificial barriers that had arisen between them, and to take
his head between her hands.... “Say what you like, my dear, go on
telling me, if it helps at all.”
“I’d heard some weeks ago that he’d got special permission to go and see
his mother, who was ill, and I’d arranged to meet him and spend all his
spare time with him. He never turned up, and I discovered that his
permission had been withdrawn—for goodness knows what petty breach of
the regulations—and that he was in the punishment-cells. The next thing
I heard was that he and nine others were being removed to Princetown.
Through miles and miles of red tape I tried to get permission to see
him. I stayed down there waiting and waiting for it. Well, it came at
last ...” his voice sank almost to a whisper; “I can’t sleep at night,
for thinking of the look in his eyes, and knowing that when his brief
respite is over, they’ll send him back to go through all their vile
indignities and privations and cruelties again. It’s the idea of his
going back, Antoinette——!”
“Oh, don’t—don’t ...” she was sobbing outright now, in an agony of pity
for that vivid, brilliant boy, in an agony of fear for the man before
her. Helplessly she cast about in her mind for something that might
bring comfort to Dennis.
“Even if they make him endure all that, they’re not winning really—not
succeeding in making him give himself to the army. So he’s winning in
the end, Dennis, he’s beating them.”
He gave her a look of gratitude. “But what a price to pay for
victory.... And he’ll have to go on paying as long as this cursed war
lasts. We shall all have to go on paying. I’ve had my call, too, you
know, for the day after to-morrow. I ought to see mother.”
She told him then the reason that had sent her to look for him here.
“Clive wounded? What’s happened, did they say?”
“Doreen wasn’t very explicit over the telephone. He’s got a poisoned
arm, I think, and a wound in the face.”
“Poor mother—I’m sorry for her.... But Clive will have his family and
his girl at his bedside, and every possible care and attention....” He
fell into brooding silence, thinking of a bare prison hospital, and an
unsympathetic prison doctor. “Well, as they’re in town I’ll spend
to-morrow with them. And I’ll say good-bye to you now, Antoinette.”
“Yes....”
He looked at her with great unhappy eyes. “There’s nothing we can either
of us say, is there?”
“Nothing....”
Of all that she longed to say to him—nothing, now that this moment of
parting had been thrust upon her with such suddenness. Useless to make
any attempt to say anything. But because it was the last time, she
wondered, would he at least leave her memory of his lips on hers—just
for the last time?
Already his thoughts had rushed many miles away from her. “It’s as if
some particularly terrible fate were always reserved for the people I
love most. There was Eric—he had his hell to go through. And now
Alan....” Almost inaudibly he added: “And he’s such a kid....”
His voice held the pain and tenderness of a mother whose child has been
stricken to death.
“Good-bye, Dennis....” She turned quickly away so that he might not see
the tears that blinded her, and left him standing there, gazing fixedly
at the walls that had once echoed with Alan’s rhetoric.
And at the top of the stairs she was met by an insolent smiling wraith.
“In case we never meet again ... don’t hate me too much....”
She acknowledged the completeness of her rival’s victory. Alan could
triumph over her still.
CHAPTER V
“_Chérie_, it is most inconsiderate of you always to go out without
telling anyone where you are going. Madame la Comtesse de Froment rang
you up on the telephone—doubtless she wished to invite you to her big
concert in aid of the French Red Cross—and I could not tell her where
you were, nor when you would be in, because I did not know. I agree for
once with your father and your grandmother, that it is not _convenable_
for a _jeune fille_ to run about London as you do.”
“You allow yourself more freedom than I as a young man was allowed at
your age.”
“It is that young Blackwood who has taught you these Bohemian manners.”
“After all, we never knew his family.”
“As I have always said, you cultivate the wrong people.”
“Yes, if you would try to make yourself a little more amiable to my
friends....”
“Your behaviour towards M. Lefèvre was disgraceful. No wonder he did not
press his suit more ardently. You are spoiling your life. It will be
your own fault if you remain an old maid.”
“Till now one has let you do as you pleased. But it is agreed that in
future one will have to be more severe.”
CHAPTER VI
It was pouring with rain when Antoinette reached Haywards Heath, where
she had to change for Eastwold. She had had considerable difficulty with
her people before being allowed to undertake this journey. They were by
now quite convinced that the Blackwoods were a bad influence for her,
and that sooner or later she would contrive to become engaged to that
very eccentric young man....
Antoinette did not think it necessary to mention that the very eccentric
young man was in prison, but pleaded her friendship with Doreen, and her
need of a change of air ... pleaded very gently, for these were not the
days when she felt capable of facing a hard conflict of wills.
In the old days she had relished a good up-hill fight; the harder the
battle the more valuable the victory. So she had thought years ago when
she had met Hester. Hester....
“Sing before breakfast—cry before night”—Hester had been wise. Those
early years had held enough song and laughter and sunshine. But now the
years seemed drained for her of all song and laughter and sunshine, just
as she herself felt drained of all the exuberant vitality that had once
led her to rejoice in battle. She was tired now, and there was nothing
left in all the world worth fighting for.
The train for Eastwold drew up at the platform, its windows so blurred
with the rain that it was impossible to see into the compartments.
Gripping her suit-case with one hand, Antoinette struggled to open the
door nearest to her, and immediately a soldier from the far end of the
compartment sprang forward, helped her to lift the suit-case on to the
rack, and then resumed his seat beside the girl who sat huddled by the
window. Antoinette wished that she could have drawn back and chosen a
different compartment. It was a shame that she should have obtruded
herself upon their solitude. But already the guard was blowing his
whistle, and several other Tommies had entered the compartment too, so
that in any case the couple in the corner would not have remained
undisturbed. They sat without speaking, arms interlaced, occasionally
looking at each other. And the girl had a pretty, pasty, tear-sodden
face under a gaudy hat with red roses on it; and he had round boyish
eyes and a rather stupid expression....
The other Tommies had disposed themselves and their kit about the
compartment. Above the rattle of the wheels Antoinette caught scraps of
their conversation.
“When we were way over home, we thought this war was a grand fine thing,
and not one of us wanted to be left out of it,” a dapper young Canadian
spoke, running his fingers through his upstanding brush of hair, “but
now I’ve been out there a year, I tell you straight, _next_ time my King
and Country call, I’m going to be lame, blind, dumb, _and deaf_. Yes,
when you’ve bin out and seen some of the sights and smelt some of the
smells, and lived in a trench full of ver-_mine_, you find war isn’t the
gala garden-party you thought it was, with the band and the music and
the flags flying.”
One of his companions, a long-limbed Irishman, grunted assent. “I’ve
lost an eye in this bloody war, but do you think they’d be afther givin’
me my discharge? ‘Ho,’ sez the docthor, ‘you’re still plenty of use to
your counthry’....”
“Guess they won’t be satisfied till you’ve lost the other eye to match,”
remarked the Canadian cheerfully.
“And fwhat’s ut all for, that’s fwhat I’m askin’, fwhat’s ut all for?
I’m no revolutionist; I’m only askin’ fwhy.... Divil a bit did we care
about the _Sinn Féin_ rebellion out there in the thrinches as long as we
had enough cigarettes to smoke. Which we had not....” The melancholy
cadence of his voice reminded Antoinette poignantly of Pegeen and Conn.
The third man, a little Cockney chap, tilted his cap to a rakish angle.
“They say as it’ll all be over in the spring.”
“_Which_ spring?” demanded the Canadian, and the Cockney embarked
irrelevantly upon a personal reminiscence: “It was near Am-an-tears, we
got to a village that the ’Uns ’ad evacuated. Least-ways, they’d
evacuated wot was left of it, and that’s not sayin’ much. Bin up to some
o’ their usual tricks, they ’ad, with wimmen and kids and wot-not....
One o’ their snipers got left be’ind—swarmed up a tree, and four of us
yanked ’im dahn; and first we said a few things to ’im ... and then we
did a few things to ’im, just for luck, as you might say, and because of
wot ’e and ’is pals ’ad bin up to in that village. War’s a funny thing
...” he continued musing, “you could ’ave knocked me dahn with a feather
two years ago if you’d told me I’d ’elp to cut aht that bloomin’ ’Un’s
’eart with my bloomin’ jack-knife!”
“Yes, war’s a funny thing,” the Irishman broke out again, “and they
don’t want ut to end—them that make the war. ‘Your pals in the thrinches
are callin’ to you’—’tis a lie! Your pals in the thrinches would say:
‘Keep out of this if you can, we’d never have gone into it if we’d
known.’ We know well enough _who_ calls to us and _who_ sends us out to
ut. ’Tis the Government sitting at home, and never your pals out
there.... And ’tis the same on the other side. I took a prisoner once.
The man was wounded and I looked after him a bit; got quite fond of him,
too. I was sorry when he died.... He said that their men are as dead
fed-up with it as we are.”
The couple in the corner seemed quite oblivious of the conversation.
They might have been deaf to it. Only the silent fervour with which they
gazed into each other’s eyes increased....
At the next station the man opened the door of the compartment and
helped the girl out; then he kissed her, and got into the train again.
She said: “Good-bye, Gawd bless you, Dickie,” and he answered: “So long!
See you again when the war’s over—perhaps....”
The train moved on. Alone in his corner the man sat staring straight
before him, inarticulate misery incarnate. “When the war’s
over—perhaps....”
Antoinette choked, and wished again that he and the girl who had been
left on the platform could have had this last journey to themselves. In
the circumstances he might have been forgiven for showing less
willingness to help her in with her suit-case.
* * * * *
Arthur Griggs, home on leave, had come with his _fiancée_, Millie Ryan,
to call upon the Blackwoods; and Antoinette, on her arrival, fell
straight into the tea-party, as she had once fallen into the nursery
party held in Reggie’s honour the day of the dance. Reggie was home from
school now, and sat at the foot of the couch on which Clive was
reclining.... Clive with one empty sleeve and a badly scarred face and
mouth.
“Well, well, you’ve at least got plenty to show for it, plenty to show
for it,” Griggs rallied him. “I’m often sorry that my honourable scars
aren’t—ah—on exhibition.”
“I’m sure Millie isn’t sorry,” smiled Mrs. Blackwood.
Millie looked coy, and Lily who was sitting at Clive’s side, and helping
him to manipulate his teacup, exclaimed: “What does it matter what they
look like when they come back to us, as long as we know they’ve done
their bit? I’d rather have Clive as he is than the greatest Adonis in
the world.”
Clive smiled wryly up at her with his twisted lip. “I could do with the
other arm all the same, you know, Lil.”
“Never mind, my boy,” cried Mr. Blackwood, “when your children ask you
what you did in the great war, they won’t have far to look.”
“And one can really say here that your wife will be your right hand,”
said Griggs, “I can only hope that you and Miss Hallard will be as happy
as Millie and I intend to be.”
“And we hope you’ll be as happy as _we’re_ jolly well going to be!”
returned Lily, boisterously.
“Quite a competithion of happineth, ithn’t it?” giggled Amy.
“I think there can be no doubt that where there is sympathy there is
happiness,” mused Griggs; “sympathy is a beautiful thing, don’t you
agree?” His audience assented collectively, and he went on: “Millie, of
course, calls forth sympathy as naturally as the sun draws out the scent
of the flowers....”
There was a murmur of approval, and Millie said: “Why, Arthur, you’re
quite a poet this afternoon.”
“Not a poet, Millie, not a poet. Just an ordinary man. But might not
even an ordinary man turn poet for your sake?”
Millie blushed. “Oh, you’re flattering me.”
“You doubt my sincerity?” exclaimed Griggs, very injured. “I assure you
that I place sincerity on the same high level as sympathy. Sincerity and
sympathy—my twin ideals....”
Millie, quite embarrassed by now, turned to ask Clive how he had
received his wounds, but Reggie interrupted with: “Clive hates talking
about them—it looks like swank.”
“Clive doesn’t need to swank,” said Lily, “we all know what he’s done.
Those three Huns—not bad, that, not bad!”
Griggs beamed upon the assembled company. “Who would have thought two
years ago when we were getting ready for the fancy dress dance that we
should all come together again like this? Seeing you here, Miss
Antoinette, reminded me of that happy occasion. Little Miss Ottilie was
there too—but I suppose the least said about her the better; Reggie’s
looking at me so fiercely....”
“Her _fiancée_ has been killed,” said Doreen, “I got such a sad, funny
letter from her through Switzerland. She said that her ‘truest-loved
Joachim for his Fatherland has died, and that her heart broken was’....”
“Poor little Britannia,” cried Antoinette, “I wonder if he was one of
the three whom Clive sniped?”
“Good job,” muttered Reggie.
“War’s war,” said Lily tersely, shrugging her shoulders.
“All I can hope is,” the irrepressible Griggs continued, “that two years
hence we shall be as complete as we are now.”
Clive grunted, and Griggs strove to cheer him. “Come—come—come—we all
know you don’t really mind having lost your arm. Not a bit. Proud of it.
And quite right too! When I said ‘complete,’ I meant as far as numbers
go. Here we all are—” Suddenly he recollected himself; floundered;
coughed behind his hand, and repeated rather feebly: “I mean here we
are....”
“Yes, of course, we are, Mr. Griggs.” With admirable tact Mrs. Blackwood
came to his assistance ... and Antoinette wondered if it could bring
Dennis’s mother the slightest degree of comfort to know that her
thoughts also were with the one who was not included in the “all.”
She could not rid herself of the impression that Dennis might be
expected at any moment to enter with dramatic suddenness, as he had
entered the night of the dance. It seemed as if they were all laughing
and talking here, just to mark time in anticipation of his arrival. And
when, sharply, the drawing-room door was flung open, her heart gave a
great leap.
“The maid from Dr. Clavering’s would like to speak to you, please,
sir....” The parlour-maid addressed Mr. Blackwood in an undertone, but
already Doreen was on her feet.
“What is it? Where is she? Is there any news?” She freed herself from
her father’s detaining hand, and rushed to the door. “Oh, what is it?
What is it?”
The little servant who had been told to “break it gently” to Mr.
Blackwood, completely lost her head on seeing Doreen, and sobbed out:
“It’s Mr. Hugh, Miss—killed in action. Oh, the poor young master....”
* * * * *
It seemed to be the general impulse to rush towards Doreen, as if by
actual contact, by stroking, patting, embracing, to draw nearer to her
in her isolation of grief. But there was something in the way she stood
there, her back to the door, her eyes dead, mouth and hands twitching,
that forbade further approach ... and Antoinette remembered on whose
face she had seen just that same baffling expression. For a second, but
it might have been an eternity, the group stood poised, alert, watching
the rigid, dry-eyed little figure in the doorway.
Then at last Doreen’s voice, a woman’s voice and yet piteously childish,
cut into the stillness.
“And I—I loved him so....”
She turned and broke from the room.
Mr. and Mrs. Blackwood followed her. The others remained as they were,
talking in low voices.
“Thall I go and thee if they want anything?”
“No, better leave them alone together now.”
“A good cry, you know, will do her all the world of good ...” this from
Griggs.
“Ithn’t thith war dreadful? You never know from one minute to the other,
do you?”
“Poor old Hugh, I wonder how it happened. I expect some of his men will
be able to give details. I think I ought to go to Doreen. Mrs. Blackwood
will only encourage her to give way.” Thus the sternly practical Lily.
Clive muttered: “Poor little kid ...” and Reggie, still sitting
motionless on the end of the couch, looked at his boots and scowled
heavily.
“And to think that only two years ago—what a handsome couple at your
dance, eh, Millie? The Black Knight and the Dresden Shepherdess....”
Millie collapsed into tears. “I can’t bear it, Arthur, I can’t bear
it....”
Arthur patted her hand. “There, there, little woman, there, there.”
“Doreen’s got plenty of grit,” said Lily, “she’ll pull round all right.
I’m sure he died game and she’ll be able to be proud of him. That’ll
stiffen her backbone right enough.”
But Clive only repeated: “Poor little kid....”
Griggs said: “Well, I suppose we’d better be going,” and followed by
Amy, led his weeping bride away. Reggie, even at this juncture mindful
of “good form,” went to see them to the gate.
As Antoinette turned to go up to her room, she heard Clive say: “Lily
...” and saw him put out his remaining hand to draw her down to his
level.
“Dear old man....”
* * * * *
Late that evening Antoinette sat at the window of her room, and watched
the last of the sunset fading behind the dark ridge of the Downs. The
crimson light still stained the white walls, and danced upon the gay
flowered chintz ... a room in which to feel very girlish and happy, so
she had reflected on her first arrival here, so she had reflected as she
donned her “Bacchante” costume....
She shuddered and turned from the window to face Mrs. Blackwood.
“My dear child, I am so sorry that it should have happened just during
your visit.” Still obedient to the instincts of the good hostess, she
was apologising to her guest for an unfortunate _contretemps_ that had
marred her stay....
Antoinette said: “Oh, don’t ...” and got no further.
Mrs. Blackwood sat down and wiped her eyes.
“Poor little Doreen—and they were to have been married next time he got
leave—we’d begun to get one or two things together, though I always
thought that was wrong, my family were always inclined to be
superstitious—but of course Daddy laughed me out of it.... Poor Hugh, he
would have made her so happy—I feel as if I’d lost a son, too.” She
paused a moment, then went on in a lower voice: “Antoinette, do you
think he’ll be all right? He’s in solitary confinement now, but that’s
better than being together with a lot of other horrid people, isn’t it?”
“Much better,” Antoinette assented without looking at her.
“I can talk to you about him, because you were always such good friends,
and of course I daren’t mention him before Clive or Daddy. Dennis was a
great disappointment to his father, even as a little chap, when he
wouldn’t go out shooting with him, because he couldn’t bear to see the
animals hurt.... And now—it’s dreadful, my dear: Daddy has struck his
name out of the Family Bible, where we’ve got all the children’s names
and the date of their birth written down....”
“Oh, what does that matter?” cried Antoinette, “that can’t make him your
boy any the less, can it?”
Mrs. Blackwood shook her head. “Nothing could ever do that. Denny would
just be my boy, whatever he’d done, but his father has such high
principles.... Lily keeps on saying that the people in prison are safe.
You do think he’s safe, don’t you, Antoinette, although I lie awake
sometimes wondering if they give them enough blankets on their beds.”
Safe ... in solitary confinement!
Oh, well, it was fortunate at least that Dennis’s mother did not seem
quite to realise. Did she suffer, perhaps, from a providential lack of
imagination?
Antoinette gave the assurance required of her. “Yes, of course he’s
safe—quite safe.”
But Mrs. Blackwood was uneasy. “If one knew for certain—how they are
treated....”
Antoinette was grateful to the increasing darkness that hid her face.
Mrs. Blackwood repeated: “If only one knew....”
“He’ll be quite safe,” she could only trust herself to speak in a very
low voice.
“Of course Daddy says they’re well treated, and you do think so, too,
don’t you—really?”
Antoinette made a final effort. “He’ll come out all right ... when the
war’s over——”
Her voice snapped.
CHAPTER VII
At the table in the alcove at Miss Mowbray’s, Antoinette sat with
Barnaby a few weeks later. He had let her know that he had heard from
Dennis, and would pass on the news if she cared to meet him at the usual
haunt.
“He’s doing hard labour now, breaking stones in a quarry, but he says
even that’s a relief after solitary confinement. They put them into that
at first, as if they were wild animals that had to be tamed.”
“Does he—say anything else?” she asked tentatively, hoping that Dennis
might have sent her some word or message.
Barnaby shook his head. “No, he doesn’t say much, except that his hands
will never be fit to play the piano again, and that one of the greatest
torments is not being able to write down his music. You know what he was
like over that—directly he’d got an idea, down it had to go, or he was
afraid of losing it. He must be losing a good many now. Rather a waste.”
He pulled at his pipe, and continued more vehemently: “The silly waste
of it all.... That boy Alan—hot-headed young devil he was, but he had
the right stuff in him, and the personality and the understanding to
make him a good leader of the people. Only instead of utilising his
brains they have to let them rot!”
Antoinette sighed. “The utter futility of hoping that anyone from the
other side will ever see our point of view.... When I was in the country
with Dennis’s people, I did try to make them see, but I couldn’t budge
one of them; not an inch. And then his little sister’s _fiancé_ was
killed at the Front—gassed—such a good-looking, golden-haired boy—and it
was too ghastly ... and suddenly I felt—I mean, I understood how they
might feel towards pacifists. They don’t seem to realise that going to
prison isn’t fun.... ‘Prison’s safe,’ that’s their argument. Or ‘What
are their sufferings compared with what the men in the trenches have to
go through?’ They almost made one feel—as if one hadn’t the right....”
Barnaby broke in: “It’s not a case of measuring the sufferings of the
men in the trenches with those of the men in prison. No one can be
childish enough to pretend that shrapnel-wounds and poison-gas aren’t a
hundred times worse than whatever the conscientious objectors may have
to endure in prison. The point is, that men who genuinely objected to
take part in warfare, because they could see no possible good that would
result therefrom; men who refused to shelter themselves by enabling
others to go in their place, and who exposed themselves to ridicule and
vilification, loss of friends and loss of financial position, rather
than be faithless to their principles, should be flung into prison, and
in some cases treated worse than ordinary criminals. This, mark you, in
spite of the assertion that they would be given a fair hearing! The
Government regretted that clause relating to the conscience-men in the
Military Service Act, as soon as it was out. They realised the folly of
giving a loophole of escape to any man, when the need of cannon-fodder
was so great. So the whole business became a mockery—mock trials at
which the men, having been invited to state their views, stood condemned
before their cases were heard. How many of them were given the total
exemption to which they had the right, according to the clause? And
England is said to be fighting to uphold justice...! Look at the uproar
created by the so-called murder of Edith Cavell: the woman was a spy,
and they were strictly within their military rights to shoot her. But it
doesn’t seem to strike people that shutting up some of these C.O.s in
prison is deliberate, wilful murder of brains that were fine, sensitive
instruments which might have brought some lasting beauty, some lasting
wonder into the world. These men might be rendering far greater service
to their country by following their natural bent than by doing navvies’
work or performing silly brutalising tasks in prison.
“Of course the press is eager enough to make the public believe that
prison is a sort of slacker’s paradise, where they have quite a
delightful time of it.... We know differently. Alan’s isn’t the only
case of systematic brutality wreaked upon a defenceless victim. Only
that kind of thing is carefully kept out of the papers. However
magnificently England may think to figure in the world’s history after
the war, the gross stupidity and cruelty of the way she has treated the
genuine pacifists should stand as an eternal blot upon her honour.”
Antoinette did not interrupt him. She sat watching the bodiless legs
that passed and passed in front of the blurred window, remembering the
many different moods in which she had watched them. The tea-room was
empty, save for the ghosts that sat grouped at the tables; almost she
could have expected them to take part in the conversation.... Dennis;
Alan; Everard, with his languid drawl; Crispin’s stammer; O’Farrell’s
Irish phrasing; the whole chorus of familiar voices. But the chorus was
silent now.
“And the war goes on, and day by day the torture of those at the Front
and those in the prisons goes on; and the schoolboys, the striplings of
sixteen and seventeen, are growing up to face the choice of the two
alternatives—children cherished and carefully reared, so that when they
are still little more than children they may be ready for this....”
“Oh, I know, I know,” cried Antoinette, “there was poor little
Oswald.... He talked to me once in a queer burst of confidence, and he
said almost the same thing: ‘It’s waiting for you now, when you’re
eighteen....’ And I’m glad he’s dead,” she passed her hand over her
eyes, as if to shut out some horror. “He took the cowards’ way out, if
you like, but I’d rather know him dead than think of him like the
others, going on, and on....”
Suddenly the door to the street was opened and banged. Footsteps came
pelting down the crooked stairs, and Benny Joseph hurled himself into
the tea-room.
“I’ve been turned down!” he cried incoherently, “turned down by the
doctor after I was arrested. I’m a free man, Barnaby, do you hear?
Totally exempt.... And I’ve got a part—this is my lucky day—I just
walked into it—I’m going on tour in musical comedy for eighteen weeks!”
Benny was radiant and breathless, but he spoke to an audience of ghosts;
ghost of Everard, long dead on the field in Flanders; ghost of Harry
Hope, drilling drearily on Salisbury Plain; ghosts of the many
professionals of all grades who had once frequented Miss Mowbray’s, and
been gradually sucked into the army, and who would have overwhelmed him
with a flood of questions. Which towns was he doing? Who was in the
company? Did he want addresses of rooms?
“I’m so awfully glad, Benny ...” Antoinette said warmly; she could not
bear that he should shout his joyful tidings into unresponsive space;
“do let me know if you’re anywhere near London; I’d love to see you in
your show.”
“Thanks ever so much. Yes, I’ll let you know. I say, I wish the others
could have been as lucky.... Well, I must be off now—millions of things
to do—letters to write—we start rehearsing next week. Lord, it’s a queer
sensation not to have it hanging over you any more.... And when the
war’s over, I’ll be able to go to Vienna and Paris and Berlin and
Budapest again, without feeling I’ve helped to muck up any of the
countries I’m staying in. I _must_ be off. Good-bye....”
He was gone.
Barnaby smiled. “So Benny’s aunts in the various parts of Europe will at
least be safe from Benny’s ridiculously inadequate shooting.”
But Antoinette was not thinking of Benny’s aunts: she was thinking of
the girl whose existence she had once heard rumoured—the little Jewish
girl, somewhere in Hampstead, to whom he would ultimately turn.
Antoinette envied that girl the moment when she heard Benny’s news.
“So they’ve all found their destiny,” mused Barnaby; then he bent his
shaggy brows to a kindlier scrutiny of Antoinette herself. “And what
about you...?”
She did not answer. Her thoughts were with the couples, the many couples
who had the right to each other: Lily, who had the right to cherish her
battered, broken Clive; Doreen, who through all her pain, still had the
right to cling to her memory of Hugh; Millie, who could actually cling
to Griggs; Pegeen, who had probably died at her man’s side; little Mrs.
Mansfield, staunchly awaiting her husband’s release from prison; even
the pasty-faced girl in the train ... her man would write her illiterate
love-letters from the Front, for a little while, perhaps....
And all these women had the right to stand by their men, in prison or at
the Front; in the cause of rebellion or in the cause of stamping out
rebellion; wounded or even after death, they had this right because
their men loved or had loved them.
Doreen, by virtue of being on the popular, the militarist side, had had
the right to an official joy and an official sorrow; to official
congratulation and official condolence. Antoinette’s joy and sorrow had
alike been “unofficial.” Not that she minded being on the unpopular
side. She could have enjoyed being an Ishmaelite outside the gates of
Eastwold, enjoyed the rebel-sense of her unofficial right to stand by
him, if only he had loved her. But—by his lack of love, he debarred her
from this right, just as she had been debarred from official
congratulation and condolence. She was an outcast in a double sense; an
Ishmaelite twice over.
“Well?” said Barnaby.
“I? Oh, I don’t know where I come in. I think I don’t come in at
all....”
He nodded. “I understand. May I say I’m sorry for you? You know I don’t
mean it as an insult.... What is to become of you, though?”
She smiled wearily. “I suppose I too—just go on....”
“Yes. I’m afraid you’re the symbol of what has to be sacrificed to the
love between man and man.”
“He couldn’t have done otherwise”—loyally she was prepared to defend
Dennis against anything that even his friend might have to say about
him. “He was made like that, and he made things more difficult for
himself by bottling up all his thoughts and feelings, and being terribly
afraid of them, and never telling anyone about them—till he told me.”
“He never told me,” said Barnaby, “at least not in so many words. But I
could see for myself. He’s got a queer strain of the maternal in him.
It’s obvious in the way he looks upon his work, and in the way he looks
upon that boy.... It’s a woman’s passion as well as a man’s that he
feels for Alan; virile and yet tender; stronger even than death or
madness; a wonderful motive-force that might accomplish much ... only
the world would condemn it as an evil, vicious growth that should be
stamped out! We want more light, more breathing-space, more tolerance
and understanding: not this narrow-minded wholesale condemnation and
covering-up; this instinctive shuddering and turning away from a side of
nature that, like every other side, has its right to a hearing, its
right to open discussion.”
“Everybody seems to imagine that you’re abnormal because you _like_
being abnormal,” Antoinette burst out, “just as they imagine that men go
to prison because they like it better than going to the Front. As if
being different from normal people weren’t curse enough in itself,
without having them think it’s your own choice, and that you enjoy being
different!”
“Of course there are those who enjoy it—who wallow in the perverted
sensations of their abnormality, as normal sensualists wallow in their
own ‘permissible’ lusts. And by these, the worst types—or perhaps the
most to be pitied—the multitude judges them all, just as they judge the
whole class of conscientious objectors by those actuated only by fear
for their own skins. They don’t attempt to separate the grain from the
chaff: the innocent have to suffer with the guilty.”
“It’s a pity no one thinks of saving the guilty for the sake of the
innocent!” she cried.
“Christ thought of it, my dear girl, many long years ago; and look what
a mess they’re making of His teachings now.... But perhaps these men who
stand mid-way between the extremes of the two sexes are the
advance-guard of a more enlightened civilisation. They’re despised and
rejected of their fellow-men to-day. What they suffer in a world not yet
ready to admit their right to existence, their right to love, no normal
person can realise; but I believe that the time is not so far distant
when we shall recognise in the best of our intermediate types the
leaders and masters of the race.”
He paused, and went on: “They _do_ wander through dark ways at present,
there’s no denying it; and some of them understand themselves and the
eternal conflicts of their nature as little as others understand them.
The normal person cries: ‘Don’t encourage them—stamp them out—imprison
them—crush them——’ You can’t crush them; you can’t stamp them out;
they’ve got to be reckoned with. From them a new humanity is being
evolved, and in the process of evolution Nature produces all sorts of
poor little deformities and abnormalities as samples. They’re necessary
to the production of the higher type, though, the bad specimens put out
from every factory or workshop. Bad specimens—and yet forerunners! For
out of their suffering, out of pain and confusion and darkness, will
arise something great—something God-given: the human soul complete in
itself, perfectly balanced, not limited by the psychological bounds of
one sex, but combining the power and the intellect of the one with the
subtlety and intuition of the other; a dual nature, possessing the
extended range, the attributes of both sides, and therefore loving and
beloved of both alike.”
With brimming eyes she listened to him; and then she put the question
that Mrs. Blackwood had so often put to her:
“Do you ... think Dennis will be all right?”
“I think he’ll keep his reason, if that’s what you mean, even if he’s
never able to write a note of music again. But even so—one can’t say
that it is all for nothing: those train-loads and boat-loads of cheery
boys taken from the land, the workshops, the universities, who go out
singing and joking to their death; who never did anything remarkable in
their life before, and yet who do incredibly plucky things on the
battlefield; the patient heroes on both sides who do their bit and much
more than their bit, because it’s been instilled into their faithful
hearts that it’s right that they should do it—it is for love of these,
and to save these and such as these in the generations to come that Alan
and Dennis and others like them are making their sacrifice! And then to
label the lot of them cowards——” He broke off, and sat a while silently
brooding. Then he shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, well: people don’t
think....”
THE END.
Transcriber’s Notes
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public
domain.
The original spelling was mostly preserved. A few obvious typographical
and punctuation errors as well as variations in hyphenation were
silently amended. All other changes are shown here (before/after):
[p. 59]:
... At least, so though Antoinette, who from childhood ...
... At least, so thought Antoinette, who from childhood ...
[p. 83]:
... I’d got to be musician, even if it did mean being ...
... I’d got to be a musician, even if it did mean being ...
[p. 116]:
... it’th nithe to thart booking up before the danthe ...
... it’th nithe to thtart booking up before the danthe ...
[p. 118]:
... be a drug upon the market,” exclaimed Griggs with ...
... be a drag upon the market,” exclaimed Griggs with ...
[p. 237]:
... she’s takes Belgium’s name in vain to hide her ...
... she takes Belgium’s name in vain to hide her ...
[p. 273]:
... “Letters has passed between them. Then the ...
... “Letters had passed between them. Then the ...
[p. 321]:
... him accordingly. Crispin led them cherish. It ...
... him accordingly. Crispin lets them cherish. It ...
[p. 339]:
... her so happy—I feel is if I’d lost a son, too.” She ...
... her so happy—I feel as if I’d lost a son, too.” She ...