The studio was empty. A wood fire burnt on the wide hearth, making a
pleasant glow in the wintry twilight. Cicely seated herself on the end
of a sofa, crossed her feet, and took out a cigarette. But to
Marsworth's intense relief she had taken off the helmet-like erection
she called a hat, and her black curly hair strayed as it pleased about
her brow and eyes.
'Well?' she said, at last, looking at him coolly. Marsworth could not
help laughing. He brought a chair, and placed it where he could see her
from below, as he lay back in it, his hands behind his head.
'Of course, you don't want to look at the portfolio,' she resumed, 'that
was your excuse. You want to tell me of your engagement to Miss
Stewart.'
Marsworth laughed again. Her ear caught what seemed to be a note of
triumph.
'Make haste, please!' she said, breathing quickly. 'There isn't very
much time.'
His face changed. He sat up, and held out his hand to her.
'Dear Cicely, I want you to do something for me.'
But she put her own behind her back.
'Have you been quarrelling already? Because if you want me to make it
up, that really isn't my vocation.'
He was silent a moment surveying her. Then he said quietly--'I want you
to help me. I want you to be kind to that little girl.'
'Daisy Stewart? Thank you. But I've no gift at all for mothering babes!
Besides--she'll now have all the advice, and all the kindness she
wants.'
Marsworth's lips twitched.
'Yes, that's true--if you and I can help her out. Cicely!--aren't you a
great friend of Sir John Raine?'
He named one of the chiefs of the Army Medical Department, a man whose
good word was the making of any aspirant in the field he ruled.
Cicely looked rather darkly at her questioner.
'What do you mean?'
'I want you to help me get an appointment for somebody.'
'For whom?'
'For the man Daisy Stewart wants to marry.'
Cicely could not conceal her start.
'I don't like being mystified,' she said coldly.
Marsworth allowed his smile to shew itself.
'I'm not trying to mystify you in the least. Daisy Stewart has been
engaged for nearly a year to one of the house-surgeons in your
hospital--young Fellows. Nobody knows it--not Willy even. It has been
kept a dead secret, because that wicked old man the Rector won't have
it. Daisy makes him comfortable, and he won't give her up, if he can
help it. And as young Fellows has nothing but his present pay--a year
with board and lodging--it seemed hopeless. But now he has got his eye
on something.'
And in a quiet business-like voice Marsworth put the case of the
penniless one--his qualifications, his ambitions, and the particular
post under the Army Medical Board on which he had set his hopes. If only
somebody with influence would give him a leg up!
Cicely interrupted.
'Does Willy know?'
'No. You see, I have come to you first.'
'How long have you known?'
'Since my stay with them last autumn. I suspected something then, just
as I was leaving; and Miss Daisy confessed--when I was there in May.
Since then she seems to have elected me her chief adviser. But, of
course, I had no right to tell anybody anything.'
'That is what you like--to advise people?'
Marsworth considered it.
'There was a time'--he said, at last, in a different voice, 'when my
advice used to be asked by someone else--and sometimes taken.'
Cicely pretended to light another cigarette, but her slim fingers shook
a little.
'And now--you never give it?'
'Oh yes, I do,' he said, with sudden bitterness--'even unasked. I'm
always the same old bore.'
There was silence. His right hand stole towards her left that was lying
limply over her knee. Cicely's eyes looking down were occupied with his
disabled arm, which, although much improved, was still glad to slip into
its sling whenever it was not actively wanted.
But just as he was capturing her, Cicely sprang up.
'I must go and see about Sir John Raine.'
'Cicely--I don't care a brass farthing about Sir John Raine!'
'But having once brought him in, I recommend you to stick to him,' said
Cicely, with teasing eyes. 'And don't go advising young women. It's not
good for the military. _I'm_ going to take this business in hand.'
And she made for departure, but Marsworth got to the door first, and put
his back against it.
'Find me the Turner, Cicely.'
'A man who asks for a thing on false pretences shouldn't have it.'
A silence. Then a meek voice said--
'Captain Marsworth, my brother, Sir William Farrell, will be requiring
my services at tea!'
Marsworth moved aside and she forward. But as she neared him, he caught
her passionately in his arms and kissed her. She released herself,
crimson.
'Do I like being kissed?' she said in a low voice--'do I? Anyway
don't do it again!--and if you dare to say a word yet--to anyone--'
Her eyes threatened; but he saw in them revelations her pride could not
check, and would have disobeyed her at once; but she was too quick for
him. In a second she had opened the door and was gone.
During the rest of the afternoon, her brother and Nelly watched Cicely's
proceedings with stupefaction; only equalled by the bewilderment of Miss
Daisy Stewart. For that young lady was promoted to the good graces of
Sir William's formidable sister with a rapidity and completeness which
only natural good manners and good sense could have enabled her to deal
with; considering the icy exclusion to which she had been so long
condemned. But as she possessed both, she took it very simply; always
with the same serene light in her grey eyes.
Marsworth said to himself presently that young Fellows' chances were
good. But in truth he hardly remembered anything about them, except that
by the help of them he had kissed Cicely! And he had yet to find out
what that remarkable fact was to mean, either to himself or to her. She
refused to let him take her back to the farm, and she only gave him a
finger in farewell. Nor did she say a word of what had happened, even to
Nelly.
Nelly spent again a very wakeful night. Farrell had walked home with
them, and she understood from him that, although he was going over early
to Carton the following morning, he would be at the cottage again
before many days were over. It seemed to her that in telling her so he
had looked at her with eyes that seemed to implore her to trust him. And
she, on hearing it, had been merely dumb and irresponsive, not
forbidding or repellent, as she ought to have been. The courage to wound
him to the quick--to leave him bereft, to go out into the desert
herself, seemed to be more and more oozing away from her.
Yet there beside her bed, on the table which held her Testament, and the
few books--almost all given her by W.F.--to which she was wont to turn
in her wakeful hours, was George's photograph in uniform. About three
o'clock in the morning she lit her candle, and lay looking at it, till
suddenly she stretched out her hand for it, kissed it repeatedly, and
putting it on her breast, clasped her hands over it, and so fell asleep.
But before she fell asleep, she was puzzled by the sounds in Bridget's
room next door. Bridget seemed to be walking about--pacing up and down
incessantly. Sometimes the steps would cease; only to begin again after
a while with the same monotony. What could be the matter with Bridget?
This vague worry about her sister entered into and heightened all
Nelly's other troubles. Yet all the same, in the end, she fell asleep;
and the westerly wind blowing over Wetherlam, and chasing wild flocks of
grey rain-clouds before him, found no one awake in the cottage or the
farm to listen to the concert he was making with the fells, but
Bridget--and Cicely.
* * * * *
Bridget Cookson had indeed some cause for wakefulness. Locked away in
the old workbox, where she kept the papers to which she attached
importance, was a letter bearing the imprint 'O.A.S.,' which had been
delivered to her on Sunday afternoon by the Grasmere post-mistress. It
ran as follows:
'DEAR MISS COOKSON,--I know of course that you are fully convinced the
poor fellow we have here in charge has nothing to do with your
brother-in-law. But as you saw him, and as the case may throw light on
other cases of a similar nature, I thought I would just let you know
that owing apparently to the treatment we have been carrying out, there
are some very interesting signs of returning consciousness since your
visit, though nothing very definite as yet. He is terribly ill, and
physically I see no chance for him. But I think he _may_ be able to tell
us who he is before the end, in which case I will inform you, lest you
should now or at any future time feel the smallest misgiving as to your
own verdict in the matter. This is very unlikely, I know, for I
understand you were very decided; but still as soon as we have definite
information--if we get it--you may wish to inform poor Mrs. Sarratt of
your journey here. I hope she is getting stronger. She did indeed look
very frail when I saw her last.
'Yours very truly,
'ROBERT HOWSON.'
Since the receipt of that letter Bridget's reflections had been more
disagreeable than any she had yet grappled with. In Nelly's company the
awfulness of what she had done did sometimes smite home to her. Well,
she had staked everything upon it, and the only possible course was to
brazen it out. That George should die, and die _quickly_--without any
return of memory or speech, was what she terribly and passionately
desired. In all probability he would die quickly; he might even now be
dead. She saw the thing perpetually as a race between his returning
mind--if he still lived, and it was returning--and his ebbing strength.
If she had lived in old Sicilian days, she would have made a waxen image
like the Theocritean sorceress, and put it by the fire, that as it
wasted, so George might waste. As it was, she passed her time during the
forty-eight hours after reading Howson's letter in a silent and
murderous concentration on one thought and wish--George Sarratt's
speedy death.
What a release indeed for everybody!--if people would only tell the
truth, and not dress up their real feelings and interests in stale
sentimentalisms. Farrell made happy at no very distant date; Nelly
settled for life with a rich man who adored her; her own future
secured--with the very modest freedom and opportunity she craved:--all
this on the one side--futile tragedy and suffering on the other. None
the less, there were moments when, with a start, she realised what other
people might think of her conduct. But after all she could always plead
it was a mistake--an honest mistake. Are there not constantly cases in
the law courts, which shew how easy it is to fail in identifying the
right person, or to persist in identifying the wrong one?
During the days before Farrell returned, the two sisters were alone
together. Bridget would gladly have gone away out of sight and hearing
of Nelly. But she did not dare to leave the situation--above all, the
postman--unwatched. Meanwhile Nelly made repeated efforts to break down
the new and inexplicable barrier which seemed to have arisen between
herself and Bridget. Why would Bridget always sit alone in that chilly
outside room, which even with a large fire seemed to Nelly
uninhabitable? She tried to woo her sister, by all the small devices in
her power.
'Why won't you come and sit with me a bit, Bridget? I'm so dull all
alone!'--she would say when, after luncheon or high tea, Bridget showed
signs of immediately shutting herself up again.
'I can't. I must do some work.'
'Do tell me what you're doing, Bridget?'
'Oh, you wouldn't understand.'
'Well, other people don't always think me a born idiot!'--Nelly would
say, not without resentment. 'I really could understand, Bridget, if
you'd try.'
'I haven't the time.'
'And you're killing yourself with so many hours of it. Why should you
slave so? If you only would come and help me sometimes with the Red
Cross work, I'd do any needlework for you, that you wanted.'
'You know I hate needlework.'
'You're not doing anything--not _anything_--for the war, Bridget!' Nelly
would venture, wistfully, at last.
'There are plenty of people to do things for the war. I didn't want the
war! Nobody asked my opinion.'
And presently the door would shut, and Nelly would be left to watch the
torrents of rain outside, and to endeavour by reading and drawing, by
needlework and the society of her small friend Tommy, whenever she could
capture him, to get through the day. She pined for Hester, but Hester
was doing Welfare work in a munition factory at Leeds, and could not be
got at.
So there she sat alone, brooding and planning, too timid to talk to
Bridget of her own schemes, and, in her piteous indecision, longing
guiltily for Farrell's return. Meanwhile she had written to several
acquaintances who were doing V.A.D. work in various voluntary hospitals,
to ask for information.
Suddenly, after the rain came frost and north wind--finally snow; the
beginning in the north of the fiercest winter Western Europe has known
for many years. Over heights and dales alike spread the white Leveller,
melting by day in the valley bottoms, and filling up his wastage by
renewed falls at night. Nelly ventured out sometimes to look at the high
glories of Wetherlam and the Pikes, under occasional gleams of sun.
Bridget never put a foot out of doors, except when she went to the
garden gate to look for the postman in the road, and take the letters
from him.
At last, one evening, when after a milder morning a bitter blast from
the north springing up at dusk had, once more, sent gusts of snow
scudding over the fells, Nelly's listening ear heard the well-known step
at the gate. She sprang up with a start of joy. She had been so lonely,
so imprisoned with her own sad thoughts. The coming of this kind, strong
man, so faithful to his small friend through all the stress of his busy
and important life, made a sudden impression upon her, which brought the
tears to her eyes. She thought of Carton, of its splendid buildings, and
the great hospital which now absorbed them; she seemed to see Farrell as
the king of it all, the fame of his doings spreading every month over
the north, and wiping out all that earlier conception of him as a
dilettante and an idler of which she had heard from Hester. And yet,
escaping from all that activity, that power, that constant interest and
excitement, here he was, making use of his first spare hour to come
through the snow and the dark, just to spend an hour with Nelly Sarratt,
just to cheer her lonely little life.
Nelly ran to the window and opened it.
'Is that really you?' she called, joyously, while the snow drifted
against her face.
Farrell, carrying a lantern, was nearing the porch. The light upon his
face as he turned shewed her his look of delight.
'I'm later than I meant, but the roads are awful. May I walk in?'
She ran down to meet him; then hung back rather shyly in the passage,
while he took off his overcoat and shook the snow from his beard.
'Have you any visitors?' he asked, still dusting away the snow.
'Only Bridget. I asked Hester, but she couldn't come.'
He came towards her along the narrow passage, to the spot where she
stood tremulous on the lowest step of the stairs. A lamp burning on a
table revealed her slight figure in black, the warm white of her throat
and face, the grace of the bending head, and the brown hair wreathed
about it. He saw her as an exquisite vision in a dim light and shade.
But it was not that which broke down his self-control so much as the
pathetic look in her dark eyes, the look of one who is glad, and yet
shrinks from her own gladness--tragically conscious of her own weakness,
and yet happy in it. It touched his heart so profoundly that whether
the effect was pain or pleasure he could not have told. But as he
reached the step, moved by an irresistible impulse, he held out his
arms, and she melted into them. For one entrancing instant, he held her
close and warm upon his breast, while the world went by.
But the next moment she had slipped away, and was sitting on the step,
her face in her hands.
He did not plead or excuse himself. He just stood by her endeavouring to
still and control his pulses--till at last she looked up. The lamp
shewed her his face, and the passion in it terrified her. For there had
been no passion in her soft and sudden yielding. Only the instinct of
the child that is forsaken and wants comforting, that feels love close
to it, and cannot refuse it.
'There, you see!' she said, desperately--'You see--I must go!'
'No! It's I who must go. Unless '--his voice sank almost to a
whisper--'Nelly!--couldn't you--marry me? You should never, never regret
it.'
She shook her head, and as she dropped her face again in her hands he
saw a shudder run through her. At the sight his natural impulse was to
let passion have its way, to raise her in his arms again, and whisper to
her there in the dark, as love inspired him, his cheek on hers. But he
did not venture. He was well aware of something intangible and
incalculable in Nelly that could not be driven. His fear of it held him
in check. He knew that she was infinitely sorry for him and tender
towards him. But he knew too that she was not in love with him. Only--he
would take his chance of that, if only she would marry him.
'Dear!' he said, stooping to her, and touching her dark curls with his
hand. 'Let's call in Hester! She's dreadfully wise! If you were with her
I should feel happy--I could wait. But it is when I see you so lonely
here--and so sad--nobody to care for you!--that I can't bear it!'
Through the rush of the wind, a sound of someone crossing the yard
behind the farm came to their ears. Nelly sprang to her feet and led the
way upstairs. Farrell followed her, and as they moved, they heard
Bridget open the back door and come in.
The little sitting-room was bright with lamp and fire, and Farrell,
perceiving that they were no longer to be alone, and momentarily
expecting Bridget's entrance, put impatience aside and began to talk of
his drive from Carton.
'The wind on Dunmail Raise was appalling, and the lamps got so
be-snowed, we had to be constantly clearing them. But directly we got
down into the valley it mended, and I managed to stop at the
post-office, and ask if there were any letters for you. There were
two--and a telegram. What have I done with them?' He began to search in
his pockets, his wits meanwhile in such a whirl that it was difficult
for him to realise what he was doing.
At that point Bridget opened the door. He turned to shake hands with
her, and then resumed his fumbling.
'I'm sure they did give them to me'--he said, in some concern,--'two
letters and a telegram.'
'A telegram!' said Bridget, suddenly, hurrying forward,--'it must be for
me.'
She peremptorily held out her hand, and as she did so, Nelly caught
sight of her sister. Startled out of all other thoughts she too made a
step forward. What _was_ wrong with Bridget? The tall, gaunt woman stood
there livid, her eyes staring at Farrell, her hand unsteady as she
thrust it towards him.
'Give me the telegram, please! I was expecting one,' she said, trying to
speak as usual.
Farrell turned to her in surprise.
'But it wasn't for you, Miss Cookson. It was for Mrs. Sarratt. I saw the
address quite plainly. Ah, here they are. How stupid of me! What on
earth made me put them in that pocket.'
He drew out the letters and the telegram. Bridget said again--'Give it
me, please! I know it's for me!' And she tried to snatch it. Farrell's
face changed. He disliked Bridget Cookson heartily, mainly on Nelly's
account, and her rude persistence nettled a temper accustomed to
command. He quietly put her aside.
'When your sister has read it, Miss Cookson, she will no doubt let you
see it. As it happens, the post-mistress made me promise to give it to
Mrs. Sarratt myself. She seemed interested--I don't know why.'
Nelly took it. Farrell--who began to have some strange misgiving--stood
between her and Bridget. Bridget made no further movement. Her eyes were
fixed on Nelly.
Nelly, bewildered by the little scene and by Bridget's extraordinary
behaviour, tore open the brown envelope, and read slowly--'Please come
at once. Have some news for you. Your sister will explain. Howson, Base
Headquarters, X------, France.'
'Howson?' said Nelly. Then the colour began to ebb from her face. 'Dr.
Howson?' she repeated. 'What news? What does he mean? _Oh_!'--the cry
rang through the room--'_it's George_!--it's George! he's
found!--he's found!'
She thrust the telegram piteously into Farrell's hands. He read it, and
turned to Bridget.
'What does Dr. Howson mean, Miss Cookson, and why does he refer Mrs.
Sarratt to you?'
For some seconds she could not make her pale lips reply. Finally, she
said--'That's entirely my own affair, Sir William. I shall tell my
sister, of course. But Nelly had better go at once, as Dr. Howson
advises. I'll go and see to things.'
She turned slowly away. Nelly ran forward and caught her.
'Oh, Bridget--don't go--you mustn't go! What news is it? Bridget, tell
me!--you couldn't--you _couldn't_ be so cruel--not to tell me--if you
knew anything about George!'
Bridget stood silent.
'Oh, what can I do--what can I do?' cried Nelly.
Then her eyes fell on the letters still in her hand. She tore one
open--and read it--with mingled cries of anguish and joy. Farrell dared
not go near her. There seemed already a gulf between her and him.
'It's from Miss Eustace'--she said, panting, as she looked up at last,
and handed the letter to him--it's George--he's alive--they've heard
from France--he asks for me--but--but--he's dying.'
Her head dropped forward a little. She caught at the back of a chair,
nearly fainting. But when Farrell approached her, she put up a hand in
protest.
'No, no,--I'm all right. But, Bridget, Miss Eustace says--you've
actually _seen_ him--you've been to France. When did you go?'
'About three weeks ago,' said Bridget, after a moment's pause. 'Oh, of
course I know'--she threw back her head defiantly--'you'll all set on
me--you'll all blame me. But I suppose I may be mistaken like anybody
else--mayn't I? I didn't think the man I saw was George--I didn't! And
what was the good of disturbing your mind?'
But as she told the lie, she told it so lamely and unconvincingly that
neither of the other two believed it for a moment. Nelly stood
up--tottering--but mistress of herself. She looked at Farrell.
'Sir William--can you take me to Windermere, for the night-train? I know
when it goes--10.20. I'll be ready--by nine.' She glanced at the clock,
which was just nearing seven.
'Of course,' said Farrell, taking up his hat. 'I'll go and see to the
motor. But'--he looked at her with entreaty--'you can't go this long
journey alone!'
The words implied a bitter consciousness that his own escort was
impossible. Nelly did not notice it. She only said impatiently--
'But, of course, I must go alone.'
She stood silent--mastering the agony within--forcing herself to think
and will. When the pause was over, she said quietly--'I will be quite
ready at nine.' And then mechanically--'It's very good of you.'
He went away, passing Bridget, who stood with one foot on the fender,
staring down into the fire.
When the outer door had closed upon him, Nelly looked at her sister. She
was trembling all over.
'Bridget--_why_ did you do it?' The voice was low and full of horror.
'What do you mean? I made a mistake--that's all!'
'Bridget--you _knew_ it was George! You couldn't be mistaken. Miss
Eustace says--in the letter'--she pointed to it--'they asked you about
his hands. Do you remember how you used to mock at them?'
'As if one could remember after a year and a half!'
'No, you couldn't forget, Bridget--a thing like that--I know you
couldn't. And what made you do it! Did you think I had forgotten
George?'
At that the tears streamed down her face, unheeded. She approached her
sister piteously.
'Bridget, tell me what he looked like! Did you speak to him--did you see
his eyes open? Oh my poor George!--and I here--never thinking of
him'--she broke off incoherently, twisting her hands. 'Miss Eustace says
he was wounded in two places--severely--that she's afraid there's no
hope. Did they say that to you, Bridget--tell me!--for Heaven's sake
tell me!'
'You'll make yourself ill,' said Bridget harshly. 'You'd better lie
down, and let me pack for you.'
Nelly laughed out.
'As if I'd ever let you do anything for me any more! No, that's done
with. You've been so accustomed to manage me all these years. You
thought you could manage me now--you thought you could let George
die--and I should never know--and you'd make me marry--William Farrell.
Bridget--_I hate you!'_
She broke off, shivering, but resumed almost at once--'I see it all--I
think I see it all. And now it's all done for between you and me. If
George dies, I shall never come back to live with you again. You'd
better make plans, Bridget. It's over for ever.'
'You don't know what you're saying, now,' said Bridget, coldly.
Nelly did not hear her, she was lost in a whirl of images and thoughts.
And governed by them she went up to Bridget again, thrusting her small
white face under her sister's eyes.
'What sort of a room was he in, Bridget? Who was nursing him? Are you
sure he didn't know you? Did you call him by his name? Did you make him
understand?'
'He knew nobody,' said Bridget, drawing back, against her will, before
the fire in Nelly's wild eyes. 'He was in a very good room. There was a
nurse sitting with him.'
'Was he--was he very changed?'
'Of course he was. If not, I should have known him.'
Nelly half smiled. Bridget could never have thought that soft mouth
capable of so much scorn. But no words came. Then Nelly walked away to a
drawer where she kept her accounts, her cheque-book, and any loose money
she might be in possession of. She took out her cheque-book and some two
or three pounds that lay there.
'If you want money, I can lend you some,' said Bridget, catching at the
old note of guardianship.
'Thank you. But I shall not want it.'
'Nelly, don't be a fool!' said Bridget, stung at last into speech.
'Suppose all you think is true--I don't admit it, mind--but suppose it's
true. How was I doing such a terrible wrong to you?--in the eyes, I
mean, of sensible people--in not disturbing your mind. Nobody
expected--that man I saw--to know anybody again--or to live more than a
few days. Even if I had been certain--and how could I be
certain?--wasn't it _reasonable_ to weigh one thing against another? You
know very well--it's childish to ignore it--what's been going on
here----'
But she paused. Nelly, writing a letter, was not apparently concerned
with anything Bridget had been saying. It did not seem to have reached
her ears. A queer terror shot through Bridget. But she dismissed it. As
if Nelly could ever really get on without her. Little, feckless,
sentimental thing!
Nelly finished her letter and put it up.
'I have written to Sir William's agent, Bridget'--she said turning
towards her sister--'to say that I give up the farm. I shall pay the
servant. Hester will look after my things, and send them--when I want
them.'
'Why Hester?' said Bridget, with something of a sneer.
Nelly did not answer. She put up her letter, took the money and the
cheque-book and went out of the room. Bridget heard her call their one
servant, Mrs. Dowson, and presently steps ascended the stairs and
Nelly's door shut. The sound of the shutting door roused in her again
that avenging terror. Her first impulse was to go and force herself
into Nelly's room, so as to manage and pack for her as usual. But
something stopped her. She consoled herself by going down to the kitchen
to look after the supper. Nelly, of course, must have some food before
her night journey.
Behind that shut door, Nelly was looking into the kind weather-beaten
face of Mrs. Dowson.
'Mrs. Dowson, I'm going away to-night--and I'm not coming back. Sir
William knows.'
Then she caught the woman's gnarled hands, and her own features began to
work.
'Mrs. Dowson, they've found my husband! Did Sir William tell you? He's
not dead--he's alive--But he's very, very ill.'
'Oh, you poor lamb!' cried Mrs. Dowson. 'No--Sir William tellt me nowt.
The Lord be gracious to you!' Bathed in sudden tears, she kissed one of
the hands that held hers, pouring out incoherent words of hope. But
Nelly did not cry, and presently she said firmly--
'Now, please, you must help me to pack. Sir William will be here at
nine.'
Presently all was ready. Nelly had hunted out an old grey travelling
dress in which George had often seen her, and a grey hat with a veil.
She hastily put all her black clothes aside.
'Miss Martin will send me anything I want. I have asked her to come and
fetch my things.'
'But Miss Cookson will be seein' to that!' said Mrs. Dowson wondering.
Nelly made no reply. She locked her little box, and then stood upright,
looking round the small room. She seemed to be saying 'Good-bye' for
ever to the Nelly who had lived, and dreamed, and prayed there. She was
going to George--that was all she knew.
Downstairs, Bridget was standing at the door of the little dining-room.
'I have put out some cold meat for you,' she said, stiffly. 'You won't
get anything for a long time.'
Nelly acquiesced. She drank some tea, and ate as much as she could.
Neither she nor Bridget spoke, till Bridget, who was at the window
looking out into the snow, turned round to say--'Here's the motor.'
Nelly rose, and tied her veil on closely. Mrs. Dowson brought her a
thick coat, which had been part of her trousseau, and wrapped her in it.
'You had better take your grey shawl,' said Bridget.
'I have it here, Miss,' said Mrs. Dowson, producing it. 'I'll put it
over her in the motor.'
She disappeared to open the door to Sir William's knock.
Nelly turned to her sister.
'Good-bye, Bridget.'
Bridget flamed out.
'And you don't mean to write to me? You mean to carry out this absurd
plan of separation!'
'I don't know what I shall do--till I have seen George,' said Nelly
steadily. 'He'll settle for me. Only you and I are not sisters any
more.'
Bridget shrugged her shoulders, with some angry remark about 'theatrical
nonsense.' Nelly went out into the passage, threw her arms about Mrs.
Dowson's neck, for a moment, and then hurried out towards the car. It
stood there in the falling snow, its bright lights blazing on the bit of
Westmorland wall opposite, and the overhanging oaks, still heavy with
dead leaf. Farrell was standing at the door, holding a fur rug. He and
Mrs. Dowson tucked it in round Nelly's small cloaked figure.
Then without a word, Farrell shut the door of the car, and took the seat
beside the driver. In another minute Bridget was watching the lights of
the lamps rushing along the sides of the lane, till at a sharp bend of
the road it disappeared.
There was a break presently in the snow-fall, and as they reached the
shores of Windermere, Nelly was aware of struggling gleams of moonlight
on steely water. The anguish in her soul almost resented the break in
the darkness. She was going to George; but George was dying, and while
he had been lying there in his lonely suffering, she had been forgetting
him, and betraying him. The recollection of Farrell's embrace
overwhelmed her with a crushing sense of guilt. George indeed should
never know. But that made no difference to her own misery.
The miles flew by. She began to think of her journey, to realise her
helplessness and inexperience in the practical things of life. She must
get her passport, and some money. Who would advise her, and tell her how
to get to France under war conditions? Would she be allowed to go by the
short sea passage? For that she knew a special permit was necessary.
Could she get it at once, or would she be kept waiting in town? The
notion of having to wait one unnecessary hour tortured her. Then her
thoughts fastened on Miss Eustace of the Enquiry Office, who had written
her the letter which had arrived simultaneously with Dr. Howson's
telegram. 'Let me know if I can be of any use to you, for your journey.
If there is anything you want to know that we can help you in, you had
better come straight to this office.'
Yes, that she would do. But the train arrived in London at 7 A.M. And
she could not possibly see Miss Eustace before ten or eleven. She must
just sit in the waiting-room till it was time. And she must get some
money. She had her cheque-book and would ask Sir William to tell her how
to get a cheque cashed in London. She was ashamed of her own ignorance
in these small practical matters.
The motor stopped. Sir William jumped down, but before he came to open
the door for her, she saw him turn round and wave his hand to two
persons standing outside the station. They hurried towards the motor,
and as Nelly stepped down from it, she felt herself grasped by eager
hands.
'You poor darling! I thought we couldn't be in time. But we flew. Don't
trouble about anything. We've done it all.'
Cicely!--and behind her Marsworth.
Nelly drew back.
'Dear Cicely!' she said faintly--'but I can manage--I can manage quite
well.'
Resistance, however, was useless. Marsworth and Cicely, it seemed, were
going to London with her--Cicely probably to France; and Marsworth had
already telegraphed about her passport. She would have gladly gone by
herself, but she finally surrendered--for George's sake, that she might
get to him the quicker.
Then everything was done for her. Amid the bustle of the departing
train, she was piteously aware of Farrell, and just before they started,
she leant out to give him her hand.
'I will tell George all you have done for me,' she said, gulping down a
sob.
He pressed her hand before releasing it, but said nothing. What was
there to say? Meanwhile, Cicely, to ease the situation, was chattering
hard, describing how Farrell had sent his chauffeur to Ambleside on a
motor bicycle, immediately after leaving Nelly, and so had got a
telephone message through to Cicely.
'We had the small car out and ready in ten minutes, and, by good luck,
there was a motor-transport man on leave, who had come to see a brother
in the hospital. We laid hands on him, and he drove us here. But it's a
mercy we're not sitting on the Raise! You remember that heap of stones
on the top of the Raise, that thing they say is a barrow--the grave of
some old British party before the Flood?--well, the motor gave out
there! Herbert and the chauffeur sat under it in the snow and worked at
it. I thought the river was coming over the road, and that the wind
would blow us all away. But it'll be all right for your crossing
to-morrow--the storm will have quite gone down. Herbert thinks you'll
start about twelve o'clock,--and you'll be at the camp that same night.
Oh, isn't it wonderful!--isn't it _ripping_?' cried Cicely under her
breath, stooping down to kiss Nelly, while the two men talked at the
carriage window.--'You're going to get him home! We'll have the best men
in London to look after him. He'll pull through, you'll see--he'll pull
through!'
Nelly sank into a seat and closed her eyes. Cicely's talk--why did she
call Marsworth 'Herbert'?--was almost unbearable to her. _She_ knew
through every vein that she was going across the Channel--to see George
die. If only she were in time!--if only she might hold him in her arms
once more! Would the train never go?
Farrell, in spite of snow and storm, pushed his way back to Carton that
night. In that long motor drive a man took counsel with himself on whom
the war had laid a chastening and refining hand. The human personality
cannot spend itself on tasks of pity and service without taking the
colour of them, without rising insensibly to the height of them. They
may have been carelessly adopted, or imposed from without. But the mere
doing of them exalts. As the dyer's hand is 'subdued to what it works
in,' so the man that is always about some generous business for his
fellow-men suffers thereby, insensibly, a change, which is part of the
'heavenly alchemy' for ever alive in the world. It was so at any rate
with William Farrell. The two years of his hospital work--hard, honest
grappling with the problems of human pain and its relief--had made a far
nobler man of him. So now, in this solitary hour, he looked his
trouble--courageously, chivalrously--in the face. The crash of all his
immediate hopes was bitter indeed. What matter! Let him think only of
those two poor things about to meet in France.
As to the future, he was well aware of the emotional depths in Nelly's
nature. George Sarratt's claim upon her life and memory would now be
doubly strong. For, with that long and intimate observation of the war
which his hospital experience had brought him, Farrell was keenly aware
of the merciful fact that the mere distance which, generally speaking,
the war imposes between the man dying on the battle-field and those who
love him at home, inevitably breaks the blow. The nerves of the woman
who loses her husband or her son are, at least, not tortured by the
actual sight of his wounds and death. The suffering is spiritual, and
the tender benumbing touch of religion or patriotism, or the remaining
affections of life, has less to fight with than when the physical senses
themselves are racked with acute memories of bodily wounds and bodily
death. It is not that sorrow is less deep, or memory less tenacious; but
both are less ruinous to the person sorrowing. So, at least, Farrell had
often seen it, among even the most loving and passionate of women.
Nelly's renascence in the quiet Westmorland life had been a fresh
instance of it; and he had good reason for thinking that, but for the
tragic reappearance of George Sarratt, it would not have taken very
long,--a few months more, perhaps--before she would have been persuaded
to let herself love, and be loved again.
But now, every fibre in her delicate being--physical and
spiritual--would be racked by the sight of Sarratt's suffering and
death. And no doubt--pure, scrupulous little soul!--she would be
tormented by the thought of what had just passed between herself and
him, before the news from France arrived. He might as well look that in
the face.
Well!--patience and time--there was nothing else to look to. He braced
himself to both, as he sped homeward through the high snowy roads, and
dropped through sleeping Keswick to Bassenthwaite and Carton. Then with
the sight of the hospital, the Red Cross flag drooping above its
doorway, as he drove up to it, the burden and interest of his great
responsibilities returned upon him. He jumped out to say a few cheery
words of thanks to his chauffeur, and went on with a rapid step to his
office on the ground floor, where he found important letters and
telegrams awaiting him. He dealt with them till far into the night. But
the thought of Nelly never really left him; nor that haunting physical
memory of her soft head upon his shoulder.