CARRYING ON
After that first terrible evening, during which no one had looked upon
their agony, David Linton and his child took up their life again and
tried to splice the broken ends as best they might. Their guests, who
came down to breakfast nervously, preparing to go away at once, found
them in the dining-room, haggard and worn, but pleasantly courteous;
they talked of the morning’s news, of the frost that seemed commencing,
of the bulbs that were sending delicate spear-heads up through the
grass or the bare flower-beds. There were arrangements for the day to
be made for those who cared to ride or drive: the trains to be planned
for a gunner subaltern whose leave was expiring next day. Everything
was quite as usual, outwardly.
“Pretty ghastly meal, what?” remarked the young gunner to a chum, as
they went out on the terrace. “Rather like dancing at a funeral.”
Philip Hardress came into the morning-room, where Mr. Linton and Norah
were talking.
“I don’t need to tell you how horribly sorry I am,” he faltered.
“No—thanks, Phil.”
“You—you haven’t any details?”
“No.”
“Wally will write as soon as he can,” Norah added.
“Yes, of course. The others want me to say, sir, of course they will go
away. They all understand. I can go too, just to the hotel. I can
supervise Hawkins from there.”
“I hope none of you will think of doing any such thing,” David Linton
said. “Our work here is just the same. Jim would never have wished us
not to carry on.”
“But——” Hardress began.
“There isn’t any ‘but.’ Norah and I are not going to sit mourning, with
our hands in front of us. We mean to work a bit harder, that’s all. You
see”—the ghost of a smile flickered across the face that had aged ten
years in a night—“more than ever now, whatever we do for a soldier is
done for Jim.”
Hardress made a curious little gesture of protest.
“And I’m left—half of me!”
“You have got to help us, Phil,” Norah said. “We need you badly.”
“I can’t do much,” he said. “But as long as you want me, I’m here. Then
I’m to tell the others, sir——”
“Tell them we hope they will help us to carry on as usual,” said David
Linton. “I’ll come across with you presently, Phil, to look at the new
cultivator: I hear it arrived last night.”
He looked at Norah as the door closed.
“You’re sure it isn’t too much for you, my girl? I will send them away
if you would rather we were by ourselves for a while.”
“I promised Jim that whatever happened we’d keep smiling,” Norah said.
“He wouldn’t want us to make a fuss. Jim always did so hate fusses,
didn’t he, Dad?”
She was quite calm. Even when Mrs. Hunt came hurrying over, and put her
kind arms about her, Norah had no tears.
“I suppose we haven’t realized it,” she said. “Perhaps we’re trying not
to. I don’t want to think of Jim as dead—he was so splendidly alive,
ever since he was a tiny chap.”
“Try to think of him as near you,” Mrs. Hunt whispered.
“Oh, he is. I know Jim never would go far from us, if he could help it.
I know he’s watching, somewhere, and he will be glad if we keep our
heads up and go straight on. He would trust us to do that.” Her face
changed. “Oh, Mrs. Hunt,—but it’s hard on Dad!”
“He has you still.”
“I’m only a girl,” said Norah. “No girl could make up for a son: and
such a son as Jim. But I’ll try.”
There came racing little feet in the hall, and Geoffrey burst in.
“It isn’t true!” he shouted. “Say it isn’t true, Norah! Allenby says
the Germans have killed Jim—I know they couldn’t.” He tugged at her
woollen coat. “Say it’s a lie, Norah—Jim couldn’t be dead!”
“Geoff—Geoff, dear!” Mrs. Hunt tried to draw him away.
“Don’t!” Norah said. She put her arms round the little boy—and suddenly
her head went down on his shoulder. The tears came at last. Mrs. Hunt
went softly from the room.
There were plenty of tears in the household: The servants had all loved
the big cheery lad, with the pleasant word for each one. They went
about their work red-eyed, and Allenby chafed openly at the age that
kept him at home, doing a woman’s work, while boys went out to give
their lives, laughing, for Empire.
“It ain’t fair,” he said to Miss de Lisle, who sobbed into the muffler
she was knitting. “It ain’t fair. Kids, they are—no more. They ain’t
meant to die. Oh, if I could only get at that there Kayser!”
Then, after a week of waiting, came Wally’s letter.
“Norah, Dear,—
“I don’t know how to write to you. I can’t bear to think about you and
your father. It seems it must be only a bad dream—and all the time I
know it isn’t, even though I keep thinking I hear his whistle—the one
he used for me.
“I had better tell you about it.
“We had orders to attack early one morning. Jim was awfully keen; he
had everything ready, and he had been talking to the men until they
were all as bucked up as they could be. You know, he was often pretty
grave about his work, but I don’t think I ever saw him look so happy as
he did that morning. He looked just like a kid. He told me he felt as
if he were going out on a good horse at Billabong. We were looking over
our revolvers, and he said, ‘That’s the only thing that feels wrong; it
ought to be a stock whip!’
“We hadn’t much artillery support. Our guns were short of shells, as
usual. But we took the first trench, and the next. Jim was just
everywhere. He was always first; the men would have followed him down a
precipice. He was laughing all the time.
“We didn’t get much time before they counter-attacked. They came on in
waves—as if there were millions of them, and we had a pretty stiff
fight in the trench. It was fairly well smashed about. I was pretty
busy about fifty yards away, but I saw Jim up on a broken traverse,
using his revolver just as calmly as if he were practising in camp, and
cheering on the men. He gave me a ‘Coo-ee!’
“And then—oh, I don’t know how to tell you. Just as I was looking at
him a shell burst near him: and when the smoke blew over there was
nothing—traverse and trench and all, it was just wiped out. I couldn’t
get near him—the Boches were pouring over in fresh masses, and we got
the signal to retire—and I was the only one left to get the men back.
“He couldn’t have felt anything; that’s the only thing.
“I wish it had been me. I’m nobody’s dog, and he was just everything to
you two—and the best friend a fellow ever had. It would have been so
much more reasonable if it had been me. I just feel that I hate myself
for being alive. I would have saved him for you if I could, Norah,
“Wally.”
There were letters, too, from Jim’s Colonel, and from Major Hunt, and
Garrett, and every other brother-officer whom Jim had sent to Homewood;
and others that Norah and her father valued almost more highly—from men
who had served under him. Letters that made him glow with pride—almost
forgetting grief as they read them. It seemed so impossible to think
that Jim would never come again.
“I can’t feel as though he were dead,” Norah said, looking up at her
father. “I know I’ve got to get used to knowing he has gone away from
us for always. But I like to think of him as having only changed work.
Jim never could be idle in Heaven; he always used to say it seemed such
a queer idea to sit all day in a white robe and play a harp. Jim’s
Heaven would have to be a very busy one, and I know he’s gone there,
Dad.”
David Linton got up and went to the bookcase. He came back with
_Westward Ho!_ in his hand.
“I was reading Kingsley’s idea of it last night,” he said. “I think it
helps, Norah. Listen. ‘The best reward for having wrought well already,
is to have more to do; and he that has been faithful over a few things,
must find his account in being made ruler over many things. That is the
true and heroical rest, which only is worthy of gentlemen and sons of
God.’ Jim was only a boy, but he went straight and did his best all his
life. I think he has just been promoted to some bigger job.”
So they held their heads high, as befitted people with just cause for
being proud, and set themselves to find the rest that comes from hard
work. There was plenty to do, for the house was always full of Tired
People. Not that the Lintons ever tried to entertain their guests.
Tired People came to a big, quiet house, where everything ran smoothly,
and all that was possible was done for comfort. Beyond that, they did
exactly as they chose. There were horses and the motor for those who
cared to ride and drive; the links for golfers; walks with beautiful
scenery for energetic folk, and dainty rooms with big easy-chairs, or
restful lounges under the trees on the lawn, for those who asked from
Fate nothing better than to be lazy. No one was expected to make
conversation or to behave as an ordinary guest. Everywhere there was a
pleasant feeling of homeliness and welcome; shy men became suddenly at
their ease; nerve-racked men, strained with long months of the noise
and horror of war, relaxed in the peace of Homewood, and went back to
duty with a light step and a clear eye. Only there was missing the wild
merriment of the first few weeks, when Jim and Wally dashed in and out
perpetually and kept the house in a simmer of uncertainty and laughter.
That could never come again.
But beyond the immediate needs of the Tired People there was much to
plan and carry out. Conscription in England was an established fact;
already there were few fit men to be seen out of uniform. David Linton
looked forward to a time when shortage of labour, coupled with the
deadly work of the German submarines, should mean a shortage of food;
and he and Norah set themselves to provide against that time of
scarcity. Miss de Lisle and Philip Hardress entered into every plan,
lending the help of brains as well as hands. The farm was put under
intensive culture, and the first provision made for the future was that
of fertilizers, which, since most of them came from abroad, were
certain to be scarce. Mr. Linton and Hardress breathed more freely when
they had stored a two years’ supply. The flock of sheep was increased;
the fowl-run doubled in size, and put in charge of a disabled soldier,
a one-armed Australian, whom Hardress found in London, ill and
miserable, and added to the list of Homewood’s patients—and cures.
Young heifers were bought, and “boarded-out” at neighbouring farms; a
populous community of grunting pigs occupied a little field. And in the
house Norah and Miss de Lisle worked through the spring and summer,
until the dry and spacious cellars and storerooms showed row upon row
of shelves covered with everything that could be preserved or salted or
pickled, from eggs to runner beans.
Sometimes the Tired People lent a hand, becoming interested in their
hosts’ schemes. Norah formed a fast friendship with a cheerful
subaltern in the Irish Guards, who was with them for a wet fortnight,
much of which he spent in the kitchen stoning fruit, making jam, and
acting as bottler-in-chief to the finished product. There were many who
asked nothing better than to work on the farm, digging, planting or
harvesting: indeed, in the summer, one crop would have been ruined
altogether by a fierce storm, but for the Tired People, who, from an
elderly Colonel to an Australian signaller, flung themselves upon it,
and helped to finish getting it under cover—carrying the last sheaves
home just as the rain came down in torrents, and returning to Homewood
in a soaked but triumphant procession. Indeed, nearly all the unending
stream of guests came under the spell of the place; so that Norah used
to receive anxious inquiries from various corners of the earth
afterwards—from Egypt or Salonica would come demands as to the success
of a catch-crop which the writer had helped to sow, or of a brood of
Buff Orpingtons which he had watched hatching out in the incubator:
even from German East Africa came a letter asking after a special
litter of pigs! Perhaps it was that every one knew that the Lintons
were shouldering a burden bravely, and tried to help.
They kept Jim very close to them. A stranger, hearing the name so often
on their lips, might have thought that he was still with them.
Together, they talked of him always; not sadly, but remembering the
long, happy years that now meant a memory too dear ever to let go. Jim
had once asked Norah for a promise. “If I go West,” he said, “don’t
wear any horrible black frocks.” So she went about in her ordinary
dresses, especially the blue frocks he had loved—with just a narrow
black band on her arm. There were fresh flowers under his picture every
day, but she did not put them sadly. She would smile at the frank happy
face as she arranged leaves and blossoms with a loving hand.
Later on, David Linton fitted up a carpenter’s bench and a workshop;
the days were too full for much thinking, but he found the evenings
long. He enlisted Hardress in his old work of splint-making, and then
found that half his guests used to stray out to the lit workshop after
dinner and beg for jobs, so that before long the nearest Hospital
Supply Depot could count on a steady output of work from Homewood. Mrs.
Hunt and Norah used to come as polishers; Miss de Lisle suddenly
discovered that her soul for cooking included a corner for carpentry,
and became extraordinarily skilful in the use of chisel and plane. When
the autumn days brought a chill into the air, Mr. Linton put a stove
into the workshop; and it became a kind of club, where the whole
household might often be found; they extended their activities to the
manufacture of crutches, bed-rests, bed-tables, and half a dozen other
aids to comfort for broken men. No work had helped David Linton so
much.
In the early summer Wally came back on leave: a changed Wally, with
grim lines where there had once been only merry ones in his lean, brown
face. He did not want to come to Homewood; only when begged to come did
he master the pitiful shrinking he felt from meeting them.
“I didn’t know how to face you,” he said. Norah had gone to meet him,
and they were walking back from the station.
“Don’t, Wally; you hurt,” she said.
“It’s true, though; I didn’t. I feel as if you must hate me for coming
back—alone.”
“Hate you!—and you were Jim’s chum!”
“I always came as Jim’s chum,” Wally said heavily. “From the very
first, when I was a lonely little nipper at school, I sort of belonged
to Jim. And now—well, I just can’t realize it, Norah. I can’t keep on
thinking about him as dead. I know he is, and one minute I’m feeling
half-insane about it, and the next I forget, and think I hear him
whistling or calling me.” He clenched his hands. “It’s the minute after
that that is the worst of all,” he said.
For a time they did not speak. They walked on slowly, along the
pleasant country lane with its blossoming hedges.
“I know,” Norah said. “There’s not much to choose between you and Dad
and me, when it comes to missing Jim. But as for you—well you did come
as Jim’s chum first—and always; but you came just as much because you
were yourself. You know you belonged to Billabong, as we all did. You
can’t cut yourself off from us now, Wally.”
“I?” he echoed. “Well, if I do, I have mighty little left. But I felt
that you couldn’t want to see me. I know what it must be like to see me
come back without him.”
“I’m not going to say it doesn’t hurt,” said Norah. “Only it hurts you
as much as it does us. And the thing that would be ever so much worse
is for you not to come. Why, you’re the only comfort we have left.
Don’t you see, you’re like a bit of Jim coming back to us?”
“Oh, Norah—Norah!” he said. “If I could only have saved him!”
“Don’t we know you’d have died quite happily if you could!” Norah said.
“Just as happily as he would have died for you.”
“He did, you know,” Wally said. All the youth and joy had gone out of
his voice, leaving it flat and toneless. “Two or three times that
morning he kept me out of a specially hot spot, and took it himself. He
was always doing it: we nearly punched each other’s heads about it the
day before—I told him he was using his rank unfairly. He just grinned
and said subalterns couldn’t understand necessary strategy in the
field!”
“He would!” said Norah, laughing.
Wally stared at her.
“I didn’t think I’d ever see you laugh again!”
“Not laugh!” Norah echoed. “Why, it wouldn’t be fair to Jim if we
didn’t. We keep him as near us as we can—talk about him, and about all
the old, happy times. We did have such awfully good times together,
didn’t we? We’re never going to get far away from him.”
The boy gave a great sigh.
“I’ve been getting a long way from everything,” he said. “Since—since
it happened I couldn’t let myself think: it was just as if I were going
mad. The only thing I’ve wanted to do was to fight, and I’ve had that.”
“He looks as if his mind were more tired than his body,” David Linton
said that evening. “One can see that he has just been torturing himself
with all sorts of useless thoughts. You’ll have to take him in hand,
Norah. Put the other work aside for a while and go out with him—ride as
much as you can. It won’t do you any harm, either.”
“We never thought old Wally would be one of the Tired People,” Norah
said musingly.
“No, indeed. And I think there has been no one more utterly tired. It
won’t do, Norah: the boy will be ill if we don’t look after him.”
“We’ve just got to make him feel how much we want him,” Norah said.
“Yes. And we have to teach him to think happily about Jim—not to fight
it all the time. Fighting won’t make it any better,” said David Linton,
with a sigh.
But there was no riding for Wally, for a while. The next day found him
too ill to get up, and the doctor, sent for hastily, talked of shock
and over-strain, and ordered bed until his temperature should be
pleased to go down: which was not for many a weary day. Possibly it was
the best thing that could have happened to Wally. He grew, if not
reconciled, at least accustomed to his loss; grew, too, to thinking
himself a coward when he saw the daily struggle waged by the two people
he loved best. And Norah was wise enough to call in other nurses: chief
of them the Hunt babies, Alison and Michael, who rolled on his bed and
played with him, while Geoffrey sat as close to him as possible, and
could hardly be lured from the room. It was not for weeks after his
return that they heard Wally laugh; and then it was at some ridiculous
speech of Michael’s that he suddenly broke into the ghost of his old
mirth.
Norah’s heart gave a leap.
“Oh, he’s better!” she thought. “You blessed little Michael!”
And so, healing came to the boy’s bruised soul. Not that the old,
light-hearted Wally came back: but he learned to talk of Jim, and no
longer to hug his sorrow in silence. Something became his of the peace
that had fallen upon Norah and her father. It was all they could hope
for, to begin with.
They said good-bye to him before they considered him well enough to go
back to the trenches. But the call for men was insistent, and the boy
himself was eager to go.
“Come back to us soon,” Norah said, wistfully.
“Oh, I’m safe to come back,” Wally said. “I’m nobody’s dog, you know.”
“That’s not fair!” she flashed. “Say you’re sorry for saying it!”
He flushed.
“I’m sorry if I hurt you, Nor. I suppose I was a brute to say that.”
Something of his old quaint fun came into his eyes for a moment.
“Anyhow it’s something to be somebody’s dog—especially if one happens
to belong to Billabong-in-Surrey!”