The next day, came a letter from Cousin Delia, a short, quiet
note, that was like her.
‘You will have seen yesterday that Hugo is missing. We have no
further news of him,’ she wrote. ‘His father has been to the
War Office, but they can tell him nothing more. Hugo was missing
on the ninth after the taking of Cambrai. They could not collect
all the wounded on that day, and when they did so, he was not
among them. There was very heavy shelling on both days, and it
is probable that he was killed. I am making inquiries at the
hospitals for men of his battalion who were in that fighting,
and I will let you know if I have any news.’
I read and reread her letter, and I wondered, as I had often
wondered, at the calm of Cousin Delia, and I thought that she
would die if she lost Hugo. Quietly, calmly, as she had lived,
she would die.
And I thought all day of Yearsly, of the old brick walls, and
the apple blossom, and Guy and Hugo, calling from the trees;
and I thought of Cousin Delia in the garden as she had been when
we were little, with her long yellow gloves, and her shady garden
hat.
And I thought:
‘That is all over. The world has gone on since then.’
And my own grief became part of the world’s grief, and my own
loss, part of the world’s loss.
And then, when Sunday came, I wrote to Hugo. I had written to
him every Sunday since February, when he came home.
‘Hugo, my darling . . . they say that you are dead . . . killed . . .
blown to pieces . . . not there anywhere any more. . . . I can’t
believe it, for the world is going on . . . it looks just the
same now, as it always did . . . and I can’t believe in a world
without you in it . . . anywhere at all, for I think, Hugo, that
you were the world to me. . .
‘They said: “When the leaves fall, you shall have peace.” Do
you remember that? . . . they are falling now. . . .I can see
them . . . from the poplar tree at the gate, yellow, dirty leaves
that fall in the street . . . but you said that it must not be
like that . . . we came away from that picture. . . . Have you
got peace Hugo, now? . . . silence and peace, after tremendous
noise? . . . I try to think of it like that, but it is difficult. . . .
I can only think that you are gone away . . . out of everything . . .
that I shall never see you again . . . and then it seems as though
some one was laughing at me . . . .some horrible devil, and it
can’t be true. . . .’
I addressed the letter and posted it. I don’t know where it went,
or what happened to it.
Two days later, a letter came from Hugo. I saw it on the hall
floor, where it had fallen through the letter-box.
And I thought:
‘He has answered me. He is not dead at all!’
I broke the envelope open, and I tried to read it, and I could
not read it at first . . . the letters swam together, it seemed
all blurred and indistinct, and I had to stand still and wait.
And then, I tried again, and I read the date: October 8th, 1918.
October 8th. That was more than a week ago. That was before he
was killed. . . .
I looked at the address, and it told me nothing; illusive, non-committal
as the addresses always were, but the writing was Hugo’s:
‘Helen dear,’ it ran, ‘I must write to you to-night, for I think
we shall be busy to-morrow. Here it is quiet for the moment,
and I have had a happy day. I saw cows and an old woman in a
village . . . a piece of a village still . . . and I saw an old
orchard that had been destroyed last year . . . and the stumps
of the trees had flowered, the broken stumps of the trees . . .
they had apples growing on them, round red apples, and there
was grass over the stones already, and moss. I was glad to see
it. And there were dahlias flowering at one end of the orchard,
where there had been a garden, and there was a little tree, the
sprout of a tree, where a clump of trees must have been. It was
a birch, very tiny, by the edge of a pond, and its leaves were
falling, tiny, golden leaves, and floating on the water.
‘There was a robin and a mouse, a wild mouse. It has made me
very happy. It was like Faith and Hope and Charity . . . do you
know what I mean? I wish I could see you to-night, Helen . . .
but I believe I shall soon. Somehow, I don’t mind the thought
of to-morrow as much as I generally do. It is nearly the end
now.
‘The mouse was sitting up, looking at me in the shadow of the
birch tree, and then it scuttled away under the leaves. Do you
remember the mouse at Yearsly, in the Frog Pond? on the stones?
It made me think of that. And now, good-night, my dear. . . .’
And that was all.