THE CLOUD
THE next weeks in July were extraordinarily beautiful ones in England.
The summer was warmer than usual and the sun shone with greater
radiance. The English country was hauntingly lovely and serene.
In spite of Frieda's trouble, the three Ranch girls enjoyed one another,
as they had had no opportunity of doing since Jack's marriage and coming
abroad to live.
There were long walks and rides and exchanges of visits with their
country neighbors. Now and then Lady Kent and Olive went up to London
for a few days of the theatre and the last part of the social season.
They were Lord Kent's guests in the Ladies' Gallery in the House of
Parliament and drank tea on the wonderful old balcony that overlooks the
Thames river. But Frieda preferred not to accompany them.
London was never more filled with tourists, the greater number
Americans intending to leave later for the continent.
But so far as Professor Russell was concerned, no word had been heard
from him since his unceremonious meeting with his wife. However, he had
sent his banker's address to Lord Kent, saying that all mail would be
forwarded to him from there. Then he appeared to have dropped completely
out of sight for, in spite of his brother-in-law's effort toward
friendliness, he had not called upon him a second time.
In discussing the matter between themselves, Jack and Frank decided that
this was possibly the best arrangement for the present. Frieda had never
mentioned her unexpected discovery of her husband; nor did she ever
voluntarily refer to her married life. Therefore, whatever was going on
inside her mind, no one had any knowledge of it. As is often the case
with women and girls of Frieda's temperament, she was better able to
keep her own counsel than the women who are supposed to be strong minded
and who are more apt to be frank.
So far as Jack was concerned she had never reopened with Frank the
question of her rides with Captain MacDonnell, because the latter had
been away and he had not asked her to ride since his return.
However, neither of these facts were so important as the feeling Jack
had, that no propitious moment had arrived for a second discussion of
the subject with her husband. She did not intend to defy him, but to
make him see that he had no right to be so arbitrary and--more than
that--so domineering. This had been Jack's usual method in any
difference of opinion between herself and Frank, or in any unlikeness
between the American and English point of view concerning marriage. As a
matter of fact, more than half the time Jack had been successful.
But, during the past few weeks she had seen that Frank was worried and
unlike himself--that his attention was engaged on matters which were not
personal. For if the weather and the climate appeared serene in these
particular July weeks in England the state of English politics was not.
For the country was being harassed by the questions of Home Rule for
Ireland and by the Militant Suffrage movement.
The Suffrage question was one which Lord and Lady Kent had agreed not to
discuss with each other. To Jack, who had been brought up in
Wyoming--the first of the Suffrage states in the United States--and who
had seen the success of it there, the fact that the English nation held
the idea of women voting in such abhorrence and with such narrow
mindedness, was more a matter of surprise than anything else. The fact
that her husband, who had also lived for a short time in Wyoming, should
also oppose woman's suffrage was beyond her comprehension, except that
Frank had the Englishman's love for the established order and disliked
any change. Jack would not confess to herself that he also had the
Englishman's idea that a woman should be subservient to her husband and
that he should be master of his own house. To give women the freedom,
which the ballot would bring, might be to allow them an independence in
which the larger majority of the men of the British Isles did not then
believe. Neither did they realize--nor did the suffragists
themselves--how near their women were to being able to prove their
fitness.
One Saturday afternoon at the close of July, Captain MacDonnell invited
Jack and Olive and Frieda and a number of his other neighbors and
friends to tea at his place. He had no near relatives, and when he was
in Kent county lived alone, except for his housekeeper and servants, in
an odd little house, perhaps a century old, which had been left him by
his guardian.
The girls drove over together in a pony carriage, usually devoted to
Jack's children. But at the gate they gave it into the charge of a boy
in order that they might walk up to the house, which was of a kind found
only in England.
The house was built of rough plaster which the years had toned to a soft
grey. Captain MacDonnell had the good taste to allow the roof with its
deep overhanging eaves to remain thatched as it had been in early days.
The building was small and one walked up to the front door through two
long rows of hollyhocks. On either side of the hollyhock sentinels the
earth was a thick carpet of flowers, and the little house seemed to rise
out of its own flower beds.
There were no steps leading to the front door except a single one, so
the visitor entered directly into the hall which divided the downstairs.
On the left side was a long room with a raftered ceiling and high narrow
windows, and on the right Captain MacDonnell's den--a small room
littered with a young soldier's belongings. Beyond were the dining room
and kitchen and upstairs four bedrooms. As the house was so small
Captain MacDonnell had turned his great, old-fashioned barn into extra
quarters for guests. Between the house and the flower beds and the barn
was an open space of green lawn with an occasional tree, and beyond was
a tennis court. The place was tiny and simple compared to Kent House and
yet had great charm.
Jack and Olive and Frieda arrived before the other guests. They soon
discovered that Mrs. Naxie--Captain MacDonnell's housekeeper--had
arranged to serve tea in his living room.
It was through Jack's suggestion that the arrangement was altered.
"Please don't tell Mrs. Naxie, Bryan, that I spoke of it," she
volunteered as soon as she beheld the preparations, "but don't you think
the summer in England too short for people to spend an hour indoors when
they can avoid it?"
And Captain MacDonnell good naturedly agreed.
As a matter of fact, Jack always poured tea for him when he had guests
and she was able to be present, so she felt sufficiently at home to make
her request.
Captain MacDonnell's mother was an Irishwoman and his father a
Scotchman. But they had both died when he was a little boy and he had
spent the greater part of his boyhood with an old bachelor friend of his
father's, who was his own guardian and had lived in the very house of
which he was now the master.
As neighbors he and Frank Kent had played together when they were small
boys and had later gone to the same public school. Then Frank's illness
sent him to the United States, where he was introduced into the lives of
the Ranch girls, at about the same time his friend Bryan MacDonnell
entered Cambridge and afterwards the army. But whenever he and Frank
were together the old intimacy had continued, and Jack's coming had only
seemed to turn their friendship into a three-cornered one.
"Frank told me to tell you that he was sorry not to be able to come over
with us this afternoon, Bryan," Jack announced a few moments later, when
the four of them had gone out to select a place where tea could be
served, "But for some reason or other he telephoned that he could not
come down from London today. I don't know what is wrong with Frank
lately. He has never been so absorbed in political matters. I am afraid
Frieda and Olive will think he neglects his family disgracefully. Please
tell them, Bryan, that he is sometimes an attentive husband."
But as Captain MacDonnell did not answer at once, Olive remarked in a
more serious tone than Lady Kent had used:
"I think I am rather glad Frank takes his work as a member of Parliament
as the most important thing he has to do. After all, helping to make the
laws of one's country is a pretty serious occupation. Which do you think
more serious--Captain MacDonnell, being a soldier and fighting when it
is necessary to defend the laws, or making them in the beginning?"
Captain MacDonnell smiled, but rather seriously. It occurred to Jack,
who knew him so much better than the others, that Bryan did seem
uncommonly grave this afternoon, in spite of his efforts to be an
agreeable host.
Then she took hold of Frieda's arm and they wandered off a short
distance, leaving Olive and Captain MacDonnell to continue their
conversation alone.
"Do you know, Frieda," Jack whispered when they were safe from being
overheard, "I would give a great deal if Bryan and Olive would learn to
care for each other. Ordinarily I think it is horrid to be a matchmaker,
but Bryan and Olive are both so lovely and you don't know what it would
mean to me to have Olive live near me. It is heavenly these days, having
you both here. You can't realize how lonely I get for you and my own
country sometimes."
Frieda looked critically over at Captain MacDonnell and Olive, who were
standing close beside each other talking earnestly. In spite of Captain
MacDonnell's ancestry his coloring was almost as dark as Olive's.
Then Frieda turned her blue eyes on her sister.
"Captain MacDonnell and Olive look too much alike," she argued. "I
prefer marriages where the man and woman are contrasts."
Then, although Lady Kent made no answer, she smiled to herself. If
Frieda believed in contrasts in marriage, surely she did not mean merely
in complexion and general appearance. Important contrasts in human
beings went much deeper than appearances. Surely Frieda's own marriage
had offered a sufficient contrast in years, taste, disposition and a
dozen other things. However, instead of securing happiness, it seemed to
have had the opposite result.
During the remainder of the afternoon Jack thought nothing more about
their early conversation, as she devoted herself entirely to Captain
MacDonnell's other guests.
It was just a little after six o'clock, when they were beginning to
think of returning home, that Lady Kent observed one of her servants
coming toward her across the lawn carrying a telegram.
Never so long as she lived was Jack ever to forget that moment and the
scene about her. There were about a dozen, beautifully costumed persons
present--the women in silks and muslins, and the men in tennis flannels
and other sport costumes. They were all talking in a light hearted
fashion about small matters.
Without any thought that it might be of particular importance Jack
opened her telegram and before reading it apologized to the persons
nearest her. It happened that Captain MacDonnell was not far away.
Yet she read her telegram--not once, but several times--before it dawned
upon her what her husband's words meant. Even then she did not really
understand any more than the millions of other women in the world, who
heard the same news and more within the next few days. The sky overhead
was still blue; the earth was green and peaceful, and her companions
were unconscious of tragedy.
Nevertheless Frank's telegram had stated that the beginning of the war
cloud had appeared over Europe--the cloud which was later to spread over
so large a part of the world.