THE LETTER
AS soon as Jack saw Frank's face she realized that something tragic had
occurred.
She had come down to the train alone to meet him, but said nothing until
they had walked away from the little crowd at the station into the gloom
of the midwinter afternoon.
"It is Bryan," Frank then exclaimed without waiting to be asked. "I had
word from the War Office today that he had been mortally wounded."
He put his arm about Jack to support her if she should turn faint, but
this was not the way Jack received bad news.
She stopped for a moment, standing straight, however, with her head up
and her shoulders braced.
"Are you sure, Frank, there can be no mistake?" she asked slowly.
Lord Kent shook his head.
"I am afraid not, dear. Bryan was leading a charge out of his trench
when a shell hit him. His own men carried him back to a field hospital."
[Illustration: HIS OWN MEN CARRIED HIM BACK TO A FIELD HOSPITAL]
Jack and Frank then walked slowly on between the winter fields. The
grass was still green as it remains almost all the year round in
England, but the trees were stripped and bare, and there were no birds
in sight, except a few melancholy crows, which in England are called
rooks.
Jack was recalling the day when she and Captain MacDonnell had taken
their last ride together; also the smell of the blossoming hedges and
her baby's blue ribbon on his sleeve.
Since coming to England as a bride, she and Frank and Bryan had enjoyed
a charming friendship. It was to Bryan, Frank had first introduced her,
asking that he help to make her less homesick for the ranch and her own
people.
In those days Frank's sisters were still unmarried and Bryan had been in
the habit of spending much of his time at Kent House when he was on
leave.
Yet Frank and Bryan were so utterly unlike in temperament. To say that
Frank was an Englishman and Bryan an Irishman explains a great deal.
Frank was quieter and more reserved and determined; but Bryan was ardent
and emotional, quick to feel an emotion and quick to change. Jack had
always felt that he loved the outdoors as she did, while Frank was
studious, more devoted to books and to political questions than to swift
action.
At the same time Frank and his wife were thinking along similar lines,
although his recollection of his friend went further back than hers. He
remembered the small boy, whose mother had just died, coming to live
with his old bachelor guardian in the queer little house which had since
belonged to him. He also remembered how shy he had been and yet how
often he had gotten into fights with other boys. But, more than
anything, he recalled how Bryan had always seemed to long for the
companionship of women and how happy he had been to come to Kent House
and spend hours and days with his mother and sisters. This was one of
the reasons why it had always seemed strange to Frank that his friend
had never married.
"But the news only said that Bryan was fatally hurt--not that things
were over?" Jack asked after their long pause.
"Yes; but I'm afraid he may be by now," Frank answered. "I have sent
half a dozen cables for more news."
Jack's grey eyes cleared a little.
"Then I won't believe the worst until it really happens."
On their arrival at home Olive and Frieda were sympathetic, but
naturally could not care as much as Jack and Frank, since Captain
MacDonnell was to them only a comparatively new acquaintance.
But all evening Frieda watched her sister closely, whenever she had the
opportunity without being observed. Only a few times before had she seen
her with the same expression.
Half a dozen or more of the neighbors came in after dinner to ask for
further information concerning Captain MacDonnell, having heard the news
only indirectly.
But among them all Jack was the only one who appeared hopeful. She
outwardly showed the effect of the anxiety and grief over their friend
far less than Frank. But Frieda at least realized that courage was her
sister's strongest characteristic.
There had always been something gallant about Jack from the time she was
a little girl--the carriage of her head; the look in her
eyes--everything about her revealed this.
And tonight Frieda appreciated the fact more clearly than any one else.
There was no friend in the world so loyal as Jack; and no one more
anxious to help those for whom she cared. Frieda knew that whatever else
she might say during the evening, she was in reality thinking only of
her husband's friend and her own, alone and dying, perhaps with no one
near him for whom he cared.
As early as possible Jack and Frank went upstairs together, since Frank
showed the effect of the strain by being uncommonly tired.
They had gone into their own rooms and Jack was slowly beginning to
undress when an idea came to her; and she went at once into her
husband's room.
Frank, she found sitting on the side of his bed.
"Bryan's letter, Frank," Jack remarked quickly. "Don't you think you
ought to open it? He said that if anything happened to him you were to
read it first, and afterwards I was to see the letter if you thought
best. I remember he seemed much in earnest when he gave it to me."
Frank frowned, and then shook his head.
"Do you know I had forgotten, Jack? But I don't think Bryan meant us to
disturb the letter until we know that the worst has happened to him and
we don't know this yet; we only fear it."
For a moment Jack was silent, but when she spoke again her voice and
manner expressed a quiet firmness.
"I think you are mistaken, Frank. There must be something in Bryan's
letter that he wants us to do for him. It may be something that would
come afterwards, but it also may be something that we could do for him
now. Of course you must judge, but this is the way I feel about it."
Jack, who had put on a deep violet toned velvet dressing gown over her
underclothes, now sat down in an arm chair, leaning thoughtfully forward
and resting her chin in the palm of her hand.
She did not intend to influence her husband; but having expressed her
own thought, she quietly awaited his decision.
Frank, however, was worried and undecided. In order to think more
clearly, he got up and began walking nervously up and down his room.
"I don't know what to do, Jack," he argued. "If Bryan still lives he
may, of course, recover and I would not then like to feel that I have
pryed into his secret. On the other hand, you may be right and Bryan may
have made some simple request of us which we could carry out for him at
once. Bryan is a sentimental chap always. I wish, this time, he had been
more explicit."
Nevertheless, Frank must have finally decided to accept his wife's point
of view for, after another few moments, he walked over to a small safe
which occupied a corner in his room and opened it. Then he took out the
box in which he had placed Captain MacDonnell's letter and the next
instant had broken the seal and was reading its contents.
Jack sat watching her husband's face, but offered no interruption.
She saw Frank first look surprised and then saw him flush and at last
his expression hardened curiously. He then presented her with the
letter.
"Read this, Jack. It is just as well that you should know what is in it.
Bryan must have been considerably upset over his farewells and the
thought of what might lie ahead of him, or he would never have made such
a request of us. He must have realized afterwards that the thing is
impossible."
Jack read the letter, but there was nothing in it which seemed strange;
certainly nothing impossible to her point of view. Bryan had simply
requested that Frank allow her to come to him in case he was seriously
injured. Bryan explained simply and boyishly that he had no women in his
own family and that she was his closest woman friend. He had an absurd
horror of dying with no woman near for whom he cared, or who cared for
him.
"I don't see what you find impossible, Frank," Jack answered, placing
the letter inside the envelope and quickly returning it. "I was only
waiting until we heard more news to ask you to let me go to Bryan, even
if he had not made this request of us."
Frank appeared distressed, but shook his head resolutely.
"I don't want to seem unkind, dear. In a way it is pretty hard to refuse
what Bryan asks. Only he could not have appreciated just how much he was
asking."
Jack brushed her hair back from her forehead with a puzzled gesture.
"I don't understand what you mean, Frank. Certainly neither of us can
dream of not agreeing. I know you will worry over the discomfort,
perhaps even the danger of the trip to France for me. But hundreds of
women have gone and are going every day to care for the soldiers who are
entire strangers to them. Many times I have wanted to go myself before
this, except for leaving you and my babies behind. But now I may only
need to stay a little time."
"We won't discuss the matter any further please, Jack," Frank protested,
speaking gently, but with a decision which Jack recognized as having a
serious intention back of it.
Instantly she went to him and put her hands on his shoulders, looking
directly into his blue eyes with her clear, wide grey ones.
"Tell me your reason please, Frank. This isn't like you. You can't mean
to be so selfish--even so cruel."
Frank's eyes held his wife's, but he showed no sign, either of flinching
or yielding.
"I am sorry to have to say this to you, dear. I wish you could have been
willing to do what I asked, without demanding my reason. But I can't let
my wife go to Bryan; I can't let people think you and he care this much
for each other. People would talk--there would be gossip. I am your
husband and it is my place to safeguard you. You and Bryan never think
of consequences--you are only impetuous children."
"So you mean--" Jack let her hands drop slowly from her husband's
shoulders to her own sides, "you mean, that because of a little idle
chatter--foolish, unkind gossip--oh, I know some of the neighbors have
already talked of Bryan and me before this--you would keep me from the
friend we both care so much for, at a time like this? I can't believe it
of you, Frank."
"Then I am sorry to disappoint you, because I do mean it, Jack, dear. I
suppose it does seem narrow and worldly to you, with your wider ideas of
freedom and loyalty. But hard as this may be for us both, you must abide
by my decision."
For another moment Jack remained silent, her face flooding first with
color and then the color receding until she was curiously pale, so that
the darkness of her lashes showed shadows on her white cheeks.
"I am sorry, Frank," she answered quietly, "but in this matter I can not
accept your decision. I am a woman--not a child--and this is a matter
for my conscience as well as yours. Even if I am wrong, whatever
consequences I must suffer from your failing ever to see this as I do, I
must go to Bryan if he is still alive."
Then Jack went quickly into her own room again.