1
It was unbelievable that Gilbert was dead. In his mind, Henry could see
him, careless, extravagant, always good-tempered and sometimes strangely
wise and understanding ... and he could not believe that he would never
see him again, that all that youth and generosity and promise should be
turned so untimely to corruption. Gilbert's friends would not even know
where his grave was ... they would not have the poor consolation of
finding a place that was his, marked out from all the other places....
He had been seen, running forward ... and then he was seen no more....
"Perhaps," Henry said to comfort himself, "he's been taken prisoner. We
shall hear later on that he's been taken prisoner!..."
He snatched at any hope. Men had been posted among the dead ... and
then, after a time of mourning, had come the news that they still lived.
Perhaps Gilbert was lying somewhere ... wounded ... and after a while,
news of him would come. Other men might die, but it was incredible that
Gilbert should be killed....
He became obsessed with the belief that Gilbert still lived. He went
about expecting to see him suddenly turning a corner and shouting,
"Hilloa, Quinny!" At any moment, a door might open, and Gilbert would
walk in and say, "Well, coves!" There was a printed copy of "The Magic
Casement" in the house, and Henry would pick it up, and turn over the
pages.... "But he can't be dead," he would say to himself, as he
fingered the book. "It's absurd!..." Even when hope died, there came
times when the belief in Gilbert's survival thrust itself into his
mind. When the _Lusitania_ was torpedoed, he said to himself, "Why, we
saw her just after the war began, Gilbert and I, and we cheered!..."
The brutality of the war smote him hard. In less than a year from the
day when they had stood on the rocks at Tre'Arrdur Bay, lustily cheering
as the great Atlantic liner sailed up the sea to the Mersey, Gilbert was
dead and the proud ship was a wreck, sneakily destroyed....
Gilbert had left the beginning of a play behind him. He had regretted
that he could not finish it before going out to the peninsula ... had
believed that in it he would create something finer and deeper than he
had yet done ... and now it would never reach completion. The mind that
imagined it was no more than the rubbish of the fields when the harvest
is gathered....
His own work became tasteless to him. He turned with disrelish from his
manuscript. "What's the good of it," he said to himself, whenever he
looked at it. He tried to put himself into communication with Gilbert's
spirit, remembering that night below the White Cliff, when, he now
believed, Gilbert had tried to tell him of his death. A month before, he
would have ridiculed any one who suggested to him that he should attempt
to speak to the dead. "Spookery!" he would have said. But now, in his
eagerness to atone, as he said, for his failure to respond when Gilbert
had tried to speak to him, he put faith in things that, before, would
have seemed contemptible to him. But with all his will to believe, he
could not call Gilbert to him. There was a blankness, a condemning
silence....
"I failed my friend," he groaned to himself once, "When he felt for me
most, I ... I failed him!"
2
He had gone up to the Common with Mary, and had lain there, talking of
Gilbert ... of what Gilbert had been doing this time a year ago ... of
something that Gilbert had said once ... of an escapade at Rumpell's ...
and then Mary and he had gone home across the fields. As they walked up
the lane to the house, they saw a telegraph messenger ahead of them.
They quickened their pace. There was an anxious, strained look on Mary's
face, and as the messenger, hearing them behind him, turned and stopped,
she made a clutching movement with her hands. "Oh, Quinny!" she said,
turning to him with frightened eyes. The boy waited until Henry went up
to him, regarding them both with curiosity.
"Is it for us?" Henry asked, knowing that it was, and the boy nodded his
head. "I'll take it," he went on. "It'll save you the trouble of going
up to the house!"
"Thank you, sir!" the messenger said, and then he handed the telegram to
Henry. "Is there any answer, sir?" he asked.
"I don't know," Henry replied. "We'll ... we'll bring it down to the
post-office, if there is!"
He knew that there would not be any answer....
The boy went off, looking back at them now and then, over his shoulder.
"Shall I open it, Mary!" Henry said.
"Do you think?..." She did not complete her sentence for she was afraid
to utter the thought that was in her mind.
"If it should be bad news," Henry said, "we'd ... we'd better prepare
her for it!"
They stood there, holding the telegram still unopened, as if they could
not make a decision....
"Open it, Quinny!" Mary said at last, and he opened the buff envelope
and took out the form.
_The Secretary for War regretted!..._
He looked up from the telegram, and saw that Mary was standing in a
strained attitude, waiting for him to speak.
"Is it ... is it _that_?" she said, almost in a whisper.
He bowed his head. "Yes," he said.
She did not speak. She stood quite still, looking at him as if she were
trying to find something, but did not know where to look for it. He
moved nearer to her, and took hold of her hand and drew her close to
him, and she lay quietly in his arms.... There was a bird singing very
clearly over their heads, and suddenly, while they stood there, silently
consoling each other, two wood pigeons flew out of the highest tree,
making a great beating of wings as they flew off across the fields.
There was a robin in the hedge, turning its head this way and that, and
regarding them with curiosity....
She stirred, and then withdrew herself from his arms.
"We must go home," she said, "and tell mother!"
3
Mrs. Graham was in the garden, and she came to the gate as she saw them
approaching, waving her hand and smiling at them.
"Will you tell her, Quinny," Mary said, and she slackened her pace
slightly and dropped behind him.
He turned to look for her. "Come with me," he said. "I can't tell her
... alone!"
There was a chilly fear over both of them. They felt that this blow
would strike her down, that she would not survive it. Ninian was the
beginning and the end of her life. If Ninian were gone, everything was
gone. This house, the farm, the fields were without purpose if Ninian
were not there to own them.... They went slowly forward, and as they
approached they saw her smile vanish, and a puzzled look come in its
place. She had waved her hand and smiled at them, but they had not waved
back to her, they had not answered her smile ... and then she saw the
telegram in Henry's hand. She made a quick movement, opening the gate
and coming rapidly to them.
"What is it?" she said, hoarsely.
He could not think of anything to say....
"It's from the War Office, mother," Mary said.
He stood ready to put his arms about her and support her....
"Give it to me," she said, holding out her hand for the telegram, and he
passed it to her.
They stood silently before her while she read it. Then Mary went close
to her. "Mother!..." she said.
Mrs. Graham did not make any answer to Mary. She still held the telegram
in her hands, and gazed at it, reading it over and over....
"Mother, dear!" Mary reached up, and put her arms about her mother's
neck.
"Yes, Mary," she answered very calmly.
But Mary could not say any more. She buried her head on her mother's
shoulder, and the tears that she had been holding back, would not be
held back any longer, and sobs burst from her that seemed as if they
would choke her.
"My dear," said Mrs. Graham, raising Mary's face to hers, "we must ...
we must be brave!"