He went to them, and put his arm about Mary, and led her to the house.
"Won't you come in, too?" he said, turning to Mrs. Graham.
"No, Henry," she answered. "Not yet. I want to be out here. I ... I want
to be alone!"
She moved away, going slowly down the avenue of trees until she reached
the orchard, and then she went into it, and was hidden by the apple
trees....
He led Mary into the house. "We can't do anything, Mary," he said.
"We're ... we're all caught in this thing ... and we can't do
anything...."
She went to her room, and when he had seen the door close behind her, he
turned to go back to the drawing-room. He would have to write to Roger.
"First it was Gilbert ... then it was Ninian ... presently, it will
be!..."
He shuddered, and tried to shut the thought out of his mind.
There was a servant in the hall. "Tell the others," he said in a cold,
toneless voice, "that Mr. Ninian ... has been killed in France!"
"Oh, sir!..." the girl cried, clasping her hands together.
He did not wait to hear, and she hurried down the passage to the
kitchens.
"Two of us gone now," he said to himself.
He searched for writing materials, wandering round and round the room
until he forgot what it was he wanted. "I'm looking for something," he
said aloud, "I'm looking for something, but I don't know what it is!..."
Then he remembered.
"I mustn't let myself go," he said to himself. "I must keep a hold of
myself. I've got to look after them ... they'll want some one to ... to
lean on!"
He began the letter to Roger. "_Dear Roger_," he wrote, and then he
dropped his pen. He sat with his elbows resting on the table, staring in
front of him, but seeing nothing. "First there was Gilbert," he was
saying to himself, "then there was Ninian ... and presently there will
be ... _me_!"
One could not believe it. One could not believe it. Why it was only a
little while ago that Ninian was here, in this very room, telling them
how clever the Engineers were. They were to win the war, these
Engineers, unless stupid people, like the "dug-out," prevented them from
doing so. There, in that corner there, over by the fire, that was where
he had sat, and told them of the Engineers. He had lain back in his
chair, carelessly throwing his leg over the arm of it.... And when Mrs.
Graham had risen and left the room, unable to stay any longer, and had
called to him to come to her room and say "Good-night!" he had looked
anxiously after her, and then, after a little while of fidgetting and
poor effort to talk lightly, had gone to her....
How could one believe it! How could any one believe that this hideous
nightmare was true!... that this horrible thing which devoured young men
was not a creature of a fevered mind.... Presently the blood would cool
and the eyes would see clearly ... and Ninian's great shouting voice
would roar through the house, and Gilbert would stroll in, and say
"Hilloa, coves!..."
There was a sound of steps in the passage, and he sat up and listened.
Then the door opened and Mrs. Graham came in. There was a bright look in
her tearless eyes. Her lips were firmly closed, and he saw that her
hands were clenched. He stood up as she entered, and looked at her as
she came towards him. She came close to him and laid her hand on his.
"Poor Mary," she said, softly, "we ... we must comfort poor Mary!"
She looked about the room. "Where is she?" she asked, turning to him
again.
"Upstairs," he answered.
She went towards the door. "I must go and comfort her," she said. "She
was ... very fond of ... of Ninian!"
He followed her to the door, afraid that she might break down, but she
did not break down. She gathered her skirts about her, and went up the
stairs to Mary's room, and her steps were firm and proud. He could hear
the rustle of her skirt on the landing as she passed along it out of his
sight, and then he heard her knocking on Mary's door.
"Can I come in, Mary?" she asked in a clear voice.
He could hear the door opening ... and then he heard it being closed
again.
He stood at the foot of the stairs, listening, but there was no need of
him. He turned away, and as he did so, Widger came into the hall. The
old man stood for a moment or two without speaking. Then he made a
suppliant movement with his trembling hands.
"It b'ain't true!..." he mumbled thickly.
"Yes, Widger," Henry answered, "it is."
The old man turned away. "I knowed 'un ever since 'e were a baby," he
said, and his lips were quivering. "Praper li'l chap 'e were, too!
"It b'ain't right," he went on, looking helplessly about him. Then his
voice took a firmer, more definite note, "Where's missus to?" he asked.
"She's upstairs, Widger," Henry answered. "I don't think I'd say
anything to her at present, if I were you!"
"Very well, sir!"
He moved away. The vitality seemed to have gone out of him, and suddenly
he had become old ... senile ... shuffling.
"They'm wisht times, sir!" he said, as he left the hall.
4
Henry wrote to Roger, telling him of Ninian's death, and when he had
finished the letter, he went out to post it. He could not sit still in
the house ... he felt that he must move about until he was worn and
exhausted. Mrs. Graham was still with Mary, but perhaps by the time he
returned, they would be able to come downstairs again. The pride with
which Mrs. Graham had supported herself in her grief seemed to him
almost god-like. Once, in the South of Ireland, he had seen a peasant
woman bidding good-bye to her husband. As the train steamed out of the
station, she howled like a wounded animal, spinning round like a
teetotum, and waving her hands and arms wildly. Her hair had tumbled
down her back, and her eyes seemed to be melting, so freely did she weep
... and then when the train had disappeared round a bend of the track,
she dried her eyes and went home. Her grief, that had seemed utterly
inconsolable, had been no more than a summer shower.... He had had
difficulty in preventing himself from laughing, and he could not
restrain a feeling of contempt for her. "They write plays about that
kind of silly howling at the Abbey Theatre, and call it 'the Celtic
twilight.' No dignity, no decency!..."
He had heard sentimental Englishmen prating about "the tragic soul" of
Ireland because they had listened to hired women _keening_ over the
dead. "But that isn't grief," he had said to them. "They're paid to do
that!" The Irish liked to splash about in their emotions ... they
wallowed in them....
But Mrs. Graham's grief was more than a summer shower. Henry knew
instinctively that Ninian's death had killed her. She might live for
many years, but she would be a dead woman. She would show very little,
nothing, to those who looked to see the signs of woe, but in her heart
she would hoard her desolation, keeping it to herself, obtruding her
sorrow on no one ... waiting patiently and silently for her day of
release, when, as her faith told her, she and her son would come
together again....
"It's unfair," he told himself, "to compare the grief of an illiterate
Irishwoman with the grief of an English lady!"
But then he had seen the grief of poor Englishwomen. Four of the
Boveyhayne men had been drowned in a naval battle. He had gone to the
memorial service in Boveyhayne Church, and had seen the friends of those
men mingling their tears ... but there had been none of this emotional
savagery, this howling like women in kraals, this medicine-man grief....
5
They were both in the drawing-room when he returned.
"I've written to Roger," he said, to explain his absence. "Perhaps," he
went on, "there are other letters you'd like me to write?"
"Yes," she said, "it would be kind of you, Henry!..."
There was Ninian's uncle, the Dean of Exebury, and Mr. Hare, with whom
he had worked ... they must be told at once ... and there were other
relatives, other friends. He spent the evening in doing the little
services that must be done when there is death, and found relief for his
mind in doing them.
"I told the servants," he said, looking up from a letter he was writing.
"Old Widger wanted to see you!..."
"Poor Widger," she said. "He and Ninian were so fond of each other!"
She got up and went to the door. "I must go and say something to him,"
she said. "He'll feel it so much!"
She closed the door behind her, and he sat staring at it after she had
gone. The matchless pride of her, that she could forget herself so
completely and think of the subordinate sorrow of her servant when she
might have been absorbed by her own!
He turned to Mary who was sitting near him, and reached out and took her
hand in his, but neither of them spoke.
What was there to say? Ninian was dead ... old men had made a war, and
this young man had paid for it ... and everywhere in Europe, there were
mourners for the young, slain for the folly and incompetence of the old
and the worn and the impatient.
He released Mary's hand, and resumed the writing of his letter. Before
he had finished it, Mrs. Graham returned to the room.
"Poor Widger," she said, "he ... he cried!"
She came to the table where Henry was writing, and placed her hand on
his shoulder, and looked concernedly at him.
"Aren't you tired, Henry?" she said.
"No, thanks!" he answered, glancing up at her and smiling.
"You mustn't tire yourself!" she bent over him and kissed his forehead
lightly. "You've been a great help, Henry," she said.
6
But in her room, where none could see her, she shed her tears....