That a previously scarcely suspected daughter of Mrs. Gareth-Lawless
had become a member of the household of the Dowager Duchess of Darte
stirred but a passing wave of interest in a circle which was not that
of Mrs. Gareth-Lawless herself and which upon the whole but casually
acknowledged its curious existence as a modern abnormality. Also the
attitude of the Duchess herself was composedly free from any admission
of necessity for comment.
“I have no pretty young relative who can be spared to come and live
with me. I am fond of things pretty and young and I am greatly pleased
with what a kind chance put in my way,” she said. In her discussion of
the situation with Coombe she measured it with her customary fine
acumen.
“Forty years ago it could not have been done. The girl would have been
made uncomfortable and outside things could not have been prevented
from dragging themselves in. Filial piety in the mass would have
demanded that the mother should be accounted for. Now a genial
knowledge of a variety in mothers leaves Mrs. Gareth-Lawless to play
about with her own probably quite amusing set. Once poor Robin would
have been held responsible for her and so should I. My position would
have seemed to defy serious moral issues. But we have reached a sane
habit of detaching people from their relations. A nice condition we
should be in if we had not.”
“You, of course, know that Henry died suddenly in some sort of fit at
Ostend.” Coombe said it as if in a form of reply. She had naturally
become aware of it when the rest of the world did, but had not seen him
since the event.
“One did not suppose his constitution would have lasted so long,” she
answered. “You are more fortunate in young Donal Muir. Have you seen
him and his mother?”
“I made a special journey to Braemarnie and had a curious interview
with Mrs. Muir. When I say ‘curious’ I don’t mean to imply that it was
not entirely dignified. It was curious only because I realize that
secretly she regards with horror and dread the fact that her boy is the
prospective Head of the House of Coombe. She does not make a jest of it
as I have had the temerity to do. It’s a cheap defense, this trick of
making an eternal jest of things, but it _is_ a defense and one has
formed the habit.”
“She has never done it—Helen Muir,” his friend said. “On the whole I
believe she at times knows that she has been too grave. She was a
beautiful creature passionately in love with her husband. When such a
husband is taken away from such a woman and his child is left it often
happens that the flood of her love is turned into one current and that
it is almost overwhelming. She is too sane to have coddled the boy and
made him effeminate—what has she done instead?”
“He is a splendid young Highlander. He would be too good-looking if he
were not as strong and active as a young stag. All she has done is to
so fill him with the power and sense of her charm that he has not seen
enough of the world or learned to care for it. She is the one woman on
earth for him and life with her at Braemarnie is all he asks for.”
“Your difficulty will be that she will not be willing to trust him to
your instructions.”
“I have not as much personal vanity as I may seem to have,” Coombe
said. “I put all egotism modestly aside when I talked to her and tried
to explain that I would endeavour to see that he came to no harm in my
society. My heir presumptive and I must see something of each other and
he must become intimate with the prospect of his responsibilities. More
will be demanded of the next Marquis of Coombe than has been demanded
of me. And it will be _demanded_ not merely hoped for or expected. And
it will be the overwhelming forces of Fate which will demand it—not
mere tenants or constituents or the general public.”
“Have you any views as to _what_ will be demanded?” was her interested
question.
“None. Neither has anyone else who shares my opinion. No one will have
any until the readjustment comes. But before the readjustment there
will be the pouring forth of blood—the blood of magnificent lads like
Donal Muir—perhaps his own blood,—my God!”
“And there may be left no head of the house of Coombe,” from the
Duchess.
“There will be many a house left without its head—houses great and
small. And if the peril of it were more generally foreseen at this date
it would be less perilous than it is.”
“Lads like that!” said the old Duchess bitterly. “Lads in their
strength and joy and bloom! It is hideous.”
“In all their young virility and promise for a next generation—the
strong young fathers of forever unborn millions! It’s damnable! And it
will be so not only in England, but all over a blood drenched world.”
It was in this way they talked to each other of the black tragedy for
which they believed the world’s stage was already being set in secret,
and though there were here and there others who felt the ominous
inevitability of the raising of the curtain, the rest of the world
looked on in careless indifference to the significance of the open
training of its actors and even the resounding hammerings of its stage
carpenters and builders. In these days the two discussed the matter
more frequently and even in the tone of those who waited for the
approach of a thing drawing nearer every day.
Each time the Head of the House of Coombe made one of his so-called
“week end” visits to the parts an Englishman can reach only by crossing
the Channel, he returned with new knowledge of the special direction in
which the wind veered in the blowing of those straws he had so long
observed with absorbed interest.
“Above all the common sounds of daily human life one hears in that one
land the rattle and clash of arms and the unending thudding tread of
marching feet,” he said after one such visit. “Two generations of men
creatures bred and born and trained to live as parts of a huge death
dealing machine have resulted in a monstrous construction. Each man is
a part of it and each part’s greatest ambition is to respond to the
shouted word of command as a mechanical puppet responds to the touch of
a spring. To each unit of the millions, love of his own country means
only hatred of all others and the belief that no other should be
allowed existence. The sacred creed of each is that the immensity of
Germany is such that there can be no room on the earth for another than
itself. Blood and iron will clear the world of the inferior peoples. To
the masses that is their God’s will. Their God is an understudy of
their Kaiser.”
“You are not saying that as part of the trick of making a jest of
things?”
“I wish to God I were. The poor huge inhuman thing he has built does
not know that when he was a boy he did not play at war and battles as
other boys do, but as a creature obsessed. He has played at soldiers
with his people as his toys throughout all his morbid life—and he has
hungered and thirsted as he has done it.”
A Bible lay upon the table and the Duchess drew it towards her.
“There is a verse here—” she said “—I will find it.” She turned the
pages and found it. “Listen! ‘Know this and lay it to thy heart this
day. Jehovah is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath. There is
none else.’ That is a power which does not confine itself to Germany or
to England or France or to the Map of Europe. It is the Law of the
Universe—and even Wilhelm the Second cannot bend it to his almighty
will. ‘There is none else.’”
“‘There is none else’,” repeated Coombe slowly. “If there existed a
human being with the power to drive that home as a truth into his
delirious brain, I believe he would die raving mad. To him there is no
First Cause which was not ‘made in Germany.’ And it is one of his most
valuable theatrical assets. It is part of his paraphernalia—like the
jangling of his sword and the glitter of his orders. He shakes it
before his people to arrest the attention of the simple and honest ones
as one jingles a rattle before a child. There are those among them who
are not so readily attracted by terms of blood and iron.”
“But they will be called upon to shed blood and to pour forth their
own. There will be young things like Donal Muir—lads with ruddy cheeks
and with white bodies to be torn to fragments.” She shuddered as she
said it. “I am afraid!” she said. “I am afraid!”
“So am I,” Coombe answered. “Of what is coming. What a _fool_ I have
been!”
“How long will it be before other men awaken to say the same thing?”
“Each man’s folly is his own shame.” He drew himself stiffly upright as
a man might who stood before a firing squad. “I had a life to live or
to throw away. Because I was hideously wounded at the outset I threw it
aside as done for. I said ‘there is neither God nor devil, vice nor
virtue, love nor hate. I will do and leave undone what I choose.’ I had
power and brain and money. A man who could see clearly and who had
words to choose from might have stood firmly in the place to which he
was born and have spoken in a voice which might have been listened to.
He might have fought against folly and blindness and lassitude. I
deliberately chose privately to sneer at the thought of lifting a hand
to serve any thing but the cold fool who was myself. Life passes
quickly. It does not turn back.” He ended with a short harsh laugh.
“This is Fear,” he said. “Fear clears a man’s mind of rubbish and
non-essentials. It is because I am AFRAID that I accuse myself. And it
is not for myself or you but for the whole world which before the end
comes will seem to fall into fragments.”
“You have been seeing ominous signs?” the Duchess said leaning forward
and speaking low.
“There have been affectionate visits to Vienna. There is a certain
thing in the air—in the arrogance of the bearing of men clanking their
sabres as they stride through the streets. There is an exultant
eagerness in their eyes. Things are said which hold scarcely concealed
braggart threats. They have always been given to that sort of thing—but
now it strikes one as a thing unleashed—or barely leashed at all. The
background of the sound of clashing arms and the thudding of marching
feet is more unendingly present. One cannot get away from it. The great
munition factories are working night and day. In the streets, in
private houses, in the shops, one hears and recognizes signs. They are
signs which might not be clear to one who has not spent years in
looking on with interested eyes. But I have watched too long to see
only the surface of things. The nation is waiting for
something—waiting.”
“What will be the pretext—what,” the Duchess pondered.
“Any pretext will do—or none—except that Germany must have what she
wants and that she is strong enough to take it—after forty years of
building her machine.”
“And we others have built none. We almost deserve whatever comes to
us.” The old woman’s face was darkly grave.
“In three villages where I chance to be lord of the manor I have, by
means of my own, set lads drilling and training. It is supposed to be a
form of amusement and an eccentric whim of mine and it is a change from
eternal cricket. I have given prizes and made an occasional speech on
the ground that English brawn is so enviable a possession that it ought
to develop itself to the utmost. When I once went to the length of
adding that each Englishman should be muscle fit and ready in case of
England’s sudden need, I saw the lads grin cheerfully at the thought of
England in any such un-English plight. Their innocent swaggering belief
that the country is always ready for everything moved my heart of
stone. And it is men like myself who are to blame—not merely men of my
class, but men of my _kind_. Those who have chosen to detach themselves
from everything but the living of life as it best pleased their tastes
or served their personal ambitions.”
“Are we going to be taught that man cannot argue without including his
fellow man? Are we going to be forced to learn it?” she said.
“Yes—forced. Nothing but force could reach us. The race is an
undeveloped thing. A few centuries later it will have evolved another
sense. This century may see the first huge step—because the power of a
cataclysm sweeps it forward.”
He turned his glance towards the opening door. Robin came in with some
letters in her hand. He was vaguely aware that she wore an aspect he
was unfamiliar with. The girl of Mrs. Gareth-Lawless had in the past,
as it went without saying, expressed the final note of priceless
simplicity and mode. The more finely simple she looked, the more
priceless. The unfamiliarity in her outward seeming lay in the fact
that her quiet dun tweed dress with its lines of white at neck and
wrists was not priceless though it was well made. It, in fact,
unobtrusively suggested that it was meant for service rather than for
adornment. Her hair was dressed closely and her movements were very
quiet. Coombe realized that her greeting of him was delicately
respectful.
“I have finished the letters,” she said to the Duchess. “I hope they
are what you want. Sometimes I am afraid——”
“Don’t be afraid,” said the Duchess kindly. “You write very correct and
graceful little letters. They are always what I want. Have you been out
today?”
“Not yet.” Robin hesitated a little. “Have I your permission to ask
Mrs. James if it will be convenient to her to let Dowie go with me for
an hour?”
“Yes,” as kindly as before. “For two hours if you like. I shall not
drive this afternoon.”
“Thank you,” said Robin and went out of the room as quietly as she had
entered it.
When the door closed the Duchess was smiling at Lord Coombe.
“I understand her,” she said. “She is sustained and comforted by her
pretty air of servitude. She might use Dowie as her personal maid and
do next to nothing, but she waits upon herself and punctiliously asks
my permission to approach Mrs. James the housekeeper with any request
for a favour. Her one desire is to be sure that she is earning her
living as other young women do when they are paid for their work. I
should really like to pet and indulge her, but it would only make her
unhappy. I invent tasks for her which are quite unnecessary. For years
the little shut-up soul has been yearning and praying for this
opportunity to stand honestly on her own feet and she can scarcely
persuade herself that it has been given to her. It must not be spoiled
for her. I send her on errands my maid could perform. I have given her
a little room with a serious business air. It is full of files and
papers and she sits in it and copies things for me and even looks over
accounts. She is clever at looking up references. I have let her sit up
quite late once or twice searching for detail and dates for my use. It
made her bloom with joy.”
“You are quite the most delightful woman in the world,” said Coombe.
“Quite.”