by Basil King
CHAPTER XXV
Mildred's big, heavily furnished room was as softly lighted as usual. Asusual, she herself, in white, with a rug across her feet, lay on hercouch, withdrawn from the rest. She never liked to have any one nearher, unless it was Hugh; she never entered into general talk. Whenothers were present she remained silent, as she did on this evening.Whatever passed through her mind she gave out to individuals when shewas alone with them.
The rest of the party were scattered about, standing or sitting. Therewere Jack and Pauline, Jim and Ethel Rossiter, Mrs. Billing, Mrs.Brokenshire, Cissie Boscobel, who was now staying with the Brokenshires,and Hugh. The two banker guests had gone back to the smoking-room. As Ientered, Mr. Brokenshire was standing in his customary position ofcommand, a little like a pasha in his seraglio, his back to the emptyfireplace. With his handsome head and stately form, he would have been atruly imposing figure had it not been for his increased stoutness andthe occasional working of his face.
I had come up-stairs with some elation. The evening might have beencalled mine. Most of the men, on rejoining us in the drawing-room, hadsought a word with me, and those who didn't know me inquired who I was.I could hardly help the hope that Mr. Brokenshire might see I was worthmy salt, and that on becoming a member of his family I should bring mycontribution.
But on the way up-stairs Hugh gave me a hint that in that I might bemistaken.
"Well, little Alix, you certainly gave poor old dad a shock this time."
"A shock?" I asked, in not unnatural astonishment.
"Your fireworks."
"Fireworks! What on earth do you mean?"
"It's always a shock when fireworks go off too close to you; andespecially when it's in church."
As we had reached the door of Mildred's room, I searched my conductduring dinner to see in what I had offended.
It is possible my entry might have passed unnoticed if Mrs. Brokenshire,with the kindest intentions, had not come forward to the threshold andtaken me by the hand. As if making a presentation, she led me toward theaugust figure before the fireplace.
"Our little girl," she said, in the hope of doing me a good turn,"distinguished herself to-night, didn't she?"
He must have been stung to sudden madness by the sight of the two of ustogether. In general he controlled himself in public. He was oftencruel, but with a quiet subtle cruelty to which even the victims oftendidn't know how to take exception. But to-night the long-gathering furyof passion was incapable of further restraint. Behind it there was allthe explosive force of a lifetime of pride, complacence, and self-love.The exquisite creature--a vision of soft rose, with six strings ofpearls--who was parading her bargain, as you might say, without havingpaid for it, excited him to the point of frenzy. I saw later, what Ididn't understand at the time, that he was striking at her through me.He was willing enough to strike at me, since I was the nobody who hadforced herself into his family; but she was his first aim.
Having looked at me disdainfully, he disdainfully looked away.
"She certainly gave us an exhibition!" he said, with his incisive,whip-lash quietude.
Mrs. Brokenshire dropped my hand.
"Oh, Howard!"
I think she backed away toward the nearest chair. I was vaguelyconscious of curious eyes in the dimness about me as I stood alonebefore my critic.
"I'm sorry if I've done anything wrong, Mr. Brokenshire," I said,meekly. "I didn't mean to."
He looked over my head, speaking casually, as one who takes no interestin the subject.
"All the great stupidities have been committed by people who didn't meanto--but there they are!"
I continued to be meek.
"I didn't know I had been stupid."
"The stupid never do."
"And I don't think I have been," I added, with rising spirit.
Though there was consternation in the room behind me, Mr. Brokenshiremerely said:
"Unfortunately, you must let others judge of that."
"But how?" I insisted. "If I have been, wouldn't it be a kindness onyour part to tell me in what way?"
He pretended not merely indifference, but reluctance.
"Isn't that obvious?"
"Not to me--and I don't think to any one else."
"What do you call it when one--you compel me to speak frankly--what doyou call it when one exposes one's ignorance of--of fundamental thingsbefore a roomful of people who've never set eyes on one before?"
Since no one, not even Hugh, was brave enough to stand up for me, I hadto do it for myself.
"But I didn't know I had."
"Probably not. It's what I warned you of, if you'll take the trouble toremember. I said--or it amounted to that--that until you'd learned theways of the people who are generally recognized as _comme il faut_,you'd be wise in keeping yourself--unobtrusive."
"And may I ask whether one becomes obtrusive merely in talking of publicaffairs?"
"You'll pardon me for giving you a lesson before others; but, since youinvite it--"
"Quite so, Mr. Brokenshire, I do invite it."
"Then I can only say that in what we call good society we becomeobtrusive in talking of things we know nothing about."
"But surely one can set an idea going, even if one hasn't sounded allits depths. And as for the relations between this country and theBritish Empire--"
"Well-bred women leave such subjects to statesmen."
"Yes; we've done so. We've left them to statesmen and"--I couldn'tresist the temptation to say it--"and we've left them to financiers; butwe can't look at Europe and be proud of the result. We women, well bredor otherwise, couldn't make things worse even if we were to take a hand;and we might make them better."
He was not moved from his air of slightly bored indifference.
"Then you must wait for women with some knowledge of the subject."
"But, Mr. Brokenshire, I have some knowledge of the subject! Though I'mneither English nor American, I'm both. I've only to shift from one sideof my mind to the other to be either. Surely, when it comes to thequestion of a link between the two countries I love I'm qualified to putin a plea for it."
I think his nerves were set further on edge because I dared to argue thepoint, though he would probably have been furious if I had not. His tonewas still that of a man deigning no more than to fling out an occasionalstinging remark.
"As a future member of my family, you're not qualified to make yourselfridiculous before my friends. To take you humorously was the kindestthing they could do."
I saw an opportunity.
"Then wouldn't it be equally kind, sir, if you were to follow theirexample?"
Mrs. Billing's hen-like crow came out of the obscurity:
"She's got you there!"
The sound incited him. He became not more irritable, but cruder.
"Unhappily, that's beyond my power. I have to blush for my son Hugh."
Hugh spoke out of the darkness, his voice trembling with the fear of hisown hardihood in once more braving Jove.
"Oh no, dad! You must take that back."
The father wheeled round in the new direction. He was losing command ofthe ironic courtesy he secured by his air of indifference, and growingcoarser.
"My poor boy! I can't take it back. You're like myself--in that you canonly be fooled when you put your trust in a woman."
It was Mrs. Brokenshire's turn:
"Howard--please!"
In the cry there was the confession of the woman who has vowed and notpaid, and yet begs to be spared the blame.
Jack Brokenshire sprang to his feet and hurried forward, laying his handon his father's arm.
"Say, dad--"
But Mr. Brokenshire shook off the hand, refusing to be placated. Helooked at his wife, who had risen, confusedly, from her chair and wasbacking away from him to the other side of the room.
"I said poor Hugh was being fooled by a woman; and he is. He's marryingsome one who doesn't care a hang about him and who's in love withanothe
r man. He may not be the first in the family to do that, but Imerely make the statement that he's doing it."
Hugh leaped forward.
"She's not in love with another man!"
"Ask her."
He clutched me by the wrist.
"You're not, are you?" he pleaded. "Tell father you're not."
I was so sorry for Hugh that I hardly thought of myself. I was benumbed.The suddenness of the attack had been like a blow from behind that stunsyou without taking away your consciousness. In any case Mr. Brokenshiregave me no time, for he laughed gratingly.
"She can't do that, my boy, because she is. Everybody knows it. I knowit--and Ethel and Mildred and Cissie. They're all here and they cancontradict me if I'm saying what isn't so."
"But she may not know it herself," Mrs. Billing croaked. "A girl isoften the last to make that discovery."
"Ask her."
Hugh obeyed, still clutching my wrist.
"I'm asking you, little Alix. You're not, are you?"
I could say nothing. Apart from the fact that I didn't knew what to say,I was dumbfounded by the way in which it had all come upon me. The onlywords that occurred to me were:
"I think Mr. Brokenshire is ill."
Oddly enough. I was convinced of that. It was the one assuaging fact. Hemight hate me, but he wouldn't have made me the object of this mad-bullrush if he had been in his right mind. He was not in his right mind; hewas merely a blood-blinded animal as he went on:
"Ask her again, Hugh. You're the only one she's been able to keep in thedark; but then"--his eyes followed his wife, who was still slowlyretreating--"but then that's nothing new. She'll let you believeanything--till she gets you. That's always the game with women of thesort. But once you're fast in her clutches--then, my boy, look out!"
I heard Pauline whisper, "Jack, for Heaven's sake, do something!"
Once more Jack's hand was laid on his parent's arm, with his foolish"Say, dad--"
Once more the restraining hand was shaken off. The cutting tones wereaddressed to Hugh:
"You see what a hurry she's been in to be married, don't you? How manytimes has she asked you to do it up quick? She's been afraid that you'dslip through her fingers." He turned toward me. "Don't be alarmed, mydear. We shall keep our word. You've worked hard to capture theposition, and I shall not deny that you've been clever in your attacks.You deserve what you've won, and you shall have it. But all in goodtime. Don't rush. The armies in Europe are showing us that you mustintrench yourself where you are if you want, in the end, to pushforward. You push a little too hard."
Poor Hugh had gone white. He was twisting my wrist as if he would wringit off, though I felt no pain till afterward.
"Tell me!" he whispered. "Tell me! You're--you're not marrying mefor--for my money, are you?"
I could have laughed hysterically.
"Hugh, don't be an idiot!" came, scornfully, from Ethel Rossiter.
I could see her get up, cross the room, and sit down on the edge ofMildred's couch, where the two engaged in a whispered conversation. JimRossiter, too, got up and tiptoed his sleek, slim person out of theroom. Cissie Boscobel followed him. They talked in low tones at the headof the stairs outside. I found voice at last:
"No, Hugh; I never thought of marrying you for that reason. I was doingit only because it seemed to me right."
Mr. Brokenshire emitted a sound, meant to be a laugh:
"Right! Oh, my God!"
Mrs. Brokenshire was now no more than a pale-rose shadow on the fartherside of the room, but she came to my aid:
"She was, Howard. Please believe her. She was, really!"
"Thanks, darling, for the corroboration! It comes well from you. Wherethere's a question of right you're an authority."
Mrs. Billing's hoarse, prolonged "Ha-a!" implied every shade ofcomprehension. I saw the pale-rose shadow sink down on a sofa, all in alittle heap, like something shot with smokeless powder.
Hugh was twisting my wrist again and whispering:
"Alix, tell me. Speak! What are you marrying me for? What about theother fellow? Is it Strangways? Speak!"
"I've given you the only answer I can, Hugh. If you can't believe in mydoing right--"
"What were you in such a hurry for? Was that the reason--what dadsays--that you were afraid you wouldn't--hook me?"
I looked him hard in the eye. Though we were speaking in the lowestpossible tones, there was a sudden stillness in the room, as thoughevery one was hanging on my answer.
"Have I ever given you cause to suspect me of that?" I asked, afterthinking of what I ought to say.
Three words oozed themselves out like three drops of his own blood. Theywere the distillation of two years' uncertainty:
"Well--sometimes--yes."
Either he dropped my wrist or I released myself. I only remember that Iwas twisting the sapphire-and-diamond ring on my finger.
"What made you think so?" I asked, dully.
"A hundred things--everything!" He gave a great gasp. "Oh, little Alix!"
Turning away suddenly, he leaned his head against the mantelpiece, whilehis shoulders heaved.
It came to me that this was the moment to make an end of it all; but Isaw Mrs. Rossiter get up from her conference with Mildred and comeforward. She did it leisurely, pulling up one shoulder of her decolletegown as she advanced.
"Hugh, don't be a baby!" she said, in passing. "Father, you ought to beashamed of yourself!"
If the heavens had fallen my amazement might have been less. She went onin a purely colloquial tone, extricating the lace of her corsage from aspray of diamond flowers as she spoke:
"I'll tell you why she was marrying Hugh. It was for two or threereasons, every one of them to her credit. Any one who knows her anddoesn't see that must be an idiot. She was marrying him, first, becausehe was kind to her. None of the rest of us was, unless it was Mrs.Brokenshire; and she was afraid to show it for fear you'd jump on her,father. The rest of us have treated Alix Adare like brutes. I know Ihave."
"Oh no!" I protested, though I could scarcely make myself audible.
"But Hugh was nice to her. He was nice to her from the start. And shecouldn't forget it. No nice girl would. When he asked her to marry himshe felt she had to. And then, when he put up his great big bluff ofearning a living--"
"It wasn't a bluff," Hugh contradicted, his face still buried in hishands.
"Well, perhaps it wasn't," she admitted, imperturbably. "If you, father,hadn't driven him to it with your heroics--"
"If you call it heroics that I should express my will--"
"Oh your will! You seem to think that no one's got a will but you. Herewe are, all grown up, two of us married, and you still try to keep us asif we were five years old. We're sick of it, and it's time some of usspoke. Jack's afraid to, and Mildred's too good; so it's up to me to saywhat I think."
Mr. Brokenshire's first shock having passed, he got back something ofhis lordly manner, into which he threw an infusion of the misunderstood.
"And you've said it sufficiently. When my children turn against me--"
"Nonsense, father! Your children don't do anything of the sort. We'reperfect sheep. You drive us wherever you like. But, however much we canstand ourselves, we can't help kicking when you attack some one whodoesn't quite belong to us and who's a great deal better than we are."
Mrs. Billing crowed again:
"Brava, Ethel! Never supposed you had the pluck."
Ethel turned her attention to the other side of her corsage.
"Oh, it isn't a question of pluck; it's one of exasperation. Injusticeafter a while gets on one's nerves. I've had a better chance of knowingAlix Adare than any one; and you can take it from me that, when it comesto a question of breeding, she's the genuine pearl and we're onlyimitations--all except Mildred."
Both of Mr. Brokenshire's handsome hands went up together. He took astep forward as if to save Mrs. Rossiter from a danger.
"My daughter!"
The pale-ros
e heap on the other side of the room raised its dainty head.
"It's true, Howard; it's true! Please believe it!"
Ethel went on in her easy way:
"If Alix Adare has made any mistake it's been in ignoring her ownwishes--I may say her own heart--in order to be true to us. The Lordknows she can't have respected us much, or failed to see that, judged byher standards, we're as common as grass when you compare it to orchids.But because she is an orchid she couldn't do anything but want to giveus back better than she ever got from us; and so--"
"Oh no; it wasn't that!" I tried to interpose.
"It's no dishonor to her not to be in love with Hugh," she pursued,evenly. "She may have thought she was once; but what girl hasn't thoughtshe was in love a dozen times? A fine day in April will make any onethink it's summer already; but when June comes they know the difference.It was April when Hugh asked her; and now it's June. I'll confess forher. She is in love with--"
"Please!" I broke in.
She gave me another surprise.
"Do run and get me my fan. It's over by Mildred. There's a love!"
I had to do her bidding. The picture of the room stamped itself on mybrain, though I didn't think of it at the time. It seemed rather empty.Jack had retired to one window, where he was smoking a cigarette;Pauline was at another, looking out at the moonlight on the water. Mrs.Billing sat enthroned in the middle, taking a subordinate place foronce. Mrs. Brokenshire was on the sofa by the wall. The murmur ofEthel's voice, but no words, reached me as I stooped beside Mildred'scouch to pick up the fan.
The invalid took my hand. Her voice had the deep, low murmur of the sea.
"You must forgive my father."
"I do," I was able to say. "I--I like him in spite of everything--"
"And as for my brother, you'll remember what we agreed upon once--thatwhere we can't give all, our first consideration must be the value ofwhat we withhold."
I thanked her and went back with the fan. As I passed Mrs. Billing shesnapped at me, with the enigmatic words:
"You're a puss!"
When I drew near to the group by the fireplace, Mrs. Rossiter was sayingto Hugh:
"And as for her marrying you for your money--well, you're crazy! Isuppose she likes money as well as anybody else; but she would havemarried you to be loyal. She would have married you two months ago iffather had been willing; and if you'd been willing you could now havebeen in England or France together, trying to do some good. If a womanmarries one man when she's in love with another the right or the wrongdepends on her motives. Who knows but what I may have done it myself? Idon't say I haven't. And so--"
But I had taken off the ring on my way across the room. Having returnedthe fan to Ethel, I went up to Hugh, who looked round at me over hisshoulder.
"Hugh, darling," I said, very softly, "I feel that I ought to give youback this."
He put out his hand mechanically, not thinking of what I was about tooffer. On seeing it he drew back his hand quickly, and the ring droppedon the floor. I can hear it still, rolling with a little rattle amongthe fire-irons.
In making my curtsy to Mr. Brokenshire I raised my eyes to his face. Itseemed to me curiously stricken. After all her years of submission Mrs.Rossiter's rebellion must have made him feel like an autocrat dethroned.I repeated my curtsy to Mrs. Billing, who merely stared at me throughher lorgnette--to Jack and Pauline, who took no notice, who perhapsdidn't see me--to Mrs. Brokenshire, who was again a little rose-coloredheap--and to Mildred, who raised her long, white hand.
In the hall outside Cissie Boscobel rose and came toward me.
"You must look after Hugh," I said to her, breathlessly, as I sped on myway.
She did. As I hurried down the stairs I heard her saying:
"No, Hugh, no! She wants to go alone."
POSTSCRIPT
I am writing in the dawn of a May morning in 1917.
Before me lies a sickle of white beach some four or five miles in curve.Beyond that is the Atlantic, a mirror of leaden gray. Woods and fieldsbank themselves inland; here a dewy pasture, there a stretch of plowedearth recently sown and harrowed; elsewhere a grove of fir or maple or ahazel copse. From a little wooden house on the other side of thecrescent of white sand a pillar of pale smoke is going straight up intothe windless air. In the woods round me the birds, which have only justarrived from Florida, from the West Indies, from Brazil, are chirrupingsleepily. They will doze again presently, to awake with the sunrise intothe chorus of full song. Halifax lies some ten or twelve miles to thewestward. This house is my uncle's summer residence, which he has lentto my husband and me for the latter's after-cure.
I am used to being up at this hour, or at any hour, owing to myexperience in nursing. As a matter of fact, I am restless with thebeginning of day, fearing lest my husband may need me. He is in the nextroom. If he stirs I can hear him. In this room my baby is sleeping inhis little bassinet. It is not the bassinet of my dreams, nor is thisthe white-enameled nursery, nor am I wearing a delicate lace peignoir.It is all much more beautiful than that, because it is as it is. Mybaby's name is John Howard Brokenshire Strangways, though we shorten itto Broke, which, in the English fashion, we pronounce Brook.
You will see why I wanted to call him by this name; but for that I musthark back to the night when I returned the ring to dear Hugh Brokenshireand fled. It is like a dream to me now, that night; but a dream stillvivid enough to recall.
On escaping Hugh and making my way down-stairs I was lucky enough tofind Thomas, my rosebud footman knight. Poor lad! The judgment trumpetwas sounding for him, as for Franz Ferdinand and Sophie Chotek and therest of us. He went back to England shortly after that and was killedthe next year at the Dardanelles. But there he was for the moment,standing with the wraps of the Rossiter party.
"Thomas, call the motor," I said, hurriedly. "Be quick! I'm going home,alone, and you must come with me. I've things for you to do. Mr. JackBrokenshire will bring Mrs. Rossiter."
On the way I explained my program to him through the window. I had beencalled suddenly to New York. There was a train from Boston to that citywhich would stop at Providence at two. I thought there was one fromNewport to Providence about twelve-thirty, and it was now a quarter pasteleven. If there was such a train I must take it; if there wasn't, themotor must run me up to Providence, for which there was still time. Ishould delay only long enough to pack a suit-case. For the use I wasmaking of him and the chauffeur, as well as of the vehicle, I should beresponsible to my hosts.
Both the men being my tacitly sworn friends, there was no questioning ofmy authority. I fell back, therefore, into the depths of the limousinewith the first sense of relief I had had since the day I accepted myposition with Mrs. Rossiter. Something seemed to roll off me. I realizedall at once that I had never, during the whole of the two years, beenfree from that necessity of picking my steps which one must have inwalking on a tight-rope. Now it was delicious. I could have wished thatthe drive along Ochre Point Avenue had been thirty times as long.
For Hugh I had no feeling of compunction. It was so blissful to be free.Cissie Boscobel, I knew, would make up to him for all I had failed togive, and would give more. Let me say at once that when, a few weekslater, the man Lady Janet Boscobel was engaged to had also been killedat the front, and her parents had begged Cissie to go home, Hugh was herescort on the journey. It was the beginning of an end which I think isin sight, of a healing which no one wishes so eagerly as I.
For the last two years Cissie has been mothering Belgian childrensomewhere in the neighborhood of Poperinghe, and Hugh has been in theAmerican Ambulance Corps before Verdun. That was Cissie's work, madeeasier, perhaps, by some recollection he retained of me. When he has afew days' leave--so Ethel Rossiter writes me--he spends it atGoldborough Castle or Strath-na-Cloid. I ran across Cissie when for atime I was helping in first-aid work not far behind the lines at NeuveChapelle.
I had been taking care of her brother Rowan--Lord Ovingdean, he callshimself now, hesitating
to follow his brother as Lord Leatherhead, andusing one of his father's other secondary titles--and she had come tosee him. I hadn't supposed till then that we were such friends. Wetalked and talked and talked, and still would have gone on talking. Ican understand what she sees in Hugh, though I could never feel it forhim with her intensity. I hope her devotion will be rewarded soon, andI think it will.
I had a premonition of this as I drove along Ochre Point Avenue thatnight. It helped me to the joy of liberty, to rightness of heart. As Ithrew the things into my suit-case I could have sung. Seraphine, who wasup, waiting for her mistress, being also my friend, promised to finishmy packing after I had gone, so that Mrs. Rossiter would have nothing todo but send my boxes after me. It couldn't have been half an hour aftermy arrival at the house before I was ready to drive away again.
I was in the down-stairs hall, going out to the motor, when a greatblack form appeared in the doorway. My knees shook under me; myhappiness came down like a shot bird. Mr. Brokenshire advanced and stoodunder the many-colored Oriental hall lantern. I clung for support to thepilaster that finished the balustrade of the stairway.
There was gentleness in his voice, in spite of its whip-lash abruptness.
"Where are you going?"
I could hardly reply, my heart pounded with such fright.
"To--to New York, sir."
"What for?"
"Be-because," I faltered. "I want to--to get away."
"Why do you want to get away?"
"For--for every reason."
"But suppose I don't want you to go?"
"I should still have to be gone."
He said in a hoarse whisper:
"I want you to stay--and--and marry Hugh."
I clasped my hands.
"Oh, but how can I?"
"He's willing to forget what you've said--what my daughter Ethel hassaid; and I'm willing to forget it, too."
"Do you mean as to my being in love with some one else? But I am."
"Not more than you were at the beginning of the evening. You werewilling to marry him then."
"But he didn't know then what he's had to learn since. I hoped to havekept it from him always. I may have been wrong--I suppose I was; but Ihad nothing but good motives."
There was a strange drop in his voice as he said, "I know you hadn't."
I couldn't help taking a step nearer him.
"Oh, do you? Then I'm so glad. I thought--"
He turned slightly away from me, toward a huge ugly fish in a glasscase, which Mr. Rossiter believed to be a proof of his sportsmanship andan ornament to the hall.
"I've had great trials," he said, after a pause--"great trials!"
"I'VE HAD GREAT TRIALS . . . I'VE ALWAYS BEEN MISJUDGED.. . . THEY'VE PUT ME DOWN AS HARD AND PROUD"]
"I know," I agreed, softly.
He walked toward the fish and seemed to be studying it.
"They've--they've--broken me down."
"Oh, don't say that, sir!"
"It's true." His finger outlined the fish's skeleton from head to tail."The things I said to-night--" He seemed hung up there. He traced thefish's skeleton back from tail to head. "Have we been unkind to you?" hedemanded, suddenly, wheeling round in my direction.
I thought it best to speak quite truthfully.
"Not unkind, sir--exactly."
"But what did Ethel mean? She said we'd been brutes to you. Is thattrue?"
"No, sir; not in my sense. I haven't felt it."
He tapped his foot with the old imperiousness. "Then--what?"
We were so near the fundamentals that again I felt I ought to give himnothing but the facts.
"I suppose Mrs. Rossiter meant that sometimes I should have been glad ofa little more sympathy, and always of more--courtesy." I added: "Fromyou, sir, I shouldn't have asked for more than courtesy."
Though only his profile was toward me and the hall was dim, I could seethat his face was twitching. "And--and didn't you get it?"
"Do you think I did?"
"I never thought anything about it."
"Exactly; but any one in my position does. Even if we could do withoutcourtesy between equals--and I don't think we can--from the higher tothe lower--from you to me, for instance--it's indispensable. I don'tremember that I ever complained of it, however. Mrs. Rossiter must haveseen it for herself."
"I didn't want you to marry Hugh," he began, again, after a long pause;"but I'd given in about it. I shouldn't have minded it so much if--if mywife--"
He broke off with a distressful, choking sound in the throat, and atwisting of the head, as if he couldn't get his breath. That passed andhe began once more.
"I've had great trials. . . . My wife! . . . And then the burden of thiswar. . . . They think--they think I don't care anything about itbut--but just to make money. . . . I've always been misjudged. . . .They've put me down as hard and proud, when--"
"I could have liked you, sir," I interrupted, boldly. "I told you soonce, and it offended you. But I've never been able to help it. I'vealways felt that there was something big and fine in you--if you'd onlyset it free."
His reply to this was to turn away from his contemplation of the fishand say:
"Why don't you come back?"
I was sure it was best to be firm.
"Because I can't, sir. The episode is--is over. I'm sorry, and yet I'mglad. What I'm doing is right. I suppose everything has been right--evenwhat happened between me and Hugh. I don't think it will do him anyharm--Cissie Boscobel is there--and it's done me good. It's been awonderful experience; but it's over. It would be a mistake for me to goback now--a mistake for all of us. Please let me go, sir; and justremember of me that I'm--I'm--grateful."
He regarded me quietly and--if I may say so--curiously. There wassomething in his look, something broken, something defeated, something,at long last, kind, that made me want to cry.
I was crying inwardly when he turned about, without another word, andwalked toward the door.
It must have been the impulse to say a silent good-by to him that sentme slowly down the hall, though I was scarcely aware of moving. He hadgone out into the dark and I was under the Oriental lamp, when hesuddenly reappeared, coming in my direction rapidly. I would have leapedback if I hadn't refused to show fear. As it was, I stood still. I wasonly conscious of an overwhelming pity, terror, and amazement as heseized me and kissed me hotly on the brow. Then he was gone.
But it was that kiss which made all the difference in my afterthought ofhim. It was a confession on his part, too, and a bit of self-revelation.Behind it lay a nature of vast, splendid qualities--strong, noble,dominating, meant to be used for good--all ruined by self-love. Of theBrokenshire family, of whom I am so fond and to whom I owe so much, hewas the one toward whom, by some blind, spontaneous, subconscioussympathy of my own, I have been most urgently attracted. If his soul wastwisted by passions as his face became twisted by them, too--well, whois there among us of whom something of the sort may not be said; and yetGod has patience with us all.
Howard Brokenshire and I were foes, and we fought; but we fought as somany thousands, so many millions, have fought in the short time sincethat day; we fought as those who, when the veils are suddenly strippedaway, when they are helpless on the battle-field after the battle, or onhospital cots lined side by side, recognize one another as men andbrethren. And so, when my baby was born I called him after him. I wantedthe name as a symbol--not only to myself, but to the Brokenshirefamily--that there was no bitterness in my heart.
At present let me say that, though pained, I was scarcely surprised toread in the New York papers on the following afternoon that Mr. J.Howard Brokenshire, the eminent financier, had, on the previous evening,been taken with a paralytic seizure while in his motor on the way fromhis daughter's house to his own. He was conscious when carried indoors,but he had lost the power of speech. The doctors indicated overwork inconnection with foreign affairs as the predisposing cause.
From Mrs. Rossiter I heard as each succes
sive shock overtook him. Verypitifully the giant was laid low. Very tenderly--so Ethel has writtenme--Mrs. Brokenshire has watched over him--and yet, I suppose, with aterrible tragic expectation in her heart, which no one but myself, andperhaps Stacy Grainger, can have shared with her. Howard Brokenshiredied on that early morning when his country went to war.
I stayed in New York just long enough to receive my boxes from Newport.On getting out of the train at Halifax Larry Strangways received me inhis arms.
And this time I saw no little dining-room, with myself seating theguests; I saw no bassinet and no baby. I saw nothing but him. I knewnothing but him. He was all to me. It was the difference.
And not the least of my surprises, when I came to find out, was the factthat it was Jim Rossiter who had sent him there--Jim Rossiter, whom Ihad rather despised as a selfish, cat-like person, with not much thoughtbeyond "ridin' and racin'," and pills and medicinal waters. That wastrue of him; and yet he took the trouble to get into touch with StacyGrainger--as a Brokenshire only by affinity, he could do it--to use hisinfluence at Washington and Ottawa to get Larry Strangways a week'sleave from Princess Patricia's regiment--to watch over my movements inNew York and know the train I should take--and wire to Larry Strangwaysthe hour of my arrival. When I think of it I grow maudlin at the thoughtof the good there is in every one.
We were married within the week at the old church which was once acenter for Loyalist refugees from New England, beneath which some ofthem lie buried, and where I was baptized. When my husband returned toValcartier I went--to be near him--to Quebec. After he sailed forEngland I, too, sailed, and met him there. I kept near him in England,taking such nursing training as I could while he trained in other ways.I was not many miles away from him when, in the spring of the nextyear, he was badly cut up at Bois Grenier, near Neuve Chapelle.
He was one of the two or three Canadians to hold a listening posthalf-way between the hostile lines, where they could hear the slightestmovement of the enemy and signal back. A Maxim swept the dugout atintervals, and now and then a shell burst near them. My husband waswounded in a leg and his right arm was shattered.
When I was permitted to see him at Amiens the arm had been taken off andthe doctors were doing what they could to save the leg. Fortunately,they have succeeded; and now he walks with no more than a noticeablelimp. He is a captain in Princess Patricia's regiment and a D. S. O.
Later he was taken to the American Women's Hospital, at Paignton, inDevonshire, and there again I had the joy of being near him. I couldn'ttake care of him--I had not the skill, and perhaps my nerve would havefailed me--but I worked in the kitchen and was sometimes allowed to takehim his food and feed him. I think the hope, the expectation, of mydoing this was what brought him out of the profound silence into whichhe was plunged when he arrived.
That was the only sign of mental suffering I ever saw in him. For thephysical suffering he never seemed to care. But something deep and faroff, and beyond the beyond of self-consciousness, seemed to have beenreached by what he had seen and heard and done. It was said of Lazarus,after his recall to life by Christ, that he never spoke of what he hadexperienced in those four days; and I can say as much of my husband.
When his mind reverts to the months in France and Flanders he growsdumb. He grows dumb and his spirit moves away from me. It moves awayfrom me and from everything that is of this world. It is among scenespast speech, past understanding, past imagining. He is Lazarus back inthe world, but with secrets in his keeping which no one may learn butthose who have learned them where he did.
When he came to Paignton he was far removed from us; but little bylittle he reapproached. I helped to restore him; and then, when the babywas born, the return to earth was quickened.
To have my baby I went over to Torquay, where I had six quiet contentedweeks in a room overlooking the peacock-blue waters of Tor Bay, with thekindly roof that sheltered my husband in the distance. When I hadrecovered I went to a cottage at Paignton, where, when he left thehospital, he joined me. As the healing of the leg has been so slow, wehave been in the lovely Devon country ever since, till, a few weeks ago,the British Government allowed us to cross on the ship that brought theBritish Commissioners to Washington.
* * * * *
I have just been in to look at him. He is sound asleep, lying on hisleft side, the coverlet sagging slightly at the shoulder where the rightarm is gone. He is getting accustomed to using his left hand, but notrapidly. Meantime he is my other baby; and, in a way, I love to have itso. I can be more to him. In proportion as he needs me the bond iscloser.
He is a grave man now. The smile that used to flash like a sword betweenus is never there any more. When he smiles it is with a long, slow smilethat comes from far away--perhaps from life as it was before the war. Itis a sweet smile, a brave one, one infinitely touching; and it piercesme to the heart.
He didn't have to forfeit his American citizenship in becoming one ofthe glorious Princess Pats. They were glad to have him on any terms. Heis an American and I am one. I thought I became one without feeling anydifference. It seemed to me I had been born one, just as I had been borna subject of the dear old queen. But on the night of our landing inHalifax, a military band came and played the "Star-spangled Banner"before my uncle's door, and I burst into the first tears I had shedsince my marriage.
Through everything else I had been upheld; but at the strains of thatanthem, and all it implied, I broke down helplessly. When we went to thedoor and my husband stood to listen to the cheering of my friends, inhis khaki with the empty sleeve, and the fine, stirring, noble air wasplayed again, his eyes, as well as mine, were wet.
It recalled to me what he said once when I was allowed to relieve thenight nurse and sit beside him at Paignton. He woke in the small hoursand smiled at me--his distant, dreamy smile. His only words--words heseemed to bring with him out of the lands of sleep, in which perhaps helived again what now was past for him--his only words were:
"You know the Stars and Stripes were at Bois Grenier."
"How?" I asked, to humor him, thinking him delirious.
He laughed--the first thing that could be called a laugh since they hadbrought him there.
"Sewn or my undershirt--over my heart! It will be there again," headded, "floating openly!"
And almost immediately he fell asleep once more.
* * * * *
And, after all, it is to be there again--floating openly. Thetime-struggle has taken it and will carry it aloft. It has taken otherflags, too--flags of Asia; flags of South America; flags of the islandsof the seas. As my husband predicted long ago, mankind is divided intojust two camps. So be it! God knows I don't want war. I have been toonear it, and too closely touched by it, ever to wish again to hear acannon-shot or see a sword. But I suppose it is all a part of the greatWar in Heaven.
Michael and his angels are fighting, and the dragon is fighting and hisangels. By that I do not mean that all the good is on one side and allthe evil on the other. God forbid! There is good and evil on both sides.On both sides doubtless evil is being purged away and the new, true manis coming to his own.
If I think most of the spiritualization of France, and the consecrationof the British Empire, and the coming of a new manhood to the UnitedStates, it is because these are the countries I know best. I should besorry, I should be hopeless, were I not to believe that, abovebloodshed, and cruelty, and hatred, and lust, and suffering, and allthat is abominable, the Holy Ghost is breathing on every nation ofmankind.
When it is all over, and we have begun to live again, there will be agreat Renaissance. It will be what the word implies--a veritable NewBirth. The sword shall be beaten to a plowshare and the spear to apruning-hook. "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neithershall they learn war any more."
So, in this gray light, growing so silvery that as day advances itbecomes positively golden, I turn to my Bible. It is extraordinary howcomforting the Bible has become in these
days when hearts have beenlifted up into long-unexplored regions of terror and courage. Men andwomen who had given up reading it, men and women who have never read itat all, turn its pages with trembling hands and find the wisdom of theages. And so I read what for the moment have become to me its moststrengthening words:
In your patience possess ye your souls. . . . There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth; for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. . . . And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.
That is what I believe--that through this travail of the New Birth forall mankind redemption is on the way.
It is coming like the sunrise I now see over the ocean. In it are theglories that never were on land or sea. It paints the things which havenever entered into the heart of man, but which God has prepared for themthat love him. It is the future; it is Heaven. Not a future that no manwill live to see; not a Heaven beyond death and the blue sky. It is afuture so nigh as to be at the doors; it is the Kingdom of Heaven withinus.
Meantime there is saffron pulsating into emerald, and emerald into rose,and rose into lilac, and lilac into pearl, and pearl into the great graycanopy that has hardly as yet been touched with light.
And the great gray ocean is responding a fleck of color here, a hint ofglory there; and now, stealing westward, from wavelet to wavelet,stealing and ever stealing, nearer and still more near, a wide, goldenpathway, as if some Mighty One were coming straight to me. "Even so,come, Lord Jesus."
Even so I look up, and lift up my head. Even so I possess my soul inpatience.
Even so, too, I think of Mildred Brokenshire's words:
"Life is not a blind impulse, working blindly. It is a beneficent,rectifying power."
THE END
=Transcriber's Notes:= original hyphenation, spelling and grammar have been preserved as in the original Page 8, "won't he Miss" changed to "won't be Miss" Page 32, "was to indignant" changed to "was too indignant" Page 43, "what is is" changed to "what it is" Page 72, "shoulder. "No" changed to "shoulder, "No" Page 84, "Glady's" changed to "Gladys's" Page 85, "Glady's" changed to "Gladys's" Page 93, "presisted" changed to "persisted" Page 129, "waistcoat. a slate-colored" changed to "waistcoat, a slate-colored" Page 150, "come an and" changed to "come and" Page 178, "stammer the words" changed to "stammer the words--" Page 211, "well received His" changed to "well received. His" Page 230, "your hand but" changed to "your hand, but" Page 235, "put in it my" changed to "put it in my" Page 235, "'I could be" changed to '"I could be' Page 268, "at last "but" changed to "at last, "but" Page 293, "'So much that" changed to '"So much that' Page 297, "The darlings!'" changed to 'The darlings!"' Page 312, "ligthning" changed to "lightning" Page 333, "must be true" changed to "must be true." Page 334, "broke in, quietly" changed to "broke in, quietly." Page 398, "dumfounded" changed to "dumbfounded" Page 409, "want you so stay" changed to "want you to stay"