Missing, Mrs. Humphry Ward [free e books to read online .TXT] 📗

gave him a kiss of thanks, simply, like a child. The valley lay before them with its scattered lights, and they pressed on through the twilight--two dim and spectral figures--spirits it seemed, who had been on the heights sharing ambrosial feasts with the Immortals, and had but just descended to the common earth again.

* * * * *

Nelly spent the next three days, outside their walks and boatings on the lake, in whatever wifely offices to her man still remained to her--marking his new socks and khaki shirts, furnishing a small medicine chest, and packing a tin of special delicacies, meat lozenges, chocolate, various much advertised food tabloids, and his favourite biscuits. Sarratt laughed over them, but had not the heart to dissuade her. She grew paler every day, but was always gay and smiling so long as his eyes were on her; and his sound young sleep knew nothing of her quiet stifled weeping at those moments of the night, when the bodily and nervous forces are at their lowest, and all the future blackens. Miss Martin paid them several visits, bringing them books and flowers. Books and flowers too arrived from Carton--with a lavish supply of cigarettes for the departing soldier. Nelly had the piteous sense that everyone was sorry for her--Mrs. Weston, the kind landlady, Milly, the little housemaid. It seemed to her sometimes that the mere strangers she met in the road knew that George was going, and looked at her compassionately.

The last day came, showery in the morning, and clearing to a glorious evening, with all the new leaf and growing hayfields freshened by rain, and all the streams brimming. Bridget came over in the afternoon, and as she watched her sister's face, became almost kind, almost sympathetic. George proposed to walk back part of the way to Ambleside with his sister-in-law, and Nelly with a little frown of alarm watched them go.

But the tete-a-tete was not disagreeable to either. Bridget was taken aback, to begin with, by some very liberal proposals of Sarratt's on the subject of her and Nelly's joint expenses during his absence. She was to be Nelly's guest--they both wished it--and he said kindly that he quite understood Nelly's marriage had made a difference to her, and he hoped she would let them make it up to her, as far and as soon as they could. Bridget was surprised into amiability,--and Sarratt found a chance of saying--

'And you'll let Nelly talk about the war--though it does bore you? She won't be able to help it--poor child!'

Bridget supposed that now she too would have to talk about the war. He needn't be afraid, she added drily. She would look after Nelly. And she looked so masterful and vigorous as she said it, that Sarratt could only believe her.

They shook hands in the road, better friends to all seeming than they had been yet. And Nelly received George's account of the conversation with a sigh of relief.

* * * * *

That night the midsummer moon would be at the full, and as the clouds vanished from the sky, and the soft purple night came down, Nelly and Sarratt leaving every piece of luggage behind them, packed, labelled, locked, and piled in the hall, ready for the cart that was to call for it in the early hours--took their way to the lake and the boathouse. They had been out at night once before, but this was to be the crowning last thing--the last joint memory.

It was eleven o'clock before the oars dipped into the water, and as they neared the larger island, the moon, rearing its bright head over the eastern fells, shot a silver pathway through the lake; and on either side of the pathway, the mirrored woods and crags, more dim and ghostly than by day, seemed to lead downward to that very threshold and entrance of the underworld, through which the blinded Theban king vanished from the eyes of men. Silver-bright the woods and fell-side, on the west; while on the east the woods in shadow, lay sleeping, 'moon-charmed.' The air was balmy; and one seemed to hear through it the steady soft beat of the summer life, rising through the leaves and grass and flowers. Every sound was enchantment--the drip of water from the oars, the hooting of an owl on the island, even the occasional distant voices, and tapping of horses' feet on the main road bordering the lake.

Sarratt let the oars drift, and the boat glided, as though of its own will, past the island, and into the shadow beyond it. Now it was Silver How, and all the Grasmere mountains, that caught the 'hallowing' light.

Nelly sat bare-headed, her elbows on her knees, and her face propped in her hands. She was in white, with a white shawl round her, and the grace of the slight form and dark head stirred anew in Sarratt that astonished and exquisite sense of possession which had been one of the main elements of consciousness, during their honeymoon. Of late indeed it had been increasingly met and wrestled with by something harsher and sterner; by the instinct of the soldier, of the fighting man, foreseeing a danger to his own will, a weakening of the fibre on which his effort and his power depend. There were moments when passionately as he loved her, he was glad to be going; secretly glad that the days which were in truth a greater test of endurance than the trenches were coming to an end. He must be able to trust himself and his own nerve to the utmost. Away from her, love would be only a strengthening power; here beside her, soul and sense contended.

A low voice came out of the shadow.

'George--I'm not going with you to the station.'

'Best not, dearest--much best.'

A silence. Then the voice spoke again.

'How long will it take you, George, getting to the front?'

'About twenty-four hours from the base, perhaps more. It's a weary business.'

'Will you be in action at once?'

'I think so. That part of the line's very short of men.'

'When shall I hear?'

He laughed.

'By every possible post, I should think, darling. You've given me post-cards enough.'

And he tapped his breast-pocket, where lay the little writing-case she had furnished for every imaginable need.

'George!'

'Yes, darling.'

'When you're tired, you're--you're not to write.'

He put out his long arms, and took her hands in his.

'I shan't be tired--and I shall write.'

She looked down upon the hands holding hers. In each of the little fingers there was a small amusing deformity--a slight crook or twist--which, as is the way of lovers, was especially dear to her. She remembered once, before they were engaged, flaming out at Bridget, who had made mock of it. She stooped now, and kissed the fingers. Then she bowed her forehead upon them.

'George!'--he could only just hear her--'I know Miss Martin will be kind to me--and I shall find plenty to do. You're never to worry about me.'

'I won't--so long as you write to me--every day.'

There was again a silence. Then she lifted her head, and as the boat swung out of the shadow, the moonlight caught her face.

'You'll take that Wordsworth I gave you, won't you, George? It'll remind you--of this.' Her gesture showed the lake and the mountains.

'Of course, I shall take it. I shall read it whenever I can--perhaps more for your sake--than Wordsworth's.'

'It'll make us remember the same things,' she murmured.

'As if we wanted anything to make us remember!'

'George!' her voice was almost a sob--'It's been almost too perfect. Sometimes--just for that--I'm afraid.'

'Don't be, darling. The God we believe in _isn't_ a jealous God! That's one of the notions one grows out of--over there.'

'Do you think He's our friend, George--that He really cares?'

The sweet appealing voice touched him unbearably.

'Yes, I do think it--' he said, firmly, after a pause. 'I do believe it--with all my heart.'

'Then I'll believe it!' she said, with a long breath; and there was silence again, till suddenly over the water came the sound of the Rydal Chapel bell, striking midnight. Nelly withdrew her hands and sat up.

'George, we must go home. You must have a good night.'

He obeyed her, took up the oars, and pulled swiftly to the boathouse. She sat in a kind of dream. It was all over, the heavenly time--all done. She had had the very best of life--could it ever come again? In her pain and her longing she was strangely conscious of growth and change. The Nelly of three weeks back seemed to have nothing to do with her present self, to be another human being altogether.

He made her go to bed, and remained in the sitting-room himself, under pretence of some papers he must put in order. When the sounds in the next room ceased, and he knew that she must be lying still, waiting for him, he sat down, took pen and paper, and began to write to her--a letter to be given to her if he fell. He had already written a letter of business directions, which was at his lawyer's. This was of another kind.

'My Darling,--this will be very short. It is only to tell you that if I fall--if we never meet again, after to-morrow, you are to think first of all--and always--that you have made a man so happy that if no more joy can come to him on earth, he could die now--as far as he himself is concerned--blessing God for his life. I never imagined that love could be so perfect. You have taught me. God reward you--God watch over you. If I die, you will be very sad--that will be the bitterness to me, if I have time to know it. But this is my last prayer to you--to be comforted by this remembrance--of what you have done for me--what you have been to me. And in time, my precious one, comfort will come. There may be a child--if so, you will love it for us both. But if not, you must still take comfort. You must be willing, for my sake, to be comforted. And remember:--don't be angry with me, darling--if in years to come, another true love, and another home should be offered you, don't refuse them--Nelly! You were born to be loved. And if my spirit lives, and understands; what could it feel but joy that your sorrow was healed--my best beloved!

'This will be given to you only if I die. With the deepest gratitude and the tenderest love that a man can feel, I bid you good-bye--my precious wife--good-bye!'

He put it up with a steady hand, and addressed it first to Nelly, enclosing it in a larger envelope addressed to his oldest friend, a school-fellow, who had been his best man at their marriage. Then he stole downstairs, unlocked the front door, and crossing the road in the moonlight, he put the letter into the wall post-box on the further side. And before re-entering the house, he stood a minute or two in the road, letting the fresh wind from the fells beat